Six things, laid out plainly

I have spent forty-odd years watching my husband go out either too hot or too cold. This is the first jacket I have ever written a letter about.

Six things this plain grey jacket gets right that a big winter coat and a jumper never could, from a wife who went back for a second colour before the month was out.

Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read

Let me say who is talking before anything else. I am Pat, I am 68, and I live in Leeds with my husband Brian, who is 70, and his spaniel Wilf. I have been buying that man his coats and jackets for longer than some of you have been alive, and not once have I thought one worth writing home about, never mind writing to strangers about. Well. I have changed my mind.

The jacket I am writing about is the David, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique I have been buying my own things from for a while now. It is a plain, light men’s jacket with one zip up the front, a proper collar and gathered cuffs. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.

I first saw it on the steam railway. Since he retired, Brian has gone up the Worth Valley on the old railway on the first Saturday of every month, and I go along for the tea room at Haworth. There is a man who is always on the footbridge at Oxenhope, watching the engines come in, and whatever the weather is doing, he looks exactly right. Sun first thing, drizzle by dinner, the wind coming straight down the valley, and there he is, never too hot, never huddled, collar up when he wants it and open when he does not. I had assumed he simply did not feel the cold. Then I noticed he was in grey one month and navy the next. The same jacket, two colours. In the tea room I asked his wife, plainly. Her name is Brenda, she bought him both, and she wrote the name on the back of my train ticket. Read on.

The grey one, over the back of Brian’s chair, where it lands the minute he is through the door.

Here is what forty-odd years of watching a man get dressed to go out taught me. He has two choices, and both are wrong. The big winter coat, which he is boiling in by ten o’clock and then carries over his arm for the rest of the day. Or no coat at all, just his jumper, because it looked fine through the kitchen window, and he comes home frozen with the wind gone straight up his back.

A man his age either goes out dressed for January or dressed for the kitchen. I had stopped expecting to find anything in between, and I had certainly stopped expecting him to wear it.

This is the first thing I have bought him that sits in between, and having watched him live in it through a wet end of September, two railway Saturdays and more walks with Wilf than I could count, I can tell you it comes down to six things.

The morning it came. I opened it on the bed to have a proper look before he could get his hands on it.

1

It is light, made for the in-between weather

This is the one Brenda put top of her list, and she was right. The David is a lightweight jacket, and the boutique describes it as giving just the right level of warmth without overheating, for when the seasons are shifting. That is the whole of Brian’s problem in one sentence. He is not cooking in it by the time the train pulls out, and he is not carrying it round Haworth over his arm all afternoon either. It goes on at the door and it stays on.

Saturday morning, open over his checked shirt at the front door. He did not go back in for the big coat. That is a first.

★★★★★

My husband used to wear his winter coat from September and complain he was too hot. This is light enough that he keeps it on all day.

Maureen T., Ventnor

2

The cuffs and the hem stay put

Both cuffs and the hem are gathered with elastic, and the boutique says it gives a snug, stay-put feel that blocks the wind. I can tell you what that means on a footbridge in the Worth Valley. The sleeves do not ride up to his elbows when he leans on the rail, and the wind does not get in at the bottom and straight up his back, which is what always sent him home in a mood in just his jumper.

Folded on our kitchen table. That gathered cuff is the bit that keeps the wind out of his sleeves.

★★★★★

The elastic at the wrists and the bottom is what sold it to him. No draught up the back when he is bent over the car engine.

Gillian F., Cowes

3

One zip, and a collar that stands up

There is one zip, right up the front from the hem to the collar, with nothing to do up wrong and no row of poppers to fight with in cold fingers. Zipped to the top, the collar stands up round his neck, which is how the man on the footbridge wears it when the wind comes down the valley. Undone, it hangs open over his shirt and he looks dressed for the tea room. Same jacket, two looks, one zip.

Brian in the back garden, zipped up with the collar up, leaves everywhere. I did not have to tug at a thing.

★★★★★

Zipped up to the chin on the ferry and open in the café. It looks smart both ways and he can do it up with his gloves on.

Carol B., Yarmouth

6

It goes with what he already owns, in five colours

With Brian, this is the whole battle. He will not wear anything that means buying something else to go with it. The David is plain and clean-lined, and the boutique says it goes with jeans, chinos or joggers, so it went with everything he owns on the first morning. It comes in five colours, grey, blue, which is a proper navy, black, khaki and green, and in sizes from M, UK 38/40, right up to 5XL, UK 50/52. I went back for the green. Brenda tells me the khaki is next on her list.

Railway Saturday. Cap, flask, keys, jacket. He is ready before I am now.

★★★★★

Bought the navy for his birthday and he wears it with jeans and with his good trousers. Now he has asked for the grey one as well.

Linda M., Ventnor

The David, against what he has been making do with

You can carry on watching him go out either dressed for January or dressed for the kitchen, like I did for forty years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.

About the price

The David is £27.95, down from £56.00. Every colour and every size is the same price.

I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that it is in the sale while the first of the autumn stock goes, and once a colour sells through in a size, that one is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have spent more than £56.00 over the years on jackets for Brian that went to the charity shop inside a twelvemonth, so £27.95 for one he actually puts on made it an easy yes.

And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other wives’ words.

If your husband is forever going out either too hot or too cold, or he has quietly stopped wearing the coat you bought him, this is where I would start. Have a look at the colours before his size goes, because the first autumn stock will not wait. And if you ever see a man on the footbridge at Oxenhope looking more comfortable than anybody has a right to in a wind like that, you will know where I got the idea.

Pat

THE DAVID MEN’S JACKET

★★★★☆ 4.2 out of 5 from 300+ reviews

£56.00 £27.95

• Lightweight, for the in-between seasons
• Elastic cuffs and hem that stay put
• One front zip with a stand-up collar
• Regular comfort fit, easy to move in
• Made to stand up to daily wear
• Five colours, sizes M (UK 38/40) to 5XL (UK 50/52)
• Free UK delivery

See If His Size Is Still In Stock

Sale on now. The first autumn stock is already going.