Corduroy has spent most of its life being underestimated. At various points in history it was the fabric of Egyptian weavers, English mill workers, university professors, The Beatles, and Daniel Craig as James Bond. That’s a pretty good CV for something most people associate with their dad’s weekend jacket.
But Corduroy is making a comeback. Its’ warm, textured, durable and looks damn good when worn correctly.
Here are some cord essentials for every man’s wardrobe.
The Corduroy Sports Jacket
A well-cut cord sports jacket in a mid-brown, olive or navy is one of the most versatile things you can own. It works over a shirt and chinos for something smart-casual, over a crew neck knit for a weekend with some effort to it or thrown over a plain white tee.
The texture does something a wool blazer cannot by adding visual depth to it. Go for a mid-wale cord (around 11 ridges per inch) in a structured but unlined cut. Brands like Oliver Spencer, Margaret Howell and Corridor do excellent versions. For something more accessible, Uniqlo’s cord blazers punch well above their price point and avoid anything too stiff or boxy, the jacket should feel relaxed, not like you borrowed it from someone larger.
The Corduroy Pants
The piece with the most history are the pants. Corduroy pants spent decades being the thing your dad wore on a Sunday, and that association is not entirely gone, so the trick is in the cut and the colour.
Opt for slim or straight leg, not tapered too aggressively. A fine to mid-wale cord in a neutral, tan, camel, forest green or burgundy, all work particularly well and are harder to get wrong than navy or black which can read more casual. Wear them like you would a good pair of chinos, with a shirt tucked in and loafers for something put together, with a heavy knit and boots for something more rugged. The one thing to avoid is the full corduroy suit unless you genuinely know what you are doing, which most people do not, and that is fine.
The Corduroy Shirt
Underrated and underused. A corduroy shirt in a lighter weight fabric, usually a fine wale, sits in an interesting space between an overshirt and a casual button-down. Worn open over a tee it functions like a shirt-jacket. Buttoned up with the collar open it is a relaxed standalone top that has more texture and warmth than a standard Oxford cloth shirt.
Earth tones work best here, burnt orange, tan, olive. It is a piece that rewards simplicity everywhere else in the outfit and Brands like Gitman Vintage and Portuguese Flannel make particularly good versions. It is not an everyday piece but on the right day (usually a cold one) in the right company it is the thing people ask about.
The Corduroy Baseball Cap
The most surprising piece on the list and the one that has quietly become a staple for the men who understand what Loro Piana’s $490 cord cap is actually saying. You do not need to spend $490 on a cap unless you’re Kendall Roy, rather the point is the material and the shape.
A structured six-panel baseball cap in a fine cord, in stone, navy or olive, is a very different thing to the same cap in polyester or cotton twill. This will go with anything, wear it with an overcoat, a puffer or a plain tee. Corridor, Aimé Leon Dore and, if the budget allows, Loro Piana all do good versions.
Where It Came From
The roots go back to ancient Egypt, around 200 AD, where weavers in the city of Al-Fustat developed a heavy, brushed fabric called fustian. It made its way to Europe through Italian and Spanish merchants during the Middle Ages, where it was used to line the gowns of the wealthy. Henry VIII owned several fustian garments, which tells you it started with some class.
The ridged texture we recognise today as corduroy came later, developed in the cotton mills of Manchester during the 18th century. The name itself is a point of debate, with the popular theory that it derives from the French corde du roi, meaning cord of the king, which sounds plausible and elegant and is almost certainly made up by British merchants trying to sell more fabric. The more likely explanation is that it comes from cord and duroy, a coarse English wool of the era. Either way, the rest of Europe called it Manchester, which tells you where most of it was coming from.
By the 19th century it had become the fabric of the working class, worn by farmers, labourers and factory workers for its durability. The academics and professors got hold of it next, which gave it a slightly stuffy reputation it has been trying to shake ever since. Then in the 1960s, The Beatles wore it. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, the whole lot. The British government’s President of the Board of Trade at the time actually credited the Beatles with saving the British corduroy industry.
The 70s made it mainstream, the 80s overcorrected with too much colour, the 90s paired it with flannel shirts and called it grunge. Then in 2021, Daniel Craig wore a slim-fitting stretch corduroy suit in No Time To Die and reminded everyone what the fabric actually looked like when worn properly. Since then it has not really looked back.