Image credit: Howard Bouchevereau on Unsplash Persol is among those few eyewear brands to which the label ‘iconic’ can be ascribed without hyperbole. While an average pair of sunnies are a dime a dozen, it’s rare for a label to become synonymous not merely with the idea of sunglasses, but with the concept of wearing […]
Image is my own / All rights reserved When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait for the day I got glasses. I so aspired to be bespectacled that I spent much of my time shuffling around the house squinting through the prescription lenses of my late grandfather’s hornrims or sneakily popping on my parents’ […]
Image credit: cottonbro from Pexels It is a truth universally acknowledged that each and every one of us has a corner of our homes dedicated exclusively to the unwieldy mass of tote bags that has somehow accumulated around us. It seems that to be human is, in effect, to own too many totes. In my […]
Bandanas have a long and storied history involving, inter alia, George Washington, Californian gangs, and the origins of the word ‘red neck’. Striped ties (rep and regimental) have a colourful history, which includes the military, a visit from a prince, and some pranks taken all too seriously. There are some strange school uniforms in the […]
Image is my own / All rights reserved Every now and then a design comes along that not only creates a new kind of product but continues to epitomise it many years down the line. There are but a handful of these cases: Levi’s are still synonyms with jeans, as is Brooks Brothers with button-downs […]
Image credit: Robert Sheie / CC BY 2.0 The history of clothing is littered with stories of happy accidents and moments of inspiration. Paul Sperry finally figured out how to make his boat shoes work after seeing his dog running around in the New England winter. Kikuo Ibe similarly cracked the design for the Casio […]
Striped ties (rep and regimental) have a colourful history, which includes the military, a visit from a prince, and some pranks taken all too seriously. There are some strange school uniforms in the world, but none are quite as infamous as the get-up worn by the students of Christ’s Hospital. The differing usage of the […]
Image credit: angrylambie / CC BY 2.0 Lots of rock stars have made suits their signature look. The names of Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Bryan Ferry, and Charlie Watts immediately spring to mind. This rakish brand of rocker always cuts an interesting figure, in large part for being inherently incongruous. Behold: the free-spirited muso covered […]