-Sir J.A. Foster, Jeffersonian America (1811)

Augustus John Foster, British ambassador to the United States
in 1811, travels the young country, is most impressed with Connecticut.

“There is a cleanliness and an English air about everything,” he writes, “even to the labourers who take off their hats in passing you, which one meets with nowhere else.”

Those to whom the hats are tipped (known as “the Standing Order”) can do as they please, of course, as long as they don’t frighten the horses; a fact still remembered in some Nutmeg State circles.

Here, for example, is the outfit our own Connecticut Lady is wearing to this year’s Blessing of the Hounds. Nothing really matches, exactly, and yet it all works together quite nicely.

That’s the way she likes it.

English Wool Jacket (No. 2493). Lancashire fabric looks like robust tweed, feels soft to the touch. Shapely princess seams. Intrepid epaulettes, double-breasted front. With self belt, satin lining. Imported.

Pairs well with The Taffeta Silk Skirt (No. 2546).