Every self-respecting gent these days is sporting a gilet. Don’t laugh. The gilet has come along leaps and bounds; you can’t tar it with the same brush as the Schöffel ‘Chelsea Life Jacket’ which is worn by the Hooray Henrys who guffaw at dinner parties twinned with their strawberry corduroy trousers.
The gilet is the height of sophistication. It is worn by the finance bros, the best-looking dad on the school run, the recently retired silver fox barrister you met at the ‘locals’ drinks party last Christmas and the gruff farmer who is so rich he really shouldn’t be that dour for goodness’ sake.
It might even be worn by your husband and by the accountant who lives in the next-door village in that house his wife spent so much money on, he now can’t sell. Wearing that herringbone gilet helps him in more ways than one: it’s tough being married to an interior designer as they’re always changing the kitchen and looking at new sofas that cost practically the same as the deposit he had to put down for Fifi at Oundle.
The gilet is worn by just about everyone apart from possibly Gary who has just fixed the electrics and is now down the pub sinking a few. Gary wears a thinning fleece with arms emblazoned with J.R Electrics on it. He would laugh if one of his mates turned up in a gilet at the pub – he’d think it was an April Fool’s joke come early.
What once started as a sophisticated advance on the Schöffel fleece is now a full-on fashion statement. The gilet removes the need for a scratchy wool jumper that your wife or mother shrunk last year and now looks as if it might fit Jonty who is only seven. The gilet also means you won’t have to wear a bulky coat or sweat – it solves all ambient issues in one fell swoop. Why would any man ever look elsewhere for semi-casual attire?
A gilet comes in the guise of a puffer as per Tom Wambsgans in Succession or other finance bros. The types who make a big deal about moving to Dubai and leave their wives behind minding their children whilst they jog up and down the Jumeirah Beach hotel before meeting other finance bros whose wives and children are also back in England at boarding school. These bros weren’t taking any chances on the so-called English school for Felix and Arabella in Dubai. Oh, and by the way, they’re fine: still jogging and no drone has taken them out.
You can’t tar the gilet with the same brush as the Schöffel ‘Chelsea Life Jacket’
If you want to be a bit more British you could wear the lightweight merino wool number worn by that art dealer fellow who does videos on Instagram. His wife (yours truly) kindly bought him his Sirplus gilet for Christmas, but it wasn’t cheap. The tweed gilet should only be worn if you are over six feet tall otherwise it looks peculiar (too long in the leg and reminiscent of a slightly crazed 16th-century courtier).
But the best thing about the gilet is the men in the catalogues. They are all drop dead gorgeous even if they are made to pose holding glasses of champagne by the stem, laughing at something the photographer said by the fire. They’d look better holding whiskey glasses but presumably no one thought of that. Those men definitely wear gilets in real life.
But don’t be put off by the huge-bosomed pony club mum who sports her navy Schöffel puffer. Her bust is so vast that every fibre is straining but try not to look. She bought her puffer as a teen at Badminton in 1996 and, though she’s gone up three bust sizes, there’s the farrier to pay and the vet sent a huge bill last week so she won’t be buying a new Schöffel fleece until Mummy offers one this Christmas or birthday.
Take my word for it, the gilet has moved on since Pony Club and is now quite the sartorial choice. Other than the Pony Club Mum, under no circumstances must women try and hop on this gilet bandwagon, unless they want to age 30 years overnight or look like their old headmistress Ursula The Great.
The gilet also mustn’t be worn by anyone under the age of 30, so don’t buy Tarquin one for his birthday, as tempting a thought as it is. Tarquin can wear a Schöffel fleece gilet for his land management course at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester. But, unless you want him to look 50 years old and ridiculous, please don’t indulge him in a velvet midnight blue gilet for his birthday. It might just cost him his relationship with blonde bombshell Roxanne and no one wants that.
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