I was going to refer to this as a camelhair jacket, but camelhair comes in a few colours, including navy, black and brown. The camelhair shown here is perhaps the classic one – the best known – so referring to that as camel-coloured seems accurate. But let me know if that doesn’t make sense. 

So, camel. A light yellow/brown colour that is usually harder to wear than similar colours we’d normally recommend such as:

Biscuit, like my jacket here, which is equally light but browner and less saturated
Tobacco, like my suit here, which is orangey and saturated, but not as bright
or Oatmeal, like my jacket here, which is basically the same as camel but washed out

It helps that we’re familiar with camel from polo coats or from other coats like this one. But in a blazer it’s slightly showier, and this particular (beautiful) camelhair from Piacenza is also a slightly lighter shade. So it needs a little thought.

I had the jacket made by Sartoria Ciardi a couple of months ago – not the best timing for the summer perhaps, but then English summers are still very unpredictable. So far my favourite things to wear it with have been light-blue jeans, washed black jeans and mid-grey flannels; with white, cream or black on top.

Above is my favourite of the lot: wider, light-blue jeans with a white western shirt from Bryceland’s and on the feet snuff-suede boots from Ugolini. 

I like the more casual look of the western shirt with the jeans, and the extra visual detail of the snaps. A white oxford button-down looked a bit plain by comparison. 

The boots seem similarly casual – a better fit than loafers – and the snuff suede picks up some of that yellowness in the jacket. 

Equally attractive on top is a cream knit, like the Rubato one above. Knitwear like this is especially complementary when there’s a melange of yarn colours – different shades of cream and white and grey.

Below the waist, washed black jeans work nicely although an off-white shirt (I wear the Rubato ecru work shirt) is better than pure white.

By contrast, mid-grey flannels are the easiest colour of tailored trouser but they suit a white oxford shirt or even a long-sleeved white polo – there’s something pleasingly country-club about the polo shirt with camel.

On the feet, brown suede works well – best as a boot with the jeans, but as a loafer or derby with the flannels. 

The overall outfit remains showier than most of those alternatives we listed earlier. But on a sunny day it really feels like a celebration of the sun, and it’s still less showy than bright summer options like a light green or baby blue. 

The cloth from Piacenza proved to be a good choice – I haven’t used them much before, but the cashmere and camelhair jacketings are really lovely. This one is from the Dunes book and they’re all mid-weight (340g) with a luxurious-feeling brushed finish. 

We tried our best to get that across in the some of the imagery, such as the high-contrast one below, as it doesn’t always translate online.

Sartoria Ciardi did a great job with the make, but they did suggest widening the shoulders by 0.5cm compared to my previous piece from them – the tobacco-linen suit – and I think that was a mistake. Not the end of the world to have them narrow it again though, and not the kind of thing most people would notice either.

When I was thinking about how to wear the jacket, I had the idea of searching women’s sites, as I recall seeing camel pop up quite a lot on women in recent years. 

That proved fruitful, and I’d recommend it for anything where you feel there’s that crossover. It doesn’t work with subtler menswear colours (shades of brown tweed for example) but where there’s the connection, it’s worth exploring. 

A search online quickly established that women style this jacket in only a few ways – most notably the white shirt or light knit with blue jeans that we discussed first, double denim, and variations on black (very occasionally dark navy). 

Some womenswear combinations will often be too showy – as women can and do that more often – but it’s easy to whittle them down, and good to start with more options rather than less. 

Also, trying them can lead to other ideas: I tried a black knit with black jeans and found it wasn’t for me, but with the off-white shirt it worked, and charcoal was OK in the trousers. Dark navy didn’t work for the bottoms, but it was OK as a knit on the top.

Pinterest can be good too, but I find the quality varies more – great when you do more digging and the site learns what you’re after, but not so effective for a quick snapshot.

Clothes details:

Bespoke jacket from Sartoria Ciardi in Piacenza camelhair, 340g, 4/01 in the Dunes book
Bryceland’s white sawtooth shirt
Vintage Levi’s 501s
Bespoke suede boots from Roberto Ugolini
Vintage tan-leather belt
Rubato summer knit (no longer available)
Bespoke Fox flannel trousers from Whitcomb & Shaftesbury
Shanklin boot in mink suede from Edward Green