Nigel Cabourn AW11 Video

Over the past fourty years Nigel Cabourn has honed his aesthetic and kept true to his design philosophy; designing and manufacturing garments that are produced in the UK to maintain the highest quality, durability and are rich with integrity. Building a brand with roots firmly-established in England, using British fabrics and components and consistently coveting heritage fabrics and techniques.

Nigel Cabourn's Autumn/Winter 2011 collection continues to be fuelled by the inspiration found in his vast archive of original vintage archive pieces; including rare items worn by a multitude of explorers, travellers and militarians.

As is to be expected from Nigel Cabourn, the highlights of the collection are his statement outerwear pieces and this is where the references to his unparalleled archive are most-prominent. Coastal Command Jackets come with bright yellow and orange painted hoods and are made from antique sheepskin, white and khaki Everest Parkas come in Ventile cotton with fur-trimmed hoods and there is a part-Mackintosh jacket inspired by King George during WW1. The oversized all-weather outerwear can be worn layered with a neutral British Army Shirt, khaki Hospital Vest and a mixed knit Two-Tone Vest; with each garment's design fuelled by stories in history and real people, which Cabourn fastidiously re-interprets and modernises whilst staying faithful to the original piece.

LN-CC visited Nigel Cabourn and his team in Newcastle to find out more about the Autumn/Winter 2011 collection. View the Nigel Cabourn A/W11 Collection.

The Autumn/Winter 2011 collection

Nigel Cabourn: So, for Autumn/Winter ’11 we actually decided to do something on the First World War for the first time, we never actually did anything on the First World War because generally clothing from around that period from 1914 to 1918 was quite primitive, So on my research trips I actually found a couple of First World War pieces in an old vintage place in Japan and a couple of British Army pieces and I couldn’t believe how great they were and how inspirational they were, so I decided that I would do a whole collection based on 1914 to 1918. The main iconic person of the First World War collection actually is King George V, obviously King George V was a real character and he was actually the father of our Queen Elizabeth, so he was quite an iconic guy and as you know the Cabourn product really bases its whole history on iconic characters – we are not really talking about people like David Beckham, we are talking about real people, real explorers.

Nigel Cabourn’s King George Coat

Nigel Cabourn: So we’ve done a fantastic King George Coat based on King George and so we’ve actually made this coat with a special pocket here on the side because people used to put a lot of things in pockets, they didn’t have big briefcases and things like we have today, so it used to have huge pockets and there was always a lot in the pockets. So this coat got a huge pocket to the side and of course this guy used to fly airplanes as well so he actually used to fly in open planes as well so he is putting his maps in there, so this is a really interesting coat and it’s made out of really old warm wool, it’s actually proper British wool as well, really thick and heavy.

View the King George Coat.

Nigel Cabourn’ s Coastal Command Jackets

Nigel Cabourn: We also have a very special jacket here. This really has an interesting story as well to it because it was actually used by the gunners and the gunners would be in their box and you may have another gunner very near this box so obviously it was quite easy to shoot your own men so this actual sheepskin jacket was worn during the war period and was hand-painted on the hood at the back because otherwise you could get shot at the back of the head so obviously you would see your fellow guy by the yellow hood all hand-painted. This is obviously a great jacket, very unusual and we’re also doing it with a painted orange hood on the back as well, so there’s a choice of two colours.

View the Coastal Command Jacket with yellow hood or the Coastal Command Jacket with orange hood.