Sometimes you don’t know what you need until you spot what you need... walk away… and then double back. This season, one of my very favorite things is something I needed to come back to before realizing I couldn’t live without it. Isn’t that the best shopping experience? The aha moment made even better by the buildup.
Wow, that is cool. It looks kind of great on me. Well... I’m not so sure. Whoa. Actually. Wait. I HAVE to have this.
This season, the black canvas suit – the Sarah Jacket + the Hutton pants – is THAT for me. Like most women my age, I own lots of black trousers. And I have a few great black jackets. But never have I ever owned a black suit. (For the record, I have worn some of those black jackets on top of some of those black pants. But two black pieces does NOT a suit make. This one is a true set… a SUIT.)
Last fall, I wrote about a navy velveteen jacket that I paired with 5-pockets in the same fabric. I wore those pieces together over and over and over again for months. The astonishing ease of getting dressed in a true suit was major. It shocked me. While I have seen Sid wear suits for decades (and admired him in them)… getting to experience it for myself was something else. It is just so EASY. So few choices… so much freedom. Now I get it.
Taylor, who manages our Atlanta shop here, was the one who pointed it out to me. (Please know that of course I remember and love all the things we make… but this was designed a year ago… and I am working on a shoot for fall clothes that won’t be out for another six months… and planning next year’s spring line… and pre-concepting next-next fall’s line… my brain isn’t big enough to remember which season we are currently even in, let alone every piece of clothing in it!)
When I was in the store, she had just sold this suit to a woman who would wear it to a rehearsal dinner. Very cool, I thought (and said). I bet she will look fantastic. Understated… minimal… elegant… confident… I wanted to be her! I thought of Andrea Linett’s wonderful book here with that exact title — like her, friends and strangers have helped me define my style. (She has a fantastic Substack by the same name.) In this case, Taylor’s customer was the strangest of strangers since I had no idea what she even looked like! I felt happy to have something to offer the woman who doesn’t feel like wearing a cocktail dress. Or even, who doesn’t feel her best in a dress, period.
One of my daughters has always dressed more “tomboy.” Personal style comes from so many things, and the tomboy element — which I would use to describe a huge part of my own look — comes from a love of movement. I like to move quickly and comfortably and I don’t want anything too precious to get in my way. She was sporty. She loved chasing a ball, loved getting down low on the ground with tiny rubber animals, loved playing in the dirt. She was the first one to jump in the lake. Tomboy to the core. She never minded wearing anything I put her in, but I eventually started dressing her in sportier clothes because as her mother, I like to think I kind of GOT her. You start out dressing your kids as if they are dolls… but then they start becoming who they are and that becomes a part of their style… just facilitated by you. I loved her in those hand-me-down dresses, but before you knew it I was finding all the adorable striped t-shirts and cargo pants I could. I will never forget sewing patches on those little size-4 carpenter jeans in scraps of French provincial fabric. It takes a lot of floor play to wear out those knees! To this day, she prefers the tomboy look, and for Christmas, I got her the velveteen suit I had been wearing on repeat. A twin of mine. She wore it to her sister’s baby shower and looked fantastic. I like to think she felt that way too. Chic, cool, understated, and like herself.
So again – I love to have options for the woman who wants to dress up without wearing a dress. For my daughter, for this mysterious woman attending the rehearsal dinner, for other women I know. And I decided – for me! Maybe I needed this suit, too!
The more I thought about it, the more I loved the idea of having a black suit that isn’t a Black Suit. If that makes any sense at all. Working in fashion in New York through the 80s and 90s left me with pretty strong associations of what a Black Suit connotes... and this is so not that. It is friendlier and easier. Less stereotypically “work-y” somehow. You can push up the sleeves. You can style it more freely. The color means it will work for day OR night. The cotton canvas material means it will work for spring OR fall. The jacket is a very easy menswear shape, but the pants are wide with a side zip – very similar to the style Katharine Hepburn was famous for wearing. Tomboy to the nth degree. It can be chilled out with a t-shirt and flat sandals, or dressed up with gold jewelry for evening (as Taylor told me her customer did.) The sage green alternative in this same style (jacket + trousers) reminds me of Sid’s summer poplin suits. I really want that color, too! I am dying to wear this one with the short-sleeved V-neck cardigan or a camisole to show some decolletage, plus high-heeled sandals… wearing masculine but feeling feminine. Or with a bib-front white shirt and loafers as a super-casual tuxedo sort of thing. Or with a striped t-shirt. Or with a hundred more things in my closet.
Black, cool and canvas. You need this I promise.
