“The ’70s was a time of a lot of rock stars – everyone from The Who, The Stones, The Beatles – all moving to the countryside”: Inside Ben Cobb’s Capsule With Aubin

After becoming one of London’s most notable menswear editors, the journalist added fashion designer to his CV and moved his life to the countryside. For his latest link-up with the British label, he honours his new surroundings.

The Cotswolds are more than 70 miles from London. The rolling hills and postcard-perfect limestone cottages are the antithesis of a major city. The UK capital has a world-leading transport system, an internationally renowned fashion scene, and has served as a melting pot where subcultures flourish. The county-spanning rural districts of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Somerset are quieter, calmer, and offer a vastly different way of living. But there is one thing that both parts of the world have in common: the pub. 

The Cotswolds are where Ben Cobb now finds himself, having relocated two years ago on his approach to 50. The longstanding arbiter of fashion is currently Men’s Editor-at-Large of Sunday Times Style, formerly Editor-in-Chief of ES Magazine, and has turned his hand to consultancy for luxury brands, including Givenchy. But “I arrived here, and rather stupidly, my wardrobe surprisingly wasn’t actually at the top of my [my mind]. I hadn’t really thought about it. I’ve got a lot of amazing fine cloth suits and silk shirts, and I arrived with the most unpractical outfits,” he says. 

A quick Getty Images search backs up those wardrobe claims. The moustachioed Cobb is a familiar face at high-profile London parties and the front rows of Paris Fashion Week. His wavy shoulder-length hair, flared suits, and open shirts all form a signature look that emanates 1970s rock frontman showmanship.

The task of finding a new local, for Cobb, came as soon as the boxes were unpacked and led him to the Royal Oak in Ramsden. It is not uncommon for creative collaborations to spawn from industry events in industry cities. But the more intimate, sociable setting of a countryside watering hole makes really getting to know each other easier. It was in Cobb’s new local where he met Peter Williams, the founder and chairman of British heritage-inspired brand Aubin, established in 2008 and relaunched in 2021 following a nine-year hiatus. “I was joking with him, saying ‘I’ve moved here with nothing to wear.’ This conversation started, and he [asked], ‘Well, why don’t you come and do something with us?’” Cobb shares. 

Williams was familiar with Cobb’s collections for Swedish tailoring brand Tiger of Sweden – born in 2022 from a friendship with the brand’s Marketing Director Per Håkans – and he liked what he saw. “That was how the conversation started over a few pints of cider in the village. It was just an amazing happenstance really.” From there, Williams introduced Cobb to Aubin’s creative director Rachel Silvester. “I really like her point of view,” he says. And then the question: What could his interpretation of the brand look like? 

“I always have to start with a character, and I had to create this visual board of who this guy is. I kept playing with that.” Cobb was drawn to one era of countryside life in particular. “The ’70s was a time of a lot of rock stars,  everyone from The Who, The Stones, The Beatles, all moving to the countryside,” he explains. Keith Richards at his Redlands country estate and George Harrison meditating in the shire were all on the mood board, and solidified the off-tour musician feel of the collection. “There are still plenty of those around here. They still look like a star, but they’re kind of at the village fête,” says Cobb. He describes the attitudes of this wearer as being a “Homme Fatale”. “Those men who were really alluring and seductive and a little bit dangerous. I enjoy that in a wardrobe,” he says. 

That persona plays out in an offering centred on tailoring, exemplified through tweed suits (made with the freshly relaunched Cotswold tweed company William Bliss), corduroy trousers, fitted knitwear in soft yak, formal and western shirts, a wool overcoat, scarf, and corduroy caps inspired by the headwear of bygone French farmers. 

So it’s not your traditional country wardrobe, the kind of thing propped up by the usual suspects of rural attire, like waxed jackets, flat caps, and wellies – items you deploy to walk your Labrador in the rain that would be too pragmatic for a Friday night in Mayfair. Ben Cobb and Aubin offer the opposite. Midway through our call, Cobb is interrupted, not by a working gun dog but by Sir Rodders, his Cashmere Bengal Cat (named after Rod Stewart’s animal print trousers) who looks as glamorous in his spotted markings as anyone in a tailored jacket and trousers – a feline dandy, if you will. Instead of being focused solely on function, the collection is geared up for the person who flits between Stow-on-the-Wold and Soho.

“It's really about this idea of travelling back and forth to London so much for events and meetings, and then back to this life. [I asked the question] ‘What does that wardrobe look like?’ It’s still very much me and my very specific take on menswear and tailoring,” says Cobb. And in the context of how guys are dressing today, where clothing has to work for a life in and out of movement – in this case in the city and country – and look good while doing something, it offers something for everyone, from divine knitwear enthusiast to the guy who lives and dresses like it’s 1975 every day.

The accompanying campaign continues this ethos, shot within Chastleton House, a Jacobean residence in Oxfordshire that maintains its period charm. The capsule’s logo is picked up from an old magazine Cobb found while visiting, and shots show the collection worn by musicians Cavan McCarthy and Oscar “Sholto” Robertson. Inspiration was also found inTwentieth-Century Boy: Notebooks of the Seventies, artist Duncan Hannah’s tales of coming of age in the New York arts scene of that fateful decade. 

The end result is a collaboration undoubtedly clear of mind. It isn’t a collection for the person who turns their back on the city for the quiet life. Spiritually, Ben Cobb x Aubin is for the aesthete whose name is always on the guest list in town, but is equally on first-name terms with the landlord of the local pub some one hundred miles northwest of the capital. This focused vision is the product of a quarter century as a journalist and editor, where the final result excels not only because of what is sharpened and refined but what is cut down to let it shine.

And despite the clarity in design, Cobb – whose previous sartorial creations have landed on actors including Dan Levy, Bill Skarsgård, and Eddie Redmayne – doesn’t have a particular wearer in mind. He is simply most excited to see it in the wild, worn by regular people. It’s not all for all, however – Sir Rodders, for example, doesn’t need the insulation of “the lovely soft knitwear, because he’s got a cashmere coat,” says Cobb. However, “I’d love to see him in some of the tweed flares.”