“Dressed from head to toe with a consciousness close to obsession and a luxury of details, mods were work of arts wrapped in mohair.” Paolo Hewitt Born in the 50s, the mod subculture has nerve centre the Carnaby Street district in London. Mods, apocope of ‘modernist’, often son of workers who aspired to more ease […]
HUSBANDS JOURNAL
Author: Husbands
PRINCE OF WALES CHECK
« The ‘Prince of Wales’ will be king this spring. » – Adam, February 1939. The Prince of Wales Check is a complex pattern whose existence goes back to the XIXth century. It is shaped from a Glen Urquhart Check on which superimposes a windowpane check that can be blue, green, red or simply black. […]
JEAN-PIERRE MELVILLE
Jean-Pierre Melville movies are dominated by loneliness, failure and death. Movies that are said « films noirs » : Le Doulos, Le Deuxième Souffle (Second Breath), Le Samouraï, Un Flic, Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) all witness for a particular style, a precise and recurring mecanism. Betrayal is omnipresent, the movie is focused on […]
TISSOT, PASSION FOR FABRICS
James Tissot is a XIXth century painter, often introduced as the fashion and elegance painter. Son of a textile shop owner and a milliner mother, the artist took a particular care for fabrics and colours rendering or garment details. A thoroughness betraying the influence of Flemish Primitives on his work. The artist paints the Second […]
SUBMARINER SWEATERS
Aboard a submarine, water, oxygen and space get scarce. While on duty, submariners don’t see the light of day for months. World War I: Royal Navy endowment During the First World War, the Admiralty adapted its rules for the British Royal Navy submariners. The crew’s hygiene is less strict, the style is more casual, and […]
THE SOLARO FABRIC
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]