Reader's Attire #7 - Tanguy

Reader's Attire

Tanguy @kerloazdiary

The vast majority of clothes I wear have already known one or more lives. Meaning: I've only been buying second-hand clothes since I was 15. In this Spring season that is slowly but surely opening up, I am drawn to a soft color palette but never austere tones.

The overcoat is a ready-to-wear Franco Prinzivalli (ex-student of Mario Donnini) made in Japan. Its light wool makes it a partner of choice in the midst of the climatic yo-yo of seasonal changes. I have been using it for X years and it accompanies me everywhere.

I wear a straight jacket from the St Andrews workshops, a discreet transalpine subcontractor working for several well-known houses. I don’t appreciate soft shoulders and unstructured jackets, this is why I find this jacket very appealing : I am a fan of the lining used in their clothes, both robust and light, which promotes a clean and precise fit. The latter is a cold wool with a fairly dense reinforcement.

Even if I appreciate the "splashy" and light blues (on others), I recognize that my seven blazers are all cut in darker fabrics...In particular this deep midnight blue which enchants me every time I rediscover it in the morning. Here, I wear a white linen pochette inherited from family members, it’s really a touch of Summer in this outfit. “Of the mask and the appearance, one must not make a real essence of them, nor of the foreigner the proper. We don't know how to distinguish the skin from the shirt” wrote Montaigne in his Essays. If clothing is all about politics in our human societies, my cotton shirt is above all just a modest vestige from the old collections of Luciano Barbera. It is a second skin, firstly because of the cut, but also because of this cinnamon brown which fits naturally into many of my outfits. I'm a fan of the Prince of Wales motif because of how much fun I can have in any outfit, especially when it comes to shirts. I particularly like this one, even if its previous owner had a shorter arm than I.

I wear my clothes cheerfully. I hear some connoisseurs say that a well-made garment does not wear out. These glossy brown trousers are no exception to this law. Bought several years ago, it is branded Vigano who turned out to be an unknown but good trouser maker from Italy (what else). However, the weft of this wool has not escaped, in certain areas, of the wear and tear of time.

My socks are knee-highs - new, like all my underwear - and signed Archiduchesse and echo the windowpane checks on my shirt. It is therefore one of the "fun" moments of the outfit, for those who had not seen it.

The shoes are from Tricker's. The leather is used but I still believe they look great. And their skin color "matches" my shirt. Above all, they truly feel like slippers.

As for accessories, they boil down to two pieces here: my pair of Paul Smith glasses (which you won't see) with their smoky brown clip-on sunglasses, like an autocrat from a Mediterranean state, and this LIP watch caliber R25 which turned 60. The original bracelet got destroyed this year, I recently opted for a steel model like the “Breitling Gainsbourg”. I still don't know if it's a good choice or not, but it changes me: pleasure also resides in change.