Every brand uses the word standard. We want to be specific about what we mean by it.
The Standard Collection is not CB's entry point. It is CB's benchmark. The pieces in it represent what we consider the correct way to do something. Not the most expensive way. Not the most technical way. The way that, once you have it, makes you slightly impatient with everything you owned before it.
The thinking behind Standard came together gradually across several cities and a lot of time in hotel rooms, which are a useful environment for understanding what clothing actually has to do. Dubai in the summer, where the temperature outside and the temperature inside are so different that a piece either works across both or becomes a problem. Cape Town in December, where the light is extraordinary and unforgiving and everything reads exactly as it is. London in autumn, where the day changes enough times that a single outfit has to be adaptable without looking like it is trying.
Standard is the collection that survived all of those conditions.
The Oxford in two colourways, white and navy, because those are the two that work everywhere. The merino in the weight that travels without becoming something else in the suitcase. The trousers that hold their line through a flight and a meeting and dinner without requiring anything from you in between.
We called it Standard because we intend it to become yours. Not ours. The benchmark you return to when everything else turns out to be less reliable than it looked in the store.
It is available now. We think you will stop looking after this.
Calton Brown. Covent Garden, London.