A Ten-Piece Autumn Wardrobe
Ten pieces, chosen for cloth and color, that combine into weeks of considered everyday dressing.
A capsule wardrobe works when every piece goes with every other. That means a narrow palette, here grey, brown, navy and cream, and cloths with enough texture to make simple combinations interesting. This one is built for a man who wears tailoring sometimes, but not every day.
- A field coat or wax jacket in olive or brown, roomy enough to go over a jacket.
- A wool overshirt in grey herringbone or brown check, to stand in for a blazer.
- An unstructured jacket in tweed or moleskin. Drake’s unlined moleskin Games blazer is a good model; made-to-measure from a remote tailor such as Grand Le Mar is another route.
- A grey cashmere or lambswool crewneck.
- A cashmere zip cardigan in cream or oatmeal, zipped under a jacket or open over a T-shirt.
- A long-sleeved knitted polo in brown or navy.
- An oxford-cloth button-down, white or blue.
- Pleated grey flannel trousers.
- Dark jeans or brown corduroys.
- Brown suede shoes: loafers for dry days, or a suede boot if you can only have one pair.
Add a cashmere scarf, a knitted tie and good wool socks, and the combinations run into dozens. Simon Crompton’s autumn plans at Permanent Style show the principle: a grey crewneck and jeans with snuff suede boots for the weekend; a tweed jacket, oxford shirt and jeans for the week; a cream zip cardigan, flannel trousers and brown suede boots under a jacket when he wants something more polished.
Chocolate brown deserves a mention. Opumo’s autumn report argues that it now does much of the work navy used to, and brown trousers, knitwear or a suede jacket make the grey pieces look richer.
Buy the coat and the shoes first, since they appear in every outfit. Everything else can follow as the weather turns.
