Olive Herringbone Cheviot Flat Cap

A flat cap is the piece most men think they cannot pull off, right up until they put one on with a wax jacket and realise it was the part that was missing. This is the version we reach for first in the store: an olive herringbone tweed, quiet enough to wear every day, with a pair of fold-down ear flaps tucked inside the band for the mornings Edmonton turns on you.

The name comes from the Cheviot Hills, the range that runs along the border between Northumberland and Scotland, an hour or so north of the South Shields factory the same family has run for five generations since 1894. Cheviot sheep gave their name to a tightly woven, hard wearing tweed, and the cloth here is cut in that tradition: a wool blend herringbone that holds its shape and shrugs off a bit of weather. Inside, the crown is lined in fleece, which is the part you notice at minus fifteen.

Sizing is by head circumference, and a flat cap should sit snug enough to stay put in a wind without leaving a line across your forehead. Measure around your head just above the ears and eyebrows and take the size that matches. If you land between two sizes, go up, because there is no adjuster on this cap. The ear flaps fold away inside the band and disappear when you do not need them.

Wear it with the Classic Beaufort or the Bedale, a Shetland crew, or a moleskin trouser and a boot. It is the cap that makes a wax jacket look finished.