Summer is the season for confident menswear. Inventive fabrics, curious colours and textures all come into their own in warmer weather. Here, we talk you through some of the luxury lightweight cloths that make up our Spring-Summer 2019 jacket collection, why they’re well suited to wearing in the heat, and why at New & Lingwood, we won’t settle for anything less than the finest British and Italian tailoring fabrics.

SEERSUCKER

Seersucker takes its name from the old Hindi words, ‘shir’ and ‘shakar’, which translate as ‘milk’ and ‘sugar’, possibly because cotton seersucker was traditionally woven with contrasting dark and light stripes. Its puckered texture helps air to circulate through the cloth – making it a popular choice in colonial British India, where the fabric first caught on. This season, we’ve chosen a distinctive navy seersucker woven in Italy by Zignone. It’s cut into our single-breasted Selbourne Seersucker Single-Breasted jacket, which is unlined, unstructured and as light as a feather. Cool to the touch and airy, this is a jacket to take you right through summer.

Above: Selbourne Seersucker Single-Breasted Jacket

WORSTED DENIM

Our Burnham suit is cut in an equally clever cloth: worsted denim. Ninety per cent of all wool suiting cloths are made from ‘worsted’ yarn, which creates a smooth, napless cloth woven from yarn spun from combed wool, with woollen flannels making up the outlying ten per cent. In other words, this suit isn’t really denim – it’s a pure wool suiting woven in a two-tone twill to give the impression of denim. It’s made by the iconic Italian mill, Loro Piana, and is both smooth and considerably more luxurious than classic cotton denim. Cut into a matching jacket and trousers, it makes a sophisticated statement, equally at home in the office, or worn during an elegant evening out.

Above: Burnham Single-Breasted Jacket, Burnham Trousers

BOATING STRIPES

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, the boating blazer is a British summertime classic. This season, we’ve cut our Newton boating blazer in crisp navy, burgundy and soft white stripes in a pure woollen cloth woven by Fox Brothers & Co. in Somerset. Fox’s boating stripes are legendary, and although this jacket cut in pure worsted wool, Fox weave all their summer wools to be as light and airy as possible. Combined with a half-lining and our preferred half canvas construction, this jacket feels as light and airy to wear as possible – perfect for the sporting season. Note also the perfect stripe matching across the jacket’s darts and front pockets, a mark of superior pattern cutting.

Above: Newton Boating Stripe Single-Breasted Jacket

WOOL, SILK & LINEN

A number of our summer jackets are cut in luxurious wool, silk and linen blends, woven in Italy. Our Ely jacket is cut in our house style with superior half-canvas construction, notched lapels and two-buttons to fasten. It’s cut in a lightweight luxurious blend of wool, silk and linen by Loro Piana. With a pedigree like that, you can be sure this cloth is designed to perform. The linen adds lightness, the silk adds softness and the wool helps the jacket to resist creasing. In a hopsack weave like this which lets air circulate through the cloth, it’s cool and crisp to wear during the warmer months of the year. Like all our summer jackets, it’s finished with a half-lining for comfort.

Top Left: Poplar Silk Cotton Single-Breasted Jacket, Bottom Left: Ely Single Breasted Jacket,
Right: Wraysbury Check Single-Breasted Jacket