“The fact is that this middle ground is more practical, more easy and, as codes of
dressing become less hidebound by rules, more go-anywhere style of dressing. It just works well for day to day
living,” notes Cynthia Lawrence John, the stylist and co-owner of Werkhaus, a store specialising in vintage
workwear. “It’s why, for example, you see men wearing hefty cords and chore jacket, but also shirt and tie - though
it has to be the right kind of shirt and the right tie. Likewise, although not for everyone, boilersuits are a thing
now - and they still look good with a sharply tailored jacket.”
This blurring of differences is why some brands known for the dressier end of sharp
tailoring have dabbled in jeans, but also the likes of heavy cotton twill trousers, and soft-shouldered, unlined
blazers, including cashmere/denim blend fabric. Or why Cifonelli has, with its more directional creations, come up
with a one-button jacket in denim - perhaps still too structured to pass for workwear - but also a six-button,
high-fastening jacket with pleated patch pockets that at least owes some debt to the French chore style. The likes
of Timothy Everest and Paul Smith have experimented likewise.
Similarly, while vintage workwear largely adheres to the less artisanal limitations
of mass production, makers of modern workwear-inspired clothing have smartened up by adopting some of the techniques
and finishing more commonly found in classic tailoring. While Blackhorse Lane Atelier’s version of the chore jacket
takes, ostensibly, the traditional form, it’s made with an angled shoulder seam and felled seams throughout to, the
company says, “make it easy to dress up”. Other brands, the likes of Tender Co, have made work jackets with
one-piece collars and no shoulder seam, and jeans and work trousers with ‘snob’s thumb’ pockets, lined belt loops
and double-folded hems - the kind of construction techniques not always even found in decent tailoring.
Of course, these days it’s all a form of fashion - true workwear today remains truly
specialist, constructed from easy launder or high-tech fabrics, and invariably covered with something day-glo or
reflective. You would never mistake the men digging up your road - again - for arbiters of style or quality. But
that can’t be said of just any man in a chore jacket.
