It is August, which means I begin the usual deliberation about what to wear at this year’s Goodwood Revival Meeting.
I will admit that my choices are rather limited – due in part to a combination of expanding waistline, wrestler’s neck and Oompa Loompa stature, but that doesn’t stop me opening the wardrobe to stair wistfully at the three-piece tweed suit that I bought from eBay several years ago.
It was a bargain too. £55 if I recall correctly, and tailored for its previous owner (34” waist and 30” inside leg), but I do rather think that they overengineered it slightly. None of this modern ‘fashionable’ tweed: this was built to last and is so weighty that I’m convinced it could have a measurable effect on your MPG down to West Hampnet.
Moving along the coathangers, past the collared shirts that see the light of day only at weddings or funerals, and I’ll come to the bargain moleskin trousers I bought from a Teddington charity shop a few years back. They fit nicely and are remarkably comfortable thanks to the amount of give in the material.
Pairing them with a checked shirt, I could blend in nicely with the other ‘country gents’, so what is the problem? They’re a horrid shade of brown for starters (they’d probably be called Crushed Caramel in a trendy gents outfitters in the big city), and they’re too smooth.
I know, it sounds daft doesn’t it, but they’re so tactile that you suddenly find yourself gently caressing your own thighs while watching ‘our Stirl’ stuff a Jaguar round Madgwick and that’s never a good thing.
Which brings me back to the usual get-up. Despite arriving in something with four wheels, I usually end up rolling up as ‘faux biker’. Old denim jeans, some sturdy boots, white t-shirt and a jacket adorned with a Triumph patch bought from a Beaulieu autojumbler many years back ‘complete’ the look. At least when I had a BSA in the garage I could claim some level of authenticity, but not now.
