Welcome to a weekly feature on my blog – Ben’s Zone. Written by husband… Ben. A foodie, coffee obsessed, ex-smoking, ex-drinking and Ridgeback loving Dad. Who is also seriously into his fitness.  You can find him on the blog (most) Sundays. Enjoy 🙂

My Winter Style with Jacamo

There are lots of things to love about the festive season. I enjoy eating, I enjoy cooking and I love winter races and you get tons of those. I also enjoy going out and partying and so it’s a time of year when I’m often out buying new clothes (any excuse really). I work in IT and so for a long time I dressed in really boring clothes, cargo trousers, old T shirts. There’s a sort of reverse snobbery when you work in a technical role, the messier you look, the more senior you are. A few years back I interviewed for a start up in the bay area and turned up, as you’d expect, in a suit. Well, they weren’t expecting that and (I found out from a friend) took to calling me ‘the well dressed Brit’. I decided to capitalise on this and make sure that despite being on the other side of the Atlantic I would always be memorable, so I decided to get a bit stylish.

I can’t claim full credit for my ‘look’, I get a lot of advice from the wife but I do enjoy looking a little different these days. I’m still in IT, albeit on the leadership side now, so I like to be stylish but not overdressed. My basic recipe is simple, I pair smart jeans and boots with a muted waistcoat and make sure that my shirt is nice and bright. When I say bright I mean bright, not loud and not obnoxious.

The clothes I’ve been sent to review from Jacamo this week are a perfect example, rich colour without being too ‘in your face’. Both of the shirts would work perfectly as smart work shirts and, when paired with a nice waistcoat and jacket combination, a smarter look for an evening party or drinks. You’ll notice that one of the shirts is pink, that’s right. Pink is my favourite colour and I wear it a lot. The notion that pink is a ladies only preserve is a remnant of old times that we need to drop, right now.

It’s also cold in winter and so jumpers are the order of the day. I tend to like two kinds, either thin form fitting ones to accentuate a shirt or heavier (warmer) ones with a nice bit of detailing. Here, Jacamo have sent one of each. The lovely Fuschia form fitting jumper is a real statement and one I’d probably wear with a more subdued shirt so that the focus stays on the jumper. The darker jumper has a really nice subtle cable knit. Cable knit is a nice way to get detail into a darker jumper but heavy cables are not my bag at all. A little light cabling is good, looking like my Christmas outfit when I was 5 is not. White cable knit is never ok for me.

So I’m a happy camper this Christmas, I’ve got some new threads to wear out and plenty of opportunities to show them off. It’s not the time of year to be a shrinking violet and so I’m anything but.

*Disclosure: We were sent the above items for the purpose of this review, however, all opinions are my own