The Gentlemen: Cordings Returns for a Starring Role in Series Two

The Netflix series The Gentlemen has won praise for its sartorial style with key pieces from Cordings used to create its signature look. As Guy Ritchie’s gloriously stylish drama returns for Series Two, Cordings once again plays its part in dressing the Hornimans and their increasingly colourful circle. This series, the characters of The Gentlemen have changed considerably and so have their wardrobes.

There has always been rather more to the clothes in The Gentlemen than meets the eye.

When Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series first introduced us to the Horniman family, their wardrobes immediately established the world they inhabited: beautifully cut tweed, substantial knitwear, tattersall shirts, silk scarves and clothes that looked as though they had belonged in the family, or at least the family wardrobe, for years. It was recognisably British country clothing, but never quite played straight.

That was very much the intention of costume designer Loulou Bontemps (find her on Instagram @maisonbontemps), whose brilliantly observed combination of traditional country clothes, vintage finds, tailoring and unexpected styling has become as much a signature of the series as its country houses, fast cars and criminal enterprises. But the Hornimans are only one part of the sartorial world she has created. Bontemps uses clothes to establish the many different tribes that inhabit The Gentlemen, subtly shifting the visual language to reveal where each character comes from, where they sit in the social hierarchy and, increasingly, where they are heading.

Her talent for storytelling through clothes extends far beyond the tweeds and tailoring of the establishment. From the evolution of Susie Glass’s increasingly assured wardrobe to those scene-stealing earrings in the sauna, every detail reveals an instinctive understanding of the social cues clothing provides, signalling status, confidence and character before a word is spoken.

For Series Two, the clothes have moved on with their owners. Bontemps describes the first series as the “baby version” of the wardrobe, with the second becoming its more sophisticated, and considerably more troublesome, adolescent incarnation. It is a fitting analogy. A year has passed and Eddie Horniman is no longer the reluctant Duke who discovers that his ancestral estate is sitting on top of a cannabis empire. He and Susie Glass are now actively expanding the business, including into Italy, while Eddie is simultaneously attempting to increase his influence within the British establishment.

The wardrobes have grown up with them. And we are delighted to report that Cordings has gone along for the ride.

Playing the Part: Cordings Outfits from the Gentlemen

Eddie Horniman: from reluctant Duke to man of ambition

When we first meet Theo James’s Eddie Horniman in Series One, he is an army captain and former UN peacekeeping officer who finds himself unexpectedly inheriting the family title, estate and a criminal enterprise he most certainly did not ask for. His clothes reflect him perfectly. Eddie understands the codes of his world instinctively, but he doesn’t need to make a performance of them. His country clothes are restrained, comfortable and reassuringly traditional.

Series Two’s Eddie is a rather different proposition.

The reluctant participant has become an increasingly ambitious one. Netflix describes him as no longer merely “finding his footing” in the criminal underworld but actively attempting to scale his empire; by the end of the series, his journey has taken him into altogether darker territory. His wardrobe has evolved accordingly. The underlying codes remain, excellent cloth, British tailoring, country references, but everything feels more assured. Even Eddie’s watches have changed: Bontemps has explained that Series One centred on inherited pieces, while Series Two reflects a man who has acquired money, power and the confidence to use both.

The Shawl Collar Cardigan

And yet one old friend makes a rather memorable return, Cordings Shawl Collar Cardigan. Worn at home, it was exactly the sort of thing one might expect an off-duty Duke to own: relaxed enough for a whisky in the library, smart enough should someone unexpectedly appear at the door. Indeed, Eddie’s cardigan became something of a star in its own right, with the success of the first series creating a surge of interest in both it and other Cordings pieces worn by the cast.

It reappears in Series Two under circumstances for which, we feel obliged to point out, it was not originally designed. After Eddie is beaten, left for dead and buried alive, the cardigan accompanies him on his distinctly undignified journey back to civilisation. Cordings has been making clothes capable of standing up to the British countryside since 1839, but even we would consider this something of an extreme product test. Should His Grace find himself crawling across several miles of shrubland again, might we suggest a field coat and a sturdy pair of boots? Bare feet and Scottish knitwear really ought to be considered a last resort.

The cardigan has something of a story arc of its own: from respectable gentleman’s off-duty kit in Series One to unlikely survival wear in Series Two, as Eddie quite literally scrabbles his way back to civilisation.

Lady Sabrina: the Dowager gets a contemporary edge

If Eddie’s wardrobe charts his growing ambition, Lady Sabrina Horniman’s clothes reveal something rather different.

Joely Richardson’s Dowager Duchess was one of the sartorial joys of Series One. Her wardrobe established her immediately as mistress of the estate: beautifully judged tweeds, fitted shirts, velvet trousers, practical country footwear and those magnificent silk scarves, tied with the sort of insouciance that cannot easily be taught. Bontemps has previously described Lady Sabrina’s wardrobe as one of her favourites, and said that she chose Cordings because of its quintessentially British character, workmanship, textures and colours.

In Series One, our Wincanton Tweed became one of Sabrina’s defining looks. She wears the jacket with its matching waistcoat and trousers, but also separates the pieces and combines them with knitwear, shirts and country clothing. It is exactly how good tweed ought to be worn: not as a precious “outfit”, but as part of a working wardrobe.

