Anchor Intarsia 4-Bar V-Neck Vest — White, Size 1 / S

Thom Browne's knitwear runs on a small, fixed vocabulary: the 4-Bar stripe, the red, white and blue grosgrain tab, the half-drop repeat. The anchor is one of the motifs he returns to most, a piece of East Coast prep borrowed from the yacht club and the school crest. Most of the house's anchor knits keep it small, a single emblem at the chest. This vest does the opposite. It scales the anchor up and scatters it across the whole body in a half-drop intarsia, so the pattern reads from across a room rather than up close.

It is knitted in white cotton, with the anchors worked into the fabric in navy and red rather than printed or appliquéd on top, so the colour runs through the knit itself. A deep V-neck and ribbed armholes keep the shape clean, and a wide ribbed hem opens at each side seam into a short vent closed with a pair of white buttons, the side detail Thom Browne uses on his cricket sweaters. The navy 4-Bar stripe runs over the left shoulder, and the grosgrain tab sits at the back neck. Made in Italy.

Read it as the cricket vest put through Thom Browne's sense of proportion: a classic preppy layer, enlarged in pattern until it becomes the statement, yet still disciplined enough to sit over a white oxford shirt and grey flannel trousers. It is uniform dressing with a sense of humour. Size 1 (S).