🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The London Dispatch 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

What I packed, wore, ate, drank, and shopped.

England has long been a source of inspiration for me. From growing up in the anglophilic Northeast US, dressed by my mother in blue-blooded blazers, jumpers, and slacks, to the taste in music I developed as a teen, I’ve always felt drawn to the distinguished air with which this craggy gray little island has established a dominant presence in art and design. Ruby has also explicitly been trying to convince me to move there for at least a year or two. Leading up to this trip, we had a list of over 120 places to visit in London alone — mostly the usual shopping, dining, museums, and galleries. The difference with this one is that it was all crowd-sourced. I didn’t look to a single travel guide or video, relying only on friends for advice instead (special shout-out to Jamie Ferguson for all his recs 🫶). As soon as we landed, we hit the pavement and met up with as many people as we could, which made this trip more about communion and less about the sort of cultural observation that tourism usually entails. When I think about community, it’s these sorts of meaningful connections that lead to memorable experiences, and that’s what I try to find wherever I go.

---

What I Packed

I always start with the essential underpinnings — plain white tees (mine are Buck Mason’s Toughknit Classic Tees, made in Pennsylvania) and cheap Hanes boxers. I’ve wanted to replace the boxers with these colorful butcher-striped ones from Brooks Brothers, but with the amount I like to have on hand, that would be a considerable investment. From there, I moved on to trousers, narrowing down to a pair of 2-Year Wash Orslow 105s and Observer Khumla Khakis, which would both be versatile enough to dress up or down. For shirts, I wanted to have something casual and something I could wear with a tie, so I went with a vintage Brooks Brothers button-down in a light blue Bengal-striped broadcloth and my vintage USN work shirt cut from cornflower blue cotton oxford cloth. Over top, I kept it simple with a Buck Mason Felted Chore Coat in dark navy — a balance of comfort and presentability — and I got a bit more playful with a vintage striped Abercrombie shetland (made in the 1970s in “British Hong Kong”). While in NY just before the trip, I picked up a pair of black wide-leg jeans from GU and some Uniqlo Heattech base layers to round things out.

My vintage RAF MK-3 jacket seemed like it would be at home in London, and while I got a couple of compliments on it, I didn’t see a single other one on any street or in any of the dozens of vintage shops I visited. The Observer Collection’s Oman Anorak saw considerable use as an underpinning, though it barely rained enough for me to test out its water resistance. My Spier & Mackay Neo Cut Sportcoat in a bolder glen check Harris Tweed was the choice for looking respectable on the flight and for dinners out — I always seem to get treated a little better when I wear a suit or sport coat.

My most prized possession this trip, and the thing I was most eager to wear, was a new iteration of Observer’s Indy Bag in a more matte-finish leather. Essentially a camera bag, I used it to hold my Whisky wallet, portable phone charger, AirPods, passport, tickets, meds, water bottle, etc. On the head was my trusty Observer Team Hat (I’m sensing a theme here), and around the neck was a short, compact vintage wool military scarf. At the last minute, I threw in an old Ovadia & Sons olive foulard silk tie (made by Drake’s back in 2011), so that didn’t get pictured. Around the waist was a Trafalgar engine-turned plaque buckle on an alligator strap and Observer again with the Damn Cowboy Belt. Finally, on foot, I had some cotton dress socks from Front General Store and $18 over-the-calf merino ones from Amazon that are holding up nicely so far and paired easily with my leopard print August Special loafers and dark brown pebbled leather pennies from Morjas, which sport a rain-ready rubber sole.

---

The Debrief

There isn’t enough space to talk at length in an email about everything we did, but you can see a bit of a visual recap here. The only purchase I made during the entire trip was a WW2-era British summer dress jacket at Levisons, but below is a roundup of what I had on the list and what I enjoyed: