Cinq-à-Sept

The Aubergine Blazer

Five o'clock in October, and the Plateau is letting go of the day.

He comes down the outside stairs of a house on Carré Saint-Louis with the jacket already on, because in this city the evening starts the moment you decide it has. Behind him the houses stand in their painted rows — plum, slate, a green nobody would choose and everybody loves — and the jacket belongs among them: an aubergine that reads as grey in the shade and turns to colour the second the sun finds it.

It is cut the way a summer jacket should be. Soft in the shoulder, so it moves like a cardigan and sits like a blazer. Shaped through the waist, without insisting on it. The cloth is wool for the structure, linen for the air, and a measure of tussah silk for the dry, uneven surface that catches light in flecks — a fabric that looks better slightly creased than pressed, which is fortunate, because by seven it will be.

Half-lined, in the same purple, so it weighs almost nothing and you can wear it over an open shirt until the night turns. Two horn buttons. A welt pocket at the chest that wants a silk square pushed into it without ceremony. Nothing else. Nothing that needs explaining.

The terrasse on Rue Prince-Arthur has kept a table. He is not late; the cinq-à-sept is not a time so much as a permission, and it lasts as long as the light does. Someone asks about the jacket. He says he doesn't remember where he got it, which is untrue and exactly the right answer.

Composition
Shell — 78% wool, 12% linen, 10% silk
Half-lined

Details
Single-breasted, two dark horn buttons
Notch lapels, soft unpadded shoulder, shaped waist
Chest welt pocket, front pockets
Half-lining in matching aubergine

Fit
Soft tailoring, true to size. Cut to be worn over a shirt or fine knit.

Care
Specialist dry clean only. Hang on a shaped hanger; light creasing is part of the cloth.

Made in Great Britain