Creating a summer wardrobe

Building a summer wardrobe with Proper Cloth, without changing the way I dress

I’ve worked with Proper Cloth a few times now over the years, and one thing I’ve always found useful about them is their ability to fill the gaps in my wardrobe.

Whether that’s something completely new that I don’t already own but would like, or simply something I feel is missing, being able to customise a piece to my own measurements and specifications makes it much easier to create exactly what I want.

I think summer can be a difficult time if you’re into Ivy or classic menswear. If I’m honest, I’d usually much rather it was a few degrees cooler than it has been lately. But I don’t think that means you have to completely change the way you dress.

Half the problem isn’t that you can’t dress how you want. It’s that you’re wearing the wrong type of fabric.

You can still achieve the look you want, but perhaps you just haven’t found the right fabric for the weather.

That’s where I think Proper Cloth is particularly useful. With all the different fabrics and customisation options available, you can create the pieces you already know you want, but make them work for the conditions you’re actually dressing for.

For my latest collaboration, I’ve made two seersucker shirts, a fabric that’s pretty synonymous with summer, alongside a seersucker sports jacket and a pair of officer-inspired trousers made from high twist cotton.

The first piece I want to show you, and I think the real centrepiece of the whole collection, is the seersucker sports jacket.

If you’re like me, you’ve watched The Graduate countless times, and one outfit that has always particularly stood out to me is the seersucker sports jacket Dustin Hoffman wears. It’s so effortless.

I also love that these jackets are much more versatile than you might initially think.

For some reason, they look just as at home with a pair of jeans as they do with some really smart chinos.

It’s almost like a member’s jacket to an elite sporting club. When you’ve got it on, you can walk straight in. When you haven’t, you’re just another guy in a shirt and a pair of jeans.

For this jacket, I went for a classic three-roll-two notch lapel, an unlined construction and patch pockets, which keeps the whole thing feeling relaxed. I also went for brown horn buttons, which I think work particularly well with the blue stripe of the seersucker.

One thing I did with all the pieces in this range, but especially this jacket, was measure something I already had in my wardrobe that fitted me particularly well. I then used those measurements when creating the jacket with Proper Cloth.

If you’re in the US, you can do all of this in person at one of Proper Cloth’s stores, including their New York location. As I was ordering online, though, measuring a garment that already fitted me well gave me a really useful starting point.

From there, I could customise all the details, from the three-roll-two notch lapel and soft shoulder to the type of pockets I wanted.

That’s one of the things I really like about Proper Cloth. You aren’t just picking a jacket off a rack and hoping it works. You can actually build it around how you want it to look and fit.

Next up are the trousers, which I’m particularly pleased with.

I’ve always loved the style of vintage military officer’s trousers, and these are directly inspired by them, as well as some old trousers I’ve seen in ’80s and ’90s men’s catalogues.

They’re the kind of trousers that pair really well with an Oxford shirt, but I also really like them with something as casual as the Asahi deck shoes I’m wearing here.

The trousers are the Khaki High Twist Cotton Wide Leg Double Pleated Pant. I went for a higher rise, double pleats and a wide leg, which gives them the shape I’ve always liked in this style of trouser.

I also added a 1.75” cuff at the bottom. It’s a detail I consider quintessentially Ivy, but it also softens the look of the trousers.

The cuff adds a little extra weight to the hem, which helps the trousers hang nicely, and it also gives you more options with footwear. You can wear them with something formal or something much more casual and they still work.

I’ve paired them here with another piece I made with Proper Cloth about a year ago, another sports jacket but this time made from an Italian lightweight summer wool.

I like the way the two work together, particularly with the fuller trousers and the softer feel of the jacket.

The final pieces in this collection are two seersucker Oxford shirts in university stripe, one in green and one in yellow.

University stripe Oxford cloth button-downs have always been some of my favourite shirts, so getting one in seersucker was a bit of a must for me.

It means I can carry on wearing one of my favourite styles day to day, but in a fabric that’s much better suited to summer.

I will admit, I probably own too many university stripe shirts. Although I don’t think so.

They’ve become almost a uniform for me day to day. They’re just so easy to throw on, and somehow they never look like you’ve just thrown them on.

They work with absolutely anything.

For these, I kept the details pretty classic. Both have a soft button-down collar, soft one-button cuffs, a rounded pocket and a wider front placket, all made to my measurements through Proper Cloth.

I’ve worn the two shirts with different types of fatigues. The green with The Real McCoy’s OG-107s, and the yellow with a pair of navy HBT cut-offs from Dubbleware.

The green is an absolute classic, but the yellow has surprised me.

I’m never completely sure about yellow shirts, even though I do own a few, but I particularly like this one. What I really like about the fabric is that it’s not simply yellow and white stripes. If you look closely, it’s actually a dark yellow alongside a lighter yellow, which gives it a really nice almost two-tone effect.

If you’re anything like me and you’re picky about your Oxford shirts, or you often find that the ones you come across aren’t quite what you’re looking for, I’d highly recommend giving Proper Cloth a try.

You can simply choose the garment you want to customise, whether that’s a shirt, sports jacket or pair of trousers, and go from there.

You can choose your fabric, pick all the details and then enter your measurements to get the fit you want.

It’s really easy to use, and I’ve used Proper Cloth time and time again over the years, so it’s something I can genuinely recommend.

You can check out my curated range here and have a look through the pieces I’ve selected. Have some fun with it, and if you decide to create something yourself, use TOMHOY10 to get 10% off your first order.