Fresco and its relations are excellent warm weather choices for the city and for business travel but, in my opinion, linen is the only cloth for less formal tailored clothing that will be worn in the heat. Whether suits, odd jackets or trousers, linen breathes and wicks away moisture. Indeed, my principal complaint about it is that the heavier Irish linen is not offered in anything but solid colors as the limits of navy, mid-blue, white, cream, tan and brown are reached fairly quickly.
Linen rumples of course, at least the heavy stuff does, and to a greater extent than any other fabric requires ironing or steam after every wearing. Maintaining an unrumpled appearance is a matter of changing it mid-day and again for evening.
In the photo, a white linen safari style jacket is paired with blue linen trousers, a voile shirt and an ascot.
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Dag-nab it Will, there you go again resplendent in linen. Times when you’ve sported the linen safari jacket, I’ve said to myself “no you don’t need it, don’t be silly, you can’t carry it off like Will, and you’ll never look like the guy in the AA illustration from summer of 36’ with the short sleeve version out of poplin or sail cloth anyway.” But then you post it yet again, this time with blue linen trousers. 14 oz I assume. Any provenance for half-belted? Dag-nab it Will.
JC, it's summer. You need them in beige cotton drill and navy and cream linen. The heavy stuff. After you've had them a while throw in one more in khaki linen for variety. Perhaps three out of four of them belted.
Yesterday at Mark's & Spencer in England I saw their 'Linen Miracle™' garments. Non-wrinkle linen suits. Apparently the yarn is a sliver of polyester (shudder) surrounded by linen, drastically reducing rumpling.
I'd have to test drive it on a hot day before buying and that can't happen, so it has to be rumples...
Will,
I'd love it if you could explain exactly what a "fresco" is, I hear mention of it frequently, but haven't really found a satisfactory definition of what makes a fresco a fresco.
Joseph, fresco is perhaps the best known brand of high twist cloth from J&J Minnis of huddersfield.
High twist cloth is woven to resist wrinkling and pass air through. That means that a somewhat heavier than tropical weight fresco will wear cooler than a tropical worsted while reminaing relatively unwrinkled. These characteristics make it one of the favorite summer suitings of men who have their suits made.
Fresco is GREAT stuff! I have two suits in the heaviest weight made. The cloth won't wrinkle, keeps razor-sharp creases, is incredibly cool-wearing and lets in the slightest breeze. It's truly a summer cloth--I ordered the heavy weight fresco thinking I could wear it year 'round. I was wrong! It's utterly miserable when the temperature drops and the wind begins to blow . . . .
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