29/03/2013
On a recent visit to London, when I was visiting SEH Kelly, I got talking to some of the other visitors they had the morning I was there. A couple of these were the guys that have the shop almost right round the corner, Labour & Wait. Now, I’d heard about this shop before, as it was mentioned in an…
28/03/2013
Ventile is a name we’re increasingly often coming across these days. Is it a new innovation, or something that’s been around for over 70 years? Well, as it turns out, it’s the latter. History has it that it was developed in the late 1930s by the British Cotton Industry Research Association in Manchester, or the Shirley Institute, as it was…
28/03/2013
While staying in my parents house, I’ve often studied the old photo shown below. It’s a photo of Joseph Chetwynd, my great-great grandfather after her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen had conferred upon him the decoration of “The Albert medal of the Second Class”. This was received for gallantry in saving lives at the Baddesley Collierey Explosion in May 1882,…
27/03/2013
Whilst visiting my parents in Bergen this Easter, I dropped in at one of the two shops worth visiting in town. Ok, so there may be a couple more, but only really two of international merit, as I see it. My number one stop was to see if Michael T. Nartey, or T-Michael as he is increasingly known internationally, was…
17/03/2013
Harris Tweed cloth must be the most fabled and mythical of cloths in use today. With a history going back over 200 years, the story reads more like a fairytale than a straight history lesson. A fairy tale with highs and lows, a fairy godmother, an evil persona, a prince to save the day and happily ever after. Let’s not…
15/03/2013
Latest news from the Nigel Cabourn camp is that they are now not only selling via select retailers, but also selling directly through their own website at www.cabourn.com. This is a trend in the industry now, with traditional retail outlets under great pressure from the large online fashion retailers. With Nigel Cabourn clothing being stocked and dropped by a number…
14/03/2013
In a bit of a departure from writing about clothes and makers thereof, today I want to talk a bit about an underlying part of looking good in your fancy clothes, i.e. the body within them. Anyone who has ever had doubts about their body will have bought clothes with the idea that they will stealthily hide what lies within.…
12/03/2013
In my series of presentations of labels I consider worth keeping an eye on, today has brought us to the tiny Northern label of Mamnick. Situated in the defunct steel town of Sheffield in Yorkshire (a town I also have family ties to), Mamnick is named after a road in the Peak District, just outside of Sheffield. Mamnick isn’t so…
11/03/2013
As an a new ongoing series, I thought I’d like to do a few posts of items in my “collection” that I have a special fondness for. First out, my Oslo pants by Engineered Garments. Now everyone with a little interest in the better quality of clothing has come across Engineered Garments. Started in 199 by designer Daiki Suzuki, a…
10/03/2013
With issue 13 of Proper now available and dropping into mailboxes all over, I thought it might be a fine time to give the magazine a mention here on the blog. Proper is the love-child of it’s two editors, Neil and Mark, and very much the product of their shared experiences and interests. Definitely a work in progress, each issue…