Reviews

Waistcoat Wednesday: ARN Mercantile, let’s play shop!

A sunny, but surprisingly windy, Wednesday and I’m back with another waistcoat in celebration of the now obligatory Waistcoat Wednesday. This weeks cheeky little number is a canvas shop waistcoat from ARN Mercantile, the family business I’ve previously written about in my series of labels to watch. ARN are very passionate about what they do, how it’s done, the materials that are chosen, and it shows in this piece. Of course, many of us also recognize ARN Mercantile from their collaborations with Nigel Cabourn, where they did Cabourn’s trousers for a couple of seasons, surely indicative of quality by association.

Regular readers will no doubt notice that this one is a little large on me, and yes, it is. Most of what ARN make heads off to the land of the rising sun and insatiable interest in all things British, and this waistcoat is quite rare in being in XL size. I bought it when I was larger, and now it’s too big for me (~~I’m willing to let this one go, enquiries within, squire~~ Sorry, it now has a new owner!).

As is the way of ARN, they always like to inject a little randomness into things. This could of course spell all kinds of disaster, but thankfully they stick to randomizing the buttons. This means there is never a set combination of colours on the buttons, they’re just sewn on in the order they are drawn out of the bucket. Put a little sparkle into your day!