Drake's does not arrive all at once. The London house ships its autumn in three drops, and this fall the first two are on the floor on Whyte Avenue, the autumn box of ties and a second tweed blazer landed this month, and the winter pieces follow before the month is out. Here is what landed, what is still to come, and how to size it.
How a Drake's season arrives
We write the Drake's order in January, at the showroom on Savile Row, for goods that will not exist for another eight months. The house then makes it in waves. The transitional pieces come first, the things you can wear in September: a tweed blazer, a check shirt, the scarves and squares. The autumn drop follows with the heavier ties and the second blazer. The winter drop closes the season with the outerwear, the cord and the canvas, the pieces that only make sense once there is frost on the windshield.
Alongside the season we place a stock order for the perennials, the shirts and denim Drake's makes every year, so the wall never empties between drops. Three things on this page are seasonal repeats that we bring in on our regular shipments: the button-down shirts, the ties and the Tweed Games Blazer. If the size you want is not showing online, ask. We can add it to the next regular shipment rather than waiting for a new season. This fall the perennial restock and the transitional drop both landed in September. The autumn box landed in mid-October. The winter drop ships from London on 21 October, which puts it on our floor at the start of November. If you want something from the second half of this page, tell us and we will hold it when it lands.
On the floor now: the shirt wall
Drake's started in 1977 making ties, and when the house finally made a shirt, the button-down was the first thing it made. Ours come out of the factory Drake's bought in Chard, Somerset, in 2013, about forty people sewing eighteen pieces to a pattern with single-needle seams and the mother-of-pearl buttons whipped on by hand. The collar is the point: a brushed interlining floats inside it rather than being glued flat, so the points roll over the button and keep rolling wash after wash.
Three of them are on the wall. The ice blue oxford is the one to build a wardrobe around: under a navy blazer on Monday, open over a tee on Saturday. The ecru pinpoint is the oxford for the man who finds the standard cloth a bit much under a jacket, a finer yarn and a tighter weave with a faint sheen, and ecru is the shade we reach for under tweed when white reads too stiff. The light blue chambray is the one we would hand you if you asked for a single shirt that earns its keep every week of the year.
The ecru pinpoint and the ice blue oxford. Same collar, two weights of cloth.
For the weekend there is the grey long-point two-pocket check, a cotton and silk work shirt with a quiet sheen that tucks into flannels or hangs loose over denim, and the grey merino knit polo, fine-gauge Italian merino with a three-button placket that does the job of a shirt under a jacket from now until spring. The polo runs large, so take one size down from your usual knit.
The Games Blazer, and the tweed under it
If Drake's has one defining garment it is the Games Blazer: unstructured, no shoulder pad, the barest chest canvas, three patch pockets and a soft roll to the lapel. It wears like a cardigan and reads like a sport coat. This season's first one is the Tweed Western in a black and white check, a substantial virgin wool with a lively surface, built for cold weekends over a chambray shirt and denim, or dressed up over grey flannels and a knit tie.
The Tweed Western Games Blazer, in Drake's own photograph. Unstructured, three patch pockets, horn buttons.
Under it, or on its own, the Harris Tweed one-pleat games trouser: a grey herringbone woven on the Outer Hebrides, cut in Italy with a single forward pleat, a two-button extended waistband and a finished turn-up. It is weighty enough for a January walk and easy enough to wear with a shetland and suede boots. We hem in house, and we leave the allowance in.
Harris Tweed, close and whole. The herringbone reads grey from a step back and black and white up close.
Denim cut by a tailoring house
Drake's denim is drafted with the proportions of a trouser, which is the whole point of it. The indigo rinse five-pocket sits a touch higher on the waist than most, with room through the thigh and a gentle taper below the knee, so a tucked oxford and a sport coat land where they should. The cloth is a 14.2 ounce selvedge woven on shuttle looms in Okayama and dyed with natural indigo, sewn in Portugal and rinsed once to soften the hand. Heavy enough to fade properly, without the plank stiffness of a raw pair. The stone wash is the same cloth, further along, and the stone wash welder jacket is its jacket.
The indigo rinse five-pocket and the Crosby chukka, which is the boot we put under it.
The boot under all of it is the Crosby moc toe chukka: a three-eyelet desert boot with a moccasin seam stitched around the vamp, which gives it workwear backbone next to tweed and keeps it clean next to jeans. Soft brown suede, unlined so it moulds to the foot inside a week, on a crepe sole that is quiet and forgiving on pavement.
Ties, squares and a scarf
The ties are still made by hand in London, the edges rolled and slip-stitched so the blade moves. On the wall now: the navy tussah silk, raw spun with the slub left in so it knots softer than a formal silk, the charcoal cashmere for flannel and tweed, and the grenadines and polka dots that never leave. The archival animals scarf in blue and olive, a wool and silk print from the Drake's archive long enough to loop once, has already sold, and the two pocket squares, the dogs and the folk rider, are hand-rolled wool-silk on an ecru ground that reads as a warm neutral from a step back and a menagerie up close.
From the Drake's autumn campaign: the tie against a pale blue oxford, and a brown print against navy. Drake's photographs.
The archival animals scarf and the dogs pocket square, in Drake's own photographs.
The autumn box has landed
A box left Savile Row on 9 October with the autumn drop in it, and it is on the floor now. Three ties for the cold months: an oxford weave wool tie in navy and grey, a Shetland herringbone in brown, and a cashmere and cotton stripe in brown, gold and red. With them, the second Games Blazer of the season, the MKVII in a brown and green houndcheck tweed, the same unstructured make as the black and white, in a colour that was built for rust cords and a cream shirt. We have two of each tie, and the blazer in 38R, 40R and 42R. The ties and the Games Blazer repeat, so if your size is not there, ask and we can add it to a regular shipment.
The Games Blazer as Drake's wears it, patch pockets and a soft shoulder. Drake's photograph.
Due at the end of the month
The winter drop ships from London on 21 October. This is the part of the season we bought for January. A single-breasted raglan herringbone overcoat in dark brown, the first proper overcoat we have taken from Drake's. A lined canvas Western chore in brown and a check-lined corduroy trucker in tobacco, the two jackets for the weeks between the Games Blazer and the overcoat. A stripe American button-down in ecru and grey, a navy and tobacco check in the same long-point two-pocket cut as the grey, a slate quarter-zip sweat with a drawstring hem, a denim grenadine tie, and two caps, a brown cord D 1977 and a Scotty twill.
The campaign's long-point check shirt and a lined canvas chore: the winter drop in Drake's own photographs.
None of these are on the site yet because none of them are in the building yet. If one of them is yours, tell us your size and we will set it aside the day it lands. The seasonal pieces are made in small runs, so the first week is usually the best week for a size. The shirts and ties repeat and can be reordered.
Sizing Drake's
The collar-sized shirts run in Drake's own collar scale, from 14 to 18 with a single quarter size at 15.75, and the regular silhouette is true to size with real room through the chest. Order your usual collar. The Drake's size guide has the measured chart, half chest and sleeve, for every collar. The check shirts, the knit polo and the sweats are lettered, and the polo is the one piece that runs large. Jackets and the blazers take your sport coat chest size. Denim takes your true waist, since the five-pocket is cut roomier than a slim jean and the heavy selvedge gives half an inch with wear. The Crosby is listed in US sizes and runs snug: go a half size up from your usual, and since we stock whole sizes, a 9.5 takes the 10. The box arrives stamped in UK sizing, one number below, which is the right boot and not a picking error.
Every size gets a second look before it ships. If you are between two numbers, or buying a Drake's shirt for the first time, send us your collar and chest and we will pick it with you.