The Solaro, developed by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, is at first a technical fabric, designed to protect its wearer from ultraviolet rays. It is invented in 1907 by Louis Westenra Sambonn, an oncologist specialised in tropical diseases. Invention of the first technical fabric for colonial troops The fabric is quickly adopted […]
HUSBANDS JOURNAL
Author: Husbands
STRAP LOAFERS
Strap loafer designate a loafer featuring a golden strip, with a very short upper and 4 cm heel. Invention of the horse bite loafers by Aldo Gucci Aldo Gucci is the creator of that kind of loafers : he imagined in 1953 a loafer topped by a horse bit on the instep. The shoe aesthetic […]
ENDGAME, SAMUEL BECKETT
NAGG. – (…) An Englishman – (he takes an english face, then takes back his own) – needing a pair of striped trousers in a hurry for the New Year festivities, goes to his tailor who takes his measurements. (Tailor’s voice.) “That’s the lot, come back in four days, I’ll have it ready.” Good. Four […]
BLAZERS
« To blaze is a synonym of « to shine » ; « to dazzle ». A meaning that can be a clue as to the blazer’s origins : it is, at first, a lose-fit flannel sport jacket, wore by rowers during races and training to protect them from the wind and the cold. These […]
ANTOINE DOINEL : LÉAUD BY TRUFFAUT
« In september 1958, I posted an ad in France-Soir to find a thirteen year old boy who would be The 400 Blows’ hero. (…) about sixty children came, and I tried each one of them on sixteen millimeters (…) Jean-Pierre Léaud was clearly standing out from the rest and, after several play-offs, I decided […]
FERDINANDO CARACENI, YVES SAINT LAURENT’S TAILOR
There’s an Italian tailors dynasty founded in Ortana a Mare at the beginning of the XIXth century – unless it goes back to more ancient times : the Caraceni family. Ferdinando Caraceni was born in 1923 in Ortana a Mare. He share with it his name and his birthplace, but no family link. The clothing […]
GEORGES PEREC’S BUCKETLIST
“To begin with, there are the easy things to do, things I could do today, for instance: 1. Cruising on a river boat in Paris (…). Then there are the things that are a little more important, things that require decisions from me, things that I think if I did them, they would maybe make […]
COLLAR SHIRTS
Collars emerge in the Western world by the mid-15th century. They are then richly adorned and they quickly took extreme proportions, following the example of the well-known ruff from the second part of the 16th century. In the 17th century, also known as the Enlightenment, men, as if they were echoing the philosophers’ new ideas […]
THE STRIPES
« Man proposes and the stripe disposes. (…) In the stripe there is something that resists enclosure within systems. » – Michel Pastoureau Stripes are one of the most ancient patterns imagined by humans. During the Middle Ages, it is used to distinguish individuals excluded from society from whom it was better to stay away. […]
TOMMY NUTTER
One can’t talk about Tommy Nutter without mentioning two London streets : Savile Row and Abbey Road. Nutter and Edward Sexton’s shop, « Nutters of Savile Row » is, in 1969, the first new shop to open in over a century on this historic street of English tailoring. In the shop were displayed, among other […]