The Wincanton Suit – Series One

The Wincanton also demonstrates something central to Sabrina’s character. She may be an aristocrat living in a magnificent house, but she is no museum piece. Her clothes have heritage, certainly, but she wears them with wit and individuality.

Series Two pushes that idea further.

The Corduroy Jacket – Series Two

The silhouette becomes a little more contemporary and, in one particularly wonderful appearance, Richardson wears our Men’s York Corduroy Jacket, teamed with a blue denim shirt and silk cravat. It shouldn’t necessarily work. It absolutely does.

There is something particularly appropriate about Sabrina borrowing from the men’s side of the wardrobe. By Series Two we understand much more clearly that beneath the impeccably mannered exterior sits a woman who is independent, observant and considerably less conventional than appearances initially suggested. For those wishing to borrow the idea rather than the actual men’s jacket, our Appleton corduroy ladies suit offers a similarly rich, textural approach in a women’s cut. And yes, her scarf tying remains exemplary.

A tale of two tweed suits

Perhaps nowhere is the changing world of The Gentlemen better illustrated than through two Cordings three-piece tweed suits.

The Redcar Suit Look – Series One

In Series One, Alexis Rodney’s impeccably dressed Emory Stevens wears our Redcar Tweed Suit. Stevens is the loyal manservant of American billionaire Stanley Johnston, a man fascinated by the British aristocracy and determined to acquire a piece of it for himself. The lighter-weight Yorkshire-woven Redcar, worn with our Classic Oxford Shirt in yellow, gives Stevens an immaculate, almost studied interpretation of the British tweed suit. Its finer, worsted cloth and lighter, ‘urban’ weight lend it a polish that feels considered rather than overtly country: everything is precise, everything is in its place.

The Firley Herringbone Suit

Series Two brings us a very different gentleman, and a very different tweed.

Hugh Bonneville joins the cast as Lord Hawthorne, a well-connected member of the House of Lords who inhabits the establishment world Eddie increasingly wants to penetrate. Netflix describes Hawthorne as a man prepared to engage with criminals, but very much “on his own terms”. And what does one wear while occupying the rather murky territory between the British establishment and the criminal underworld? A Cordings three-piece tweed suit, naturally.

Bonneville wears our Firley three-piece suit, one of the enduring tweeds of the Cordings collection. More substantial and emphatically country in character, it looks completely at home on Hawthorne, teamed with a tattersall shirt, silk tie and pocket handkerchief. Bontemps has specifically revealed that Cordings was one of the British brands she returned to for Series Two, and that she sourced pieces from us particularly for Lord Hawthorne aptly stating ‘when you walk in there you feel like you’re in a gentlemen’s club’. The result is a masterclass in how traditional British clothes can help establish a character almost instantaneously. Hawthorne doesn’t look as though he has dressed as a member of the establishment. He looks as though these are simply the clothes he has always owned.

Which, in the world of The Gentlemen, is an important distinction.

Then there is Freddy.

Freddy’s wardrobe told us almost everything we needed to know about him before he opened his mouth: privileged, impulsive, flamboyant and perpetually liable to turn an otherwise ordinary morning into an incident.

In Series One, Daniel Ings’s chaotic elder Horniman brother provided some of the programme’s greatest sartorial moments.

The Follifoot Coat – Series One

Who could forget him striding around the estate, shotgun in hand, wearing a Cordings Follifoot Donegal Coat over a tattersall Shirt, Shooting Stockings and a tweed cap worn backwards? It was country-house dressing with all the rules technically present and absolutely none of them being obeyed. That was precisely why it worked.

Series Two gives us a rather different Freddy. At moments he appears almost angelic, wearing the same tattersall shirts and Scottish lambswool as in series one, but in a properly put together way. Cosy, traditional and reassuring. Do not be fooled, Freddy is plotting, and by the season’s conclusion he has become involved in events that make his Series One misdemeanours look positively restrained. It is a lovely piece of costume misdirection: the clothes become calmer as the character becomes capable of rather more extreme chaos.

Clothes that tell the story

That, ultimately, is what makes the costume design in The Gentlemen so successful. These aren’t simply beautiful clothes placed on beautiful people. The wardrobes tell us who the characters are, where they come from and, increasingly, who they are becoming.

Series One introduced a world of inherited houses, inherited clothes and inherited responsibilities. Series Two asks what happens when those characters stop merely inheriting their world and begin attempting to reshape it.

Eddie becomes sharper and more powerful. Sabrina takes the traditions of country dressing and bends them increasingly to her own character. Freddy looks reassuringly cosy while becoming anything but. And Lord Hawthorne arrives already perfectly dressed for a world in which old-fashioned establishment power and distinctly modern criminality sit surprisingly comfortably alongside one another.

Throughout it all, tweed, corduroy, tattersall, lambswool and beautifully made British clothing remain the visual language that ties their world together. As Theo James himself has said, style is a significant part of The Gentlemen: details as minute as collar shapes, patterns, colours and buttons are discussed in creating the characters.

At Cordings, naturally, we utterly approve. Although we may never look at our navy shawl-collar cardigan in quite the same way again.