If linen’s the official fabric of summer, tweed is definitely its winter counterpart.
Wooly tweeds of the check, twill, or herringbone variety are especially popular this season, as menswear fabrics have made an impressive comeback.
But that doesn’t mean using tweed pieces in your ensembles will make you look masculine.
You’ll look anything but butch suited up in a heather tweed skirt in a soft color like camel, lavender or mint, a jazzy tweed jacket woven of Day-Glo bright woolens, or a sexy, fitted herringbone overcoat. They’re about as femme as you can get.
Where’d she get that?
Tweed clothes are integral to Libby Hruska’s winter wardrobe. “There’s something about it that’s warm,” says the 26-year-old California transplant. “It’s a cozy fabric.” Hruska, who is the manager of the SoHo vintage furniture store Coming to America, got her lavender heather tweed skirt at Claudie Pierlot in Paris, where she lived for a few years up until last January. Her cordova leather jacket was about $200 at Banana Republic and her black nylon bag (it’s embroidered with a large O) was $50 at Refinery, a handbag store located on Smith Street, a popular shopping promenade in Brooklyn.
It’s the little details — including the pocket on the leg of her jeans and the leather trim on her Zara tweed coat — that make Elizabeth Rubin’s outfit pop.
Girl-about-town Nikki Hilton proves that even the most dedicated nightcrawler feels tweedy every once in a while: She hits the party circuit dressed in a conservative camel-colored herringbone skirt.
Society page regular Helen Schifter gives to the tweedy in a large herringbone-patterned top and skirt by Prada.
A nubby plaid tweed coat in a rich mustard color looks great with Patricia Chin’s burgundy trousers.
Model-actress Michelle Hicks gives a sartorial salute to Parisian fashion in a black beret and bright pink and red tweed jacket, in the style popularized by French fashion designer/icon Coco Chanel.
Gili Saar would be welcome in any kindergarten: The intentionally crude fabric cutouts that line the hem of her cute green tweed Kookai skirt look as if they’re the handiwork of an especially creative kid.