At a recent drinks party in Oxfordshire, I counted five men wearing Nehru waistcoats. Not one of these men looked like he was paying homage to the garment’s namesakes, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Not one looked as if they were genuinely taken with Indian fashion nor remotely bothered that they were wearing the same thing.
I detect a hint of smugness in there somewhere, a rather-too-pleased-with-itself appropriation
Puzzled, I thought back to other men I’ve seen rocking the Nehru: Imran Khan, obviously; Nicholas Coleridge, probably; Mick Jagger, surely. I’m not sure what all these men have in common, but their take-up of the Nehru waistcoat has neither surprised nor alarmed me. Politico-cricketers, Condé Nast execs, rock stars – all might wear the Nehru in a sophisticated, got-this-old-thing-in-Simla kind of way. All perfectly normal.
But how has the Nehru made it to Charlbury and beyond? Perhaps it has something to do with our appalling weather and parlous central heating; maybe it is highly desirable, as a man, to have a coat that you are not asked to take off on arrival. But practicalities are not what the Nehru is about, or you’d sooner wear your Schöffel. No, the Nehru is a distinct statement. I’m just not quite sure what it’s saying: I’m well-travelled? I’m a sans jacket radical?
Confused, I ask the Times fashion editor, Hannah Rogers, to set me right. ‘Velvet variations are all but uniform on the thirty-something wedding circuits I traverse, while those without sleeves have become a cornerstone of City wardrobes,’ she says, confirming that I am not imagining their ubiquity. The zeitgeist has pronounced the Nehru as jacket of choice for a certain class of man: City broker, Oxfordshire dad, Gen Z posho. Rogers also reminds me of the Nehru’s astonishing ability to cut across generations: ‘Perhaps what is most seductive about the design, though, is that it offers a twist on the classic dinner jacket without scaring the horses. That is to say: it looks modern, but not trendy.’
Recently, the Nehru has made headlines in the Telegraph. Lord Hugo Manners (see point three above) has set up a company called Joah the sells ‘traditional Indian fashion’ (read: dozens upon dozens of Nehrus). He has been accused of ‘profiting off colonialism’ through his marketing of Indian fashion. From a brocade sofa in a library at Belvoir Castle, Manners has fought back, retorting that his company has always credited its tailors in Jaipur and, to boot, ‘I can’t do anything about where I was born’. Hear, hear.
As a woman, I have little understanding of the prices and places where men shop. Directed to Sirplus by a male friend (a brand that sounds like it’s for plus-size gents but rather prides itself on the surplus fabric it uses), I quickly see that this is another destination for Nehru enthusiasts. Pictures of young men in Nehrus assail me from the website in velvet and wool, set against rural and rugged backdrops – a look achievable for the princely sum of £300 and upwards.
Their expressions are the wan look of all models, but I detect a hint of smugness in there somewhere, a rather-too-pleased-with-itself appropriation. I ask artist Matthew Rice whether I am projecting too much onto the Nehru; whether I have taken against them irrationally. ‘I’m not too sure about the Nehru look,’ he replies, ‘synonymous with the ominous “kitchen sups”, it seems to have taken rather a tweedy hold, a bit like an indoor Schöffel.’
My best guess is that the Nehru has become part of a wider, anti-woke narrative that takes against the frenzied, hand-wringing of institutions such as the National Trust. A symbol of unapologetic affluence, the Nehru is therefore a defiant take-up of Raj, Jewel in the Crown-style. A tacit, if very polite, fingers up to the concept of cultural appropriation in a postcolonial world.
Maybe the Nehru will go the way of all fashions that become too tweedy and come to be seen the sole preserve of the country set, a sartorial anachronism relegated to the provinces like the bohemian look for women. It would be nice, I think rather wistfully, to see men in something with sleeves and a lapel. But then it occurs to me that men probably feel this way about women’s strange and varied fashion trends all the time: my husband regards the stiletto with deep suspicion. In the meantime, I shall keep up my Nehru count, hoping to make it into double digits by the end of the month.
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