Bespoke · Mumbai
The linen blazer
Unstructured, light, and cut so it hangs rather than sags.
The jacket Mumbai was waiting for
A linen blazer is the only jacket a man can wear in Mumbai in May and not regret by eleven. Made properly, it is barely there: a light canvas or none, a soft shoulder, an unlined or quarter-lined back, patch pockets. It goes over a white shirt and a pair of linen trousers for a wedding by the sea, or over a plain tee and chinos on a Sunday, and it looks as if you did not think about it.
The ready version fails because an unstructured jacket has nothing to hide behind. Without a shoulder pad and a stiff canvas, the fit is all there is; cut wide to fit many men, a ready linen blazer collapses at the chest and hangs off the shoulder. Cut to your pattern, it hangs from the shoulder in a line and the linen does the rest.
Pure linen or a blend
Pure Irish linen in a mid-weight for the jacket that will be worn hardest and creases the most beautifully. A linen-wool blend for a blazer that holds its line through a long day and reads closer to a suit jacket. A linen-silk blend for the evening, with a slight sheen. We show you all three against your skin and say which the jacket you are describing wants.
Colours, and what to wear it with
Navy first; it is the linen blazer that goes with everything from white to tobacco. Then sand or stone for the day, and a soft olive or a pale blue for the man who has the navy one already. With linen trousers in a different tone, with grey or white cotton, with a white or pale blue shirt open at the neck, and with loafers.
In practice
What we decide together
Construction
Unstructured or a light half-canvas; a soft, unpadded shoulder; unlined or quarter-lined.
Pockets
Patch pockets, which suit linen; a flap pocket if you want it a touch more formal.
Buttons
Horn or mother-of-pearl, two buttons, or three rolled to two.
Care
Hang it between wearings, steam the creases you dislike and leave the rest.
Book an appointment
A consultation costs nothing. Tell us the occasion and the date, and we take it from there.
Questions
What people ask us
Is a linen blazer suitable for an Indian wedding?
For a daytime or seaside wedding, as a guest or a groom's second outfit, it is one of the best things a man can wear. For an evening ceremony under lights, a light wool or the Nehru jacket.
Linen blazer or linen suit?
The blazer, if you will wear it with different trousers and on many days. The suit, if it is for one occasion where the jacket and the trouser must match. The blazer with a pair of linen trousers in a second tone is the combination we suggest.
Will a linen blazer go out of shape?
Cut to your pattern with a light canvas, no. It will crease, and the creases are the cloth; it should not sag or collapse, and that is a question of cut, not of linen.
What colour linen blazer should be my first?
Navy. It takes every trouser and shirt you own and reads as a blazer rather than a holiday jacket.