British Country Style for Men, From Tweed and Waxed Jackets to Outfits for Town and Country

The Norfolk jacket shows how tweed got there. It is a belted tweed jacket with box pleats. The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London says it was adapted for shooting in the 1860s and at first kept strictly for country wear. As sport and leisure grew in the 1870s and 1880s, the V&A says, the jacket became acceptable for any outdoor exercise. The museum quotes the trade magazine Tailor and Cutter, which in April 1888 called it “especially suited for bicycling, business, fishing, pleasuring, and the moorland”. Cyclists and golfers wore Norfolk jackets with knickerbockers, loose knee breeches gathered at or just below the knee. By the 1890s, the museum says, smart young men wore Norfolk jackets even in the city.

Country clothes moved into town long ago. Cordings, a London outfitter, has traded from 19 Piccadilly since 1877 and says it has long dressed men for “both town and country”. In March 1939, a Bettmann picture caption described a three-button, single-breasted country lounge suit in nubby wool tweed. The caption placed the suit midway between a business suit and active sports clothes.

For town, aim for that middle ground rather than the full sporting suit: a tweed jacket in a quiet check or herringbone, cut with room for a jumper underneath, worn with an Oxford shirt and cords or flannel trousers. A full Norfolk, belted and pleated, is the bolder choice. Gentleman’s Gazette advises: “Unless you want the attention, a Norfolk is only appropriate in the country”. That is one writer’s view, not a historical rule.

The checks have country roots too. The menswear site Permanent Style explains that families renting Scottish estates created their own tweeds as uniforms for their staff. One estate pattern travelled much further. The Glen Urquhart check, sometimes known as the glen check, began as a local cloth and became the official tweed of the Balmacaan Estate. The Scottish textile maker Johnstons of Elgin calls Edward VII an early champion of the glen check while he was Prince of Wales, the title he held until he became King in 1901. A glen check or a herringbone makes a quiet first tweed jacket.

If you buy Harris Tweed, you are buying a cloth defined by law. Harris Tweed comes from the Outer Hebrides, in Scotland. Until the middle of the 19th century, the Harris Tweed Authority says, the islanders used their cloth at home or sold it at local markets. In the 1840s, Lady Dunmore, the widow of the landowner of Harris, marketed the cloth to wealthy friends further afield. An Act of Parliament made the definition law in 1993. The Act says Harris Tweed must be handwoven by the islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, finished there, and made from “pure virgin wool” dyed and spun there.

A buyer can check two things. The first is the Orb, the Harris Tweed trademark, registered to protect the cloth’s name from imitations as it grew popular. The Authority, which took over from the Harris Tweed Association under the Act, says the mark guarantees that the cloth was made as the Act requires. The second is in the cloth itself. The Authority says the wool is dyed before it is spun, and different colours are blended to recipes, so one yarn can hold several colours chosen to reach the right shade. Look closely and you may see them.

In the 1920s, golf helped to spread two kinds of country clothing: plus-fours and patterned knitwear. Plus-fours take their name from four extra inches of cloth, which Dictionary.com says were added to ordinary knickerbockers to make them looser. The Fashion History Timeline of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York says plus-fours still fastened around the knee, so the extra cloth hung loosely over the fastening. FIT says plus-fours, often worn with a jumper, were popular for golf.

Plus-fours and Fair Isle knitwear were both worn by a second Edward, Prince of Wales. He was the grandson of Edward VII, held the same title until he became King Edward VIII in 1936, and was made Duke of Windsor in 1937. FIT says this Prince of Wales was a big fan of plus-fours and wore them with argyle jumpers and socks. The V&A says he made the Fair Isle jumper popular when he wore one for golf in 1921.

Of the two, the knitwear is the easier to borrow. Keep plus-fours for the golf course or a shooting day. A lambswool or Shetland crew-neck works in town and in the country, and a Fair Isle is the bolder choice.

The waxed jacket has since moved into town. Barbour says its Beaufort is now worn in both town and country, and that its full-length rear pocket is used for newspapers or small groceries. In 2019, the menswear retailer MR PORTER said the waxed jacket “has made notable inroads into urban centres”. Of all the country coats, it is the easiest to borrow: wear it over a jumper and cords at the weekend, or over town clothes on a wet day. Our guide to the classic Barbour jacket compares the main models.

The wellington boot also began on horseback. English Heritage says British Army officers of the 1790s wore knee-high leather boots called Hessians. Arthur Wellesley, then Viscount Wellington, asked his shoemaker, George Hoby of St James’s Street, to change them. Hoby removed the tassel and cut the boots lower, which made them more comfortable for riding. The rubber version came later. English Heritage says that in 1916, millions of pairs were commissioned as winter kit for ordinary soldiers, and that after the war, soldiers took them home to farms, gardens and allotments across the country. Brogues, too, have a history as country footwear, as the magazine Country Life notes.

For most days, brown leather brogue boots are the pair to borrow, with wellingtons for wet ground. A second MR PORTER article, from 2018, recalls an old rule: “Never wear brown in town”. Treat that rule as history, not as a ban. For the rubber kind, see our guide to styling Hunter boots.

One detail matters for newcomers. Sam Adams told the shooting magazine ShootingUK that a shooting sock should always be worn over the breeks, even when the breeks have a buckle, and another contributor, Lucy Brice, says this stops the knee from showing.

In 2017, ShootingUK reported that some guns were loosening the full tweed outfit, and Jamie Osborne described many wearing a shirt, a tie and breeks, with something waterproof. The advice runs both ways: do not dress down too far, and do not overdo it. Writing in The Field in 2020, Robert Gibbons put one rule plainly: “I do not think jeans and trainers are acceptable”. ShootingUK’s guide to formal days warns: “Never, under any circumstances, be seen to be trying too hard”. Its list of mistakes includes jumpers with embroidered pheasants and tweed so loud that the neighbours complain.

Breeks, shooting socks and gaiters belong to days like this, which is why the town and weekend outfits below leave them out.