I mentioned in the cotton-crewnecks article last week that I enjoyed wearing tan accessories a lot during my recent trip to India. This might seem like a small thing, but when you get into a routine with clothing, anything that suddenly gives a twist to the wardrobe is refreshing. 

In some respects, I’m a little trapped in classic menswear traditions. Particularly more formal, tailoring-based ones. So my default is nearly always dark shoes – dark brown or black – and given I wear a belt most of the time these days, a dark brown or black belt as well. 

When your trousers, overshirt or knit are often dark brown or black too, this can be a little limiting. Sometimes it feels like all I wear is black, brown, grey and cream. 

It’s lovely to be able to add tan into the mix therefore – as with the shot above of the new dark-olive Linen Overshirt with a vintage tan-leather belt and my slightly crappy boat shoes.

In that outfit the overshirt is worn with a white knitted tee (Anthology) and pale biscuit-coloured trousers (Whitcomb & Shaftesbury, W Bill 28306 linen). At other times on the trip, the shirt also proved adept with dark colours. 

In the second outfit, above, the trousers are a dark brown and the accessories are mostly black – black Sagan shoes from Baudoin & Lange, black alligator belt from Rubato. The trousers are a dark-brown high twist (an old pair from Perro). 

This was a nice evening combination – something I wore out to dinner more than once, and felt like just one step down from a tailored jacket (which I’d often been wearing all day anyway).

Interestingly, my relatively new Must de Cartier watch (above, bought two years ago in Korea) is proving to be a useful accessory with this kind of wardrobe, primarily because of its grey/green alligator strap. That colour is versatile enough to work with most outfits, but also different enough to be a nice addition to the palette. 

Readers often ask about matching watch metals and straps to their belts/shoes, and perhaps that needs a full article at some point. (There is one here, but it’s just about shoes and belts.) 

In brief, I think a watch is best seen as something that should harmonise with the rest, rather than match. Belts and shoes are usually best when they’re close in colour, but a watch is an opportunity to add something different – and a bag is one step further removed.

The third combination I wore the overshirt with was the one above – grey knitted tee on top (Adret) and black cotton/linen trousers below (Casatlantic). 

The cotton/linen mix in the trouser is a nice one, as it’s light and cool, but also more casual than a tailored linen trouser. Unfortunately Casatlantic don’t currently do that material, but I can check with them whether there are any plans to bring it back. 

The grey tee with those trousers felt like a more casual option among these three, and more relaxed. It would have been nice with some canvas tennis shoes as well as loafers. 

I only got this final sample of the overshirt just before going to India, so didn’t have a chance to try it with a wide range of things. 

But when we did the pop-up in London a couple of weeks ago, I saw a whole raft of guys try it on, and my big learning from that was that it’s also great with blue: mid-blue and indigo jeans, even navy tailored trousers. So on that basis, I’d put this new dark-olive colour on a par with both the dark brown and the navy in terms of versatility. 

The Linen Overshirts are available now, in those colours plus small restocks of the tobacco, black and light olive we’ve done in previous years. 

Other clothes shown:

• Sunglasses from L’Ingenieur Chevallier
• Vintage webbing belt with tan leather 
• I think that’s it but do shout if I’ve missed anything!

All photography by Jamie Ferguson, taken in various parts of Chennai, India.