The Evolution of a Brown in Town Suit
FREE House
I enjoy a good pint and there are many breweries which I am happy to patronise given the chance, such as Harvey’s Brewery in Lewes, or Moor Beer in Bristol.
But, if I’m honest my favourite boozers are Free Houses who select their ales based on flavour profile and irrespective of which brewery they are from, just so long as they are good.
Over the years Brown in Town has become something of a Free House (pun intended) itself. I am of course referring to the cut of our jib and we take great pleasure in offering various cuts and styles, starting with our original English Cut which is easily recognisable by it’s square padded shoulder and the most familiar style of any English gentleman.
Back in 2016 we bore witness to the resurgence of the deconstructed jacket following several trips to Florence to the Pitt Uomo menswear show. We found that this softly tailored style fit our Quasimodi-like frame rather well, even before alterations and after some research our ever popular Fatto-in-Italia jacket was born. Taking its inspiration from the Neapolitan style pioneered by maestro Cesare Attolini who in the 1930’s infamously took a Savile Row coat back to his sartoria in Naples and challenged his team of sarto’s to make it suitable (no pun) for the people of Italy and they proceeded to dismantle it pad-by-pad, until it was devoid of even of it’s lining leaving just the cloth and the canvas, in order to retain it’s shape and elegant lines.
Well, once our atelier in the North of England caught wind of this and saw how popular this new wave of soft tailoring had become, they wanted in on the action and with a little help they created what we refer to affectionately as the Anglo-Italian (no relation), which is if you will a hybrid of the two styles i.e. the English Cut with padless-sloping shoulders, a high-gorge seam on the lapel where it joins the collar and a sewn chest canvas - half-lining is optional just as it is on the Fatto-in-Italia.
And no doubt, this softer style of tailoring in-turn inspired our Darby Suit, which has it’s origins in Bleu Travail, the indigo cotton workwear popularised by the French - and subsequently artists and hipsters. We introduced this deconstructed style back in 2020 to great acclaim of our friends in the hospitality, food and beverage game not to mention musicians and artists, which then evolved into a suit when were asked on several occasions if we could fashion a ‘workwear suit’ for a wedding.
This then found favour with Bristolian artist Martyn Cross who commissioned one such suit in a bottle green 8wale Italian corduroy for his inaugural private view upon being represented by Hales gallery. This in turn rather caught the eye of one Saffron Darby who has made the style her own and has inspired skateboarders and chefs alike such as Ben Tonks of The Seahorse restaurant in Dartmouth, graphic designers and table tennis gurus Art of Ping Pong and garden designers like our muse Planty Jane .
When we were founded over 10yrs ago, we offered just the one cut of Suit but style evolves just as our own personal style evolves.
Which cut is your cut?