Ben Cobb has been many things in his career - currently men’s editor-at-large of The Sunday Times Style and Esquire’s style columnist, he’s been editor-in-chief of The Evening Standard magazine, Another Man and LOVE, a consultant to fashion brands and creative director. And with his unique style - a bit louche, a bit seventies, a particularly British kind of flamboyant glam - he’s an easily recognisable style icon. But perhaps not the person you expect to find in a small country village.
‘In 2024, I was coming up to 50 and felt like I needed a change. I wasn’t bored of London, but I was bored of myself in London,’ he explains, outlining the circumstances that led to him and his wife trading the capital city for a village in Oxfordshire. ‘We don’t have kids, there’s nothing tying us to London. So we bit the bullet and moved here permanently. It’s been a life-changing move, to be honest.’ However, Cobb quickly realised that living in the sticks was going to present different challenges to an urban existence: ‘It was the first night we moved in. It was pitch black, and there was a really heavy storm and when it rained, the front of our place flooded. So I had to go out in pelting rain and clear the drains. And it quickly became very apparent that I didn’t have anything practical to wear…’
Luckily for Cobb, a close neighbour of his is Aubin’s founder and chairman Pete Williams, who’s always had an interest in that point where the country and the city collide (after all, he owns a tractor and a men’s fashion label). So once Cobb had dried off and found the local pub, a friendly discussion between the two led to a professional collaboration in the form of this new Aubin collection.
What resulted isn’t ‘practical’ in the sense of wax-jackets-and-wellies-by-the-door but then given Cobb’s own style, it was probably never going to be. Instead, his collection is a love letter to that period when London’s creative set fled the city to get it together in the country, stood out a mile, but somehow made their flared suits, big scarfs, caps and sports cars work in the shires. Think Led Zeppelin decamping to Bron-y-Aur, Keith Richards at Redlands, George Harrison meditating in deepest Oxfordshire, Roger Daltrey buying a trout farm and Rod Stewart nipping around the country lanes in a sports car en route to Elton John’s new place. Mud splashed on the Roller, a bit of dog hair on the corduroy, but still looking like a star while the village fete goes on around you.
To find out more about this world, its inspiration and the clothes that they’ve created, we got the pair together for the Almanac. Along with Aubin’s creative director Rachel Silvester and editorial director Justin Quirk, they sat down to discuss the project.
FIRST ENCOUNTERS
JQ: Pete, how did you first encounter Ben in the locality?
PW: It’s a very typical countryside village in that it’s very lovely, but it’s not very culturally diverse. I was at an annual garden party one of the neighbours holds, and then across the garden I saw Ben. And with the greatest respect I was like ‘Who the fuck is that?’ He wasn’t exactly blending into his surroundings. But then we got to know each other and I absolutely love what he does and what we’ve done together so far.
JQ: People often think of fashion as a city thing, but the countryside has its own codes and styles as well, doesn’t it?
PW: Massively. Just as much as the city does. And what I think is really interesting is the crossover point, which is slightly a reflection of the modern world that we live in.
BC: I didn’t really think a lot about the practicalities before moving here - I always have the romantic idea in my head, but it was immediately apparent that having practical things to wear should be on my list of things to do.
THE COLLECTION
JQ: So is the idea that these clothes work between both the countryside life and the city life?
PW: The toffs have been doing this forever - everyone needs a combination of countryside and city. How you do it and what the relative ratios are is horses for courses. But the country is amazing for what it’s amazing at, and the city is amazing for what it’s amazing at, and how you combine those two things is your choice. That crossover, I think, is really interesting.
BC: In terms of location, I zip in and out of London a lot for work, you know, and on a good day with the wind behind me, I can be in Soho in not much over 90 minutes. So needing a wardrobe that works for hopping in and out of town and back, it really refines those elements.
JQ: And working with Douglas Cordeaux of the cloth makers Fox Brothers and William Bliss has been another big part of this story, hasn’t it?
PW: I love really long relationships, and I’ve worked with Douglas for years. Fox Brothers is the most unbelievable kind of mill, a piece of British industrial textile history. It was so powerful that it had its own currency, they invented flannel, it made fortunes over the years and Douglas acquired it with Deborah Meaden in 2009. I was just fascinated and inspired and excited by it. And so we’d started doing stuff together around then, but he’d recently told me about them also relaunching William Bliss which is a tweed mill that was based very close to here and goes back to 1756. So it’s all local. It’s a really cool story and that authenticity is a big part of it.
BC: We were there looking through these amazing swatch books, going right back to the 1700s. It’s incredible how some of the patterns feel really modern and contemporary, so vibrant and colourful. I was expecting a musty old kind of palette, but it’s really jazzy.
THE COLLABORATION
JQ: How different a way of working was this for you all?
BC: Projects like this are always about trust on both sides. As soon as I met Rachel we got on really well and there was a dialogue that made sense.
RS: The way the clothes are made is really important. The overcoats are made in East London. The suits and the cord trousers are made in London with Fashion Enter [an award-winning UK fashion manufacturing and skills social enterprise, which combines ethical garment manufacturing with technical training, apprenticeships and qualifications]. They really lead the way with getting people into the industry. Each suit is sewn by a very small team of people, each machinist is in control of all the details, and the fit and silhouette has been meticulously worked on. There’s a real love and attention to detail there.
PW: You’ve got these suits in an English-made William Bliss fabric, with its origins five miles down the road from here, made in a factory five miles down the road from our office. It’s awesome.
JQ: And even the shoot is local, isn’t it?
BC: Chastleton House is a beautiful, very old Jacobean house, that hasn’t been restored. It looks like the family had a party and left. It’s a bit Marie Celeste-like, I love it. There are cracks in the wall, buckets for the leaking roof and really weird 1960s wallpaper in this amazing library. My dream was that we could shoot the campaign for this collection there, so when that happened it was very special.
JQ: And do you have any favourite pieces?
RS: I really like the corduroy trousers. They’re so rich and luxurious. And I’ve got my eye on the massive Harris Tweed overcoat. Kind of a Withnail and I thing that you could go for a walk in the countryside with.
BC: I love it all, and I wear it all. But there’s a William Bliss suit in one of those old jazzy prints that I love. But what’s really great about this collection is how you can break it down. There’s full head to toe looks, but I really love the knitwear, and the strong, wide leg trousers with them. You can really play with the collection.
