Bringing up Baby: three style icons at the top of their game
Given the amount of time I spend holding the baby, I had been thinking about what the appropriate shirt would be. Sea Island is in many ways the perfect choice: it is hard-wearing, thanks to density of the thread, as well as being warm in winter and cool in summer, and the softness of my older shirts would be agreeable to Bumwad Minor when in contact with her skin. However, not only is it exorbitantly expensive, as I think I have already pointed out; it is also rather hard work to iron - and I refuse on principle to allow our lady who 'does for us' anywhere near my shirts. While I would love both a wardrobe that consisted solely of bespoke Sea Island shirts and the leisure to look after them appropriately, that is not likely to happen as long as I have nursery fees and sundry child-related expenses to cover.
A sensible alternative, it occured to me, is cotton flannel, the sort of soft cotton commonly used for pyjamas and country shirts. Now, it is excessively difficult to buy ready-made shirts in anything but the most regretable and garish of checks. Cordings used to do a few subtler checks in their ready-made range, but no longer do so; and the increasingly bizarre Catto & Carter once sold a cream flannel shirt, but has not done so for many years. Indeed, their offerings - apple green and pink Tattersall-type checks, FFS - are among the most offensive available.
A trip to Mrs Willis confirmed that flannel is not really her thing, although she also suggested an Alumo cashmerello, which is much softer and has the similar 'brushed' effect to flannel, but is even more expensive than Sea Island cotton and is harder to maintain to boot. That, frankly, was no solution.
All attempts to rack my brane to think of an alternative source came to nil.
Until, that is, I made the short trip to Hammersmith & Fulham council's registry office to record the birth of Bumwad Minor, the legal requirement and a prelude to the state's maw opening up and regurgitating your own tax money - minus a hefty amount lost to pointless paper-shuffling - back over the proud parents, regardless of income.
The registry office is round the corner from Fulham Broadway tube, and very close to the Moore Park Road premises of Stephan Haroutunian, a Cyprus-based shirtmaker whose business grew up around the British military sovereign bases on the islands in the post-war period. Indeed, his firm made the shirts which, before it was vandalised by General 'Mike' Jackson in his reforms of the early century, my regiment wore in service dress and barrack dress, and a pile of which are rolled up and stuffed into a canvas grip in an outbuilding on my Norfolk estate.
These shirts were of a dark brown cotton twill which, after a couple of washes, is exceptionally soft and comfortable. And, I recalled, as well as the dark brown cloth used by the Highland regiments and the Brigade of Guards, they also have a very pale cream twill used by the Life Guards and Blues and Royals. Here, it occurred to my effete sensibilities, was the solution.
I have therefore visited the shop after dutifully recording the birth of my latest offspring - unlike some people - and ordered two shirts from him, which cost a decidedly reasonable £69 each - cheaper than any of the real Jermyn Street shirtmakers' ready-made offerings - and which are due to arrive in a few days. I will let you know how they turn out.
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