A Romantic Ideal: The Corduroy Games Suit

Writer, angler, and friend of the brand, David Coggins finds the romance in our new corduroy Games Suit, made from a beautiful garment-dyed Italian cord.

Clothes should be functional, but they should also be romantic. It’s good when they serve a purpose, but it’s also good when they serve a romantic ideal. In a perfect world, these needs combine. Is this getting too theoretical? We’re talking about a coat and a pair of pants, after all. Let’s look at it another way and consider the new corduroy Games Suit.

It’s the suit to wear while lounging in your library and reading Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant, volume five of Anthony Powell’s series of twelve novels. What’s that? You don’t have a library with a couch in it? You don’t have a library at all? That’s alright, I don’t either. But if I did, then this is the suit I would wear in it. It’s also alright if you’ve passed on Anthony Powell, because he is definitely not a writer for everyone.

 Brown Corduroy Games Blazer Mk. I, Brown Corduroy Single-Pleat Games Chinos

Navy Corduroy Games Blazer Mk. I, Navy Corduroy Single-Pleat Games Chinos

So, this is the romantic ideal of the suit. It’s unstructured, unlined, softly tailored and all the things that we know and love and expect from Drake’s. But romance alone is not enough (this, incidentally, is a theme of Anthony Powell’s novels).  

The Games Suit is also functional in the extreme. Corduroy, in the wrong hands, can leave you hot and bothered. It’s too stiff, too heavy, takes too long to break in. Not so with the Games Suit. This is garment-dyed Italian corduroy. That’s good if you’re casually dropping references to a jealous sartorial-minded friend who rightly values such things, but you don’t have to be an obsessive to appreciate the softness. If you want to toss it in the washing machine then go ahead, live dangerously. 

This suit looks terrific outside the imagined library as well. It also looks perfect at the imagined country house, in the imagined cameo role in an imagined Wes Anderson film. At the imagined reunion with an imagined family of theatre people in Northern Italy. Crucially, this suit also works in very real settings: if it didn’t then it would be potential unfulfilled. 

Red, Navy and Orange Regimental Stripe Knitted Silk Tie

Green, White and Purple Regimental Stripe Knitted Silk Tie

Like all my favorite clothes, this is a suit that feels familiar the first time you wear it. It plays well with an oxford shirt and a knit tie (still my personal ideal!), but also a sweater, a flannel shirt, a rugby shirt. Do you have a collection of loafers that you wear on a daily rotation? Perfect, because they will look perfect with this. Desert boots? Belgians? Suede boots meant for the country that you daringly wear into the city and the city only? Game on. In fact, I can’t think of anything that won’t look good with this suit. 

And when you finally do move into that house with the library, then you’ll feel perfectly at home. 

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