While Gruen as a brand hasn’t been around for a few decades now, its wristwatches offer an affordable way into the vintage watch market. One year after filing for bankruptcy, the 75-year-old retailer hired Brendon Babenzien to breathe new life into a once beloved brand. Salomon is a heritage outdoor brand that has been around […]
Image credit: Sam Khan on Unsplash Some brands start out selling an affordable product and then put their prices up as they gain name recognition over time. It happens in fashion as elsewhere in retail, whether it’s a sports label in a world of athleisure, a staple that becomes trendy, or even the occasional luxury […]
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 credit: Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels The colour black enjoys