This Six Of The Best series is slowly turning into an outlet for us to speak about activities we know absolutely nothing about, and this week’s activity is sailing.
We’ve always liked the idea of sailing here at Proper, swaggering around some vessel wearing light-coloured trousers and deck shoes seems pretty alright to us, maybe indulging in some alcohol you wouldn’t drink elsewhere, Advocaat or something. But obviously, we’re aware that that’s only one side to sailing – the premium side. The other side is made up of hard blokes getting soaked to the bone catching reems of alien-looking fish out in the North Sea.
For our sailing picks, we’ve tried to blend the two types of sailing – sort of like you’ve departed the harbour with the vision of premium sailing, but suddenly the weather turns and you’re left picking seaweed out of your poncey haircut. So in an effort to account for that, we’ve chucked some genuine weather-ready items into the mix with some more salubrious ones.
So hoist the rigging, look starboard and indulge yourself in some items we think would make you look a pretty smart sailor, without actually knowing anything about the activity.
Wild Things – Makalu Jacket
Pre-empting that the weather conditions are going to be erratic on our sailing trip, we’re centring the outfit around this hefty piece of outerwear from Wild Things. The Makalu Jacket is a beast of a coat – its bright orange three-layer SAITOS nylon shell has been stuffed with 700-fill-power-down, meaning you’ll stay toasty and dry when that big bow wave crashes into the front of your craft. The orange colour means you’ll be one of the buoys when you capsize, and the entourage of zipped pockets mean you can stow a host of important sailing equipment – whatever that is.
Howlin – Taste Of The Future Knit
One of the only things we know for sure about sailors is that they love knitwear. This is because most good knitwear is made of wool, and wool unlike other natural and unnatural fibres can still retain one’s heat when wet, and sailors spend a lot of their time wet. This knit from Antwerp-based label, Howlin, is a lovely rusty orange colour and we’re told is made from Scottish wool – whether that’s sourced from sheep, or the locals’ heads, we don’t know.
Snow Peak – Heavy Cotton Border T-Shirt
One of the only other things we know for sure about sailors is that they also love stripes. After a quick bit of googling, we found out that this is because stripes acted as an early kind of hi-vis – if you fell overboard wearing stripes you had a significantly higher chance of being rescued. We’re assuming this rule only applies when wearing stripes that are a different colour to the sea though, and these aren’t. Oops.
KAVU – Chilliwack Pant, Japan Edition.
KAVU comes from sailing heritage, their first item, the Strapcap was made to combat the high wind speeds KAVU’s founder, Barry Barry, experienced whilst working on boats. So that’s partly why we’ve included these KAVU pants in this list, but they’re also here because of that perfect premium-sailing cream colour. These Chilliwack pants are a Japanese take on a KAVU classic – what we’re not sure of is the difference from the originals, but what we are sure of is that they contain that Japanese influence that will undoubtedly make them better
KAVU Pickford Beanie
Despite its name, this beanie has no relation to the Everton goalkeeper. It is relevant to our outfit though because it matches the jacket. Not much more to be said about this KAVU beanie other than it looks thick, warm and wonderful.
Paraboot – Thiers/Jannu
There was only one real contender for the type of footwear for this instalment – boat shoes. Originally we were going to opt for some lightweight deck shoes for our sailing outfit, but then we thought they would be no good when the deck inevitably ends up all slippy and wet. So that led us to pick these lovely cleats from Paraboot – they still retain that boat shoe appearance but have that lugged sole that Paraboot is synonymous with.
