Men in summer: thirty-eight degrees and a line

In July in Algiers, a man who has to go to work, stop at the bank and have dinner with his in-laws has a problem the magazines ignore: it is thirty-eight degrees in the shade, and he still wants to look like a grown-up. The Casbah collection starts from that very problem, and from three simple ideas.

First idea: a T-shirt with some backbone

A thin T-shirt loses its shape on day one and clings on day two. Ours is knitted in Algiers in a heavy two-hundred-and-forty-gram cotton that keeps its shoulders and its length after fifty washes: Heavyweight cotton tee. It is worn alone, tucked into pleated trousers, and walks into an office without apology. For days that call for a collar, the knitted cotton polo breathes better than a piqué: Cotton knit polo.

Second idea: fullness, but held

The air has to move, so the cuts widen. But a wide cut that does not hold becomes pyjamas. The pleated wide trousers hold by their four laid pleats and their linen-cotton cloth: they move with every step and stay sharp at the waistband: Wide pleated trousers. The Cuban-collar shirt, cut wide, falls to the elbow and is not tucked in — it was designed to be worn out: Camp-collar textured linen shirt.

Third idea: a jacket that rolls up

There is always a moment in summer that calls for a jacket: a wedding, a meeting, an air-conditioned dinner. The unstructured linen-cotton jacket has no shoulder pads and no interfacing. It rolls into a bag, loses its creases in an hour on a hanger, and goes over a T-shirt as well as a shirt: Unstructured linen-cotton jacket.

Shorts, all the same

Shorts have a place in the city: pleated, stopping above the knee, worn with a shirt rather than a vest. Ours were cut for Friday at the market and Saturday at a café terrace, not for the office: Pleated linen shorts. In the evening, drawstring trousers in washed linen do the same job at a decent length: Linen drawstring trousers.

The two accessories that matter

A vegetable-tanned leather belt that takes on a patina instead of cracking: Vegetable-tanned leather belt. And a canvas and leather tote, so you can stop filling your trouser pockets: Canvas and leather tote. The rest — watch, sunglasses, sandals — is yours.

The colours

In summer, pale colours throw the heat back and dark ones keep it: that is physics before it is taste. So the collection runs from limewash white to ochre and tobacco, with ink for the evening. A tone-on-tone outfit, sand on sand, is the coolest and most elegant thing a man can wear in August.