Summer Socks / Battered Barbours / NB x Auralee / Lightweight Blazers

THE RADAR // Issue #9

Hello! Welcome back to THE RADAR, The Prep Club’s fortnightly mini-magazine keeping you in the loop of what’s hip in the sphere of collegiate threads. You can attend last week’s meeting here, for an argument in favour of the CVO canvas trainer.

The Sock of the Summer

Thick cotton deck socks are moodboard fodder, old Polo ads or catalogue shots of Sperries are seldom seen without big, scrunched up, nautical socks. Though Polo’s are a classic, they haven’t made them for a while. In their stead, we have the deck sock from AWMS, the (sorta) eponymous label from Tony Sylvester.

PC: @leisurelyloafing

At £15 a pair, they’re a little rich compared to my go to Uniqlos, but for a long, made in England sock, they’re actually pretty damn reasonable. It’s unlikely that you’d be grabbing more than a couple pairs I reckon, they’re only going to work with so many shoes. Ecru, orange, and blue are the current colours, they get switched out semi-regularly.

The heavy knit is a little counterintuitive when positing these as a summer pickup, but they’ll definitely be most at home with shorts, the sort of sock that’s worth showing off. The other week Derek Guy called the loafers/socks/shorts look into question. I vehemently disagree with him, I live for the 50sish preppiness of that look, and these socks a definitely a fine candidate to pull it off with.

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A Tale of Two Battered Barbours

I have a distinct and perhaps unfounded sentimentality towards my Barbour jackets. I have two, a green Beaufort and an allegedly navy Bedale, in reality it’s turned a sort of bizarre brownish grey because it is completely thrashed. It’s been very haphazardly patched up, the patches on the front are stitched through the entire garment, sealing the hand warmer pockets shut, the sleeve patches make it so the sleeves are two different sizes, and the zip lives in the (barely usable) inside breast pocket, having come off entirely.

The Beaufort is a similar story, though it hasn’t been patched, rather each rip and tear is on full display to let the wind in. The zips are all in working order this time, but the lining is frayed in every spot it could be.

Those rips, broken zips, and patches were put there by people I’ve never met, I don’t know their names or what it was they did to leave these coats in such tattered condition. These aren’t family heirlooms or years loved pieces of my own doing, yet seeing each botched repair and loose thread on these things fills me with a distinct warmth. I feel as though I’ve bought into a lineage, they are, in their own way, heirlooms from people I’ve never known, and which bring a nostalgia for something I’ve never known.

I think to buy a Barbour brand new is just a little bit wrong, when these storied and beautifully battered jackets are out there. With a piece like this, which lasts as long as this, you will soon realise you’re more of a steward than an owner, your time with it is only a a part of it’s lifespan, and you owe it to the next owner to put a few more rips in it, that way they can get all gooey in a Substack article about it too.

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Auralee x New Balance 475