How gardening is the latest trend for men's fashion

On the high street, the gardening memo has spread like knotweed, from Carhartt WIP’s multi-pocketed shorts and utility vests to Arket’s wildly popular cotton worker jackets. Lazy Oaf’s latest collection is inspired by ‘veggie patches, allotments and flower beds’. Nope, not blue office shirts and V-necks of the Alan Titchmarsh variety, but T-shirts emblazoned with seed packets and trousers embroidered with tomatoes.

Held in the lush gardens of Villa Reale in Milan, Fendi upped the bucolic ante with groundsmen wearing branded overalls who showed guests to their seats. ‘I wanted to recapture the sense of harmony given to me through nature,’ says the brand’s menswear designer Silvia Venturini Fendi, who keeps a vegetable patch in the label’s HQ in Rome and partnered with film director Luca Guadagnino on the collection. Indeed, the hortibro sits at the centre of the Venn diagram between the breezy, slow-living style of Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name and the functional uniforms of Gardeners World. Think Armie Hammer in half-unbuttoned pastel shirts with rolled-up sleeves meets Monty Don in wellies lovingly planting a sapling and you’re on the right track.

Purveyors of the look include Jaden Smith and Frank Ocean, both partial to a cotton utility vest. Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo are vegetable patch enthusiasts, while Russell Brand has said, ‘I used to have sex 20 times a week. But now I’m a bloody good gardener.’ Why gardening, why now? ‘There’s an ongoing urge to dress for physical activity, even if you’re freelancing on your MacBook over a flat white,’ says Vogue Runway fashion critic, Luke Leitch, who rotovated his Belsize Park garden last summer and will soon be planting beetroots and carrots. ‘Add concerns about the provenance of our food, as well as awareness of the environmental crisis, and gardening feels like a pastime that’s virtuous, altruistic and aspirational. Plus the tools are cool.’

Ian Paley, founder of the pacey boutique Couverture & The Garbstore, agrees. ‘We are all more conscious of our personal consumption and footprint in general — what we wear, do, eat, buy. The gardening man is someone who takes a more considered approach and embraces a slow-living lifestyle.’ For SS20, its in-house label, Garbstore, is packed with Japanese Cordura fabric — durable and designed for the outdoors — as well as garments such as ‘storage’ shorts that feature wrap-around utility pockets.

If it’s tool porn that’ll get you over the line (even Fendi’s womenswear show had tool belts on its catwalk), allow me to point you in the direction of hipster homeware store Labour & Wait (check out its sharp Japanese Hori Hori trowel) and Arket, which has launched gardening equipment for the first time. Expect carbon steel prongs and potting scoops finished with (whisper it) ash wood handles from British stalwarts Kent & Stowe. Anna Teurnell, design manager at Arket, says: ‘Working with the soil and spending time outdoors was on all of our mood boards this season. We found a lot of beauty, coolness and smartness in gardening, which we translated into hats to protect from the sun (or rain), overalls with functional pockets.’

Indeed, what you need are practical pieces in natural fabrics, the sort of thick cotton weave you could wipe your mucky hands on (this will only add to the effect). ‘The gardening look features all the functional elements you might see in streetwear — combat pockets, hammer loops, drawstrings — but the vibe is more organic than synthetic,’ explains Leitch. And if you’re still hankering for that watering can, Monty Don’s is the HawsProfessional Long-Reach (£69.99; at suttons.co.uk). You’re welcome.