Nathaniel ‘Natty’ Adams and Sara Harper are what one might class as a power couple. Based in New Orleans, Louisiana, Natty is owner of an eponymous made-to-measure suit brand, though you may likely know of him as the co-author of ‘I Am Dandy’ and ‘We Are Dandy’, whilst Sara is a frontline nurse working at the local hospital.
With the COVID-19 pandemic bringing the world to an unprecedented halt, frontline workers put their lives on the line in order to help those that had become victims of Coronavirus. Sara is one of those tireless and underappreciated heroes, who, through exposure to ill patients, unfortunately ended up testing positive herself. She spent the next few weeks quarantined in their apartment, with Natty citing respiratory distress and fatigue, and ensuring all precautions were taken towards her recovery. Such is her willingness and determination to help others, as soon as she had recovered she went straight back to the hospital to continue her work tackling the pandemic.
Though lockdown restrictions are beginning to relax around the world (or, in certain cases, becoming all the more confusing and unclear), we still believe the best precaution one can take right now is to stay at home where possible. This, undoubtedly, will continue to impact our mental and physical health, given that some countries have been in lockdown for over eight weeks now, so it is vital we do what we can to ensure we look after ourselves. A small, but often helpful, way in which to do this is by dressing up. As a friend of mine put it recently, ‘by waking up, dressing up and showing up—even if showing up means you go from bedroom to living room—having a routine is important, and dressing for the day will ensure you are in a better headspace and can have a productive start’.
Natty, Sara and I may be an ocean’s distance apart (I am currently sitting at the kitchen counter of my East London apartment writing this), social media and the internet have provided us with the gift of time and connection. We can converse through so many mediums which didn’t exist merely a few decades ago which is brilliant — even if, like us, you probably hit your Zoom quota a good few weeks back — but I digress. Our Pocket Guide series is all about the subtle detail of one’s attire, and couldn’t be more appropriate a format to champion our #RakesAtHome series. Having kept in contact with Natty and Sara in the recent trying times, we invited them to be part of our latest Pocket Guide, which they kindly shot themselves from the comfort of their own home.
“The suits Sara and I are wearing”, says Natty, “are corduroy in dusty pink and aquamarine that I made for us this past Christmas. They were a bit ‘70s inspired, with boot-cut pants,” whilst Sara adds, “I think of mine as a casual David Bowie suit, if that’s a thing. I have to wear scrubs all day at the hospital, which is basically like wearing dull pajamas, so I get to really lean into my glam rock dreams in my off hours.”
