I usually find packing for work trips quite straightforward. I know what I’ll be doing, in what kinds of places, and therefore what clothing will be appropriate. The challenge is smaller things like a summer jacket that with go with both tailoring and jeans – as with my Japan capsule.
But the recent ‘tweed rally’ I was invited to was a bit of an unknown. There would be a brief visit to a shop (Campbell’s, to be covered separately) but otherwise it was all driving round the countryside, presumably with a fair bit of grass, heather and (as it turned out) sand.
Would tailored flannels and loafers be too smart? The emphasis on tweed was obvious, but would smarter shirts or accessories really work?
In the end I settled on a capsule wardrobe that basically consisted of tweed and denim, and it worked out well. Other people were smarter generally, but the two materials felt sartorial enough while also being fitting to the landscape and activities.
As always with these capsules, I also found it interesting simply as a sartorial exercise – whether (and how) a capsule of just tweed and denim could work.
I took two tweed jackets, which ended up being alternated on the four days. They were:
I then took three pairs of jeans. I would have been fine with two, and were this a tight packing situation I would have done that. But having three enabled more experimentation with more and less showy looks. The jeans were:
Now, the first question for any efficient capsule is: do all the tops go with all the bottoms? The answer here was yes: both jackets go with all the trousers. So potentially six different combinations.
The most useful were probably the light blue and black – they were the easiest to combine, and you want two that are quite different to each other, so if I had had to drop one it would have been the indigo.
I then packed a cream sweater as a third top, as it would go with all three pairs of jeans and could be worn round the shoulders as an extra layer that stopped short of an overcoat.
Now, for the shirts I could have packed a few oxfords (blue, blue/white stripe, maybe pink) and they would have been easy and simple, great with everything.
But I liked the idea of taking heavy denim shirts – because it was a more interesting look (and let’s face it, you want to be a bit interesting when people are taking lots of photos of you) and because I felt those heavy denims would suit the rugged landscape.
So I packed three heavy denim shirts:
This meant on any given day I could do ‘matchy’ double denim (light blue shirt with light blue jeans, black with black, indigo with indigo) or something more subtle by not matching (light blue shirt with the black or indigo jeans).
For shoes, I packed both boots and loafers, trying to strike a balance between smart and rough (no calf leather, but no waxed suede either).
I also took a pair of velvet slippers. These were originally intended for evening wear (which I’ll get to in a second) but proved very useful for just being around the hotel, with some of the denims above. It’s something I might try and do again in the future – they’re easy, lightweight and instantly make you feel relaxed, without being obviously just house shoes.
The shoes were:
Then three belts to go with those – brown suede and black alligator from Rubato, and an old burgundy lizard from Ralph Lauren. Not ideal carrying three, but hey, these days it’s one of my few accessories.
In the photos above and below you can see the combinations I went with on three of the days. I ended up doing ‘matchy’ double denim on those days (blue on blue, black on black), with a slightly more subtle one (light blue shirt with black jeans) for the journey on the last day.
A few accessories gave me things to play with each day. They were:
The only coat I took was my Liverano ulster in PS Tweed. It didn’t go perfectly with everything, but it’s good with jeans and most of the time it was buttoned up with a scarf anyway.
Luggage was my big check-in Rimowa (always required for trips like these and Pitti) and my old Filson briefcase. I never take a suit bag as I can fold all my tailoring into the suitcase without creating creases (video here).
Then the evening. Tuesday night was black tie, so for that I took my Bryceland’s Tuxedo Lounge Jacket, a pleated shirt from D’Avino, and my La Bowtique.
Were this a proper capsule, I could easily have worn one of the tweed jackets with a smart shirt and tailored trousers on the other two evenings. But given it was a menswear event I took my DB chalkstripe suit instead, and wore it with a black knit one night, the sawtooth shirt the other.
Below you can see the capsule laid out. There were a few last-minute changes:
- I decided not to take the waxed-suede boots (middle pair) and didn’t miss them. Fortunately it wasn’t that rugged
- I panicked and put in a pair of charcoal flannels, but never wore them
- I replaced the cream shawl cardigan (top, middle) with a V-neck, as it was lighter and could go on the shoulders more easily
The Hermes silk scarf in the bottom left was also a nice option to have (so light, takes up no space), but I didn’t end up wearing it.
So the denim-and-tweed capsule worked out pretty well, and it’s something I think I’ll repeat in the future – maybe not with so many shirts and jeans, but certainly two of each.
The volume of clothes ended up being quite large given the dinner events, but I think there are still some quite useful travel-capsule tips here. And if I hadn’t been so efficient with some packing, the volume would probably have been larger still.
The second image below, by the way, is myself and Robb Report editor Paul Croughton. I include it as Paul also has a jacket in the PSxFox houndstooth, which readers might find useful to see.
Thank you very much to Jamie, Matt and John for organising the trip, and to the wonderful Torridon hotel for having us. I’ve been to a few places in Scotland for menswear (Borders, Harris, Edinburgh, Glasgow) but never this part of the Highlands, and it was absolutely stunning.
All photography: Jamie Ferguson and Lorenzo Sodi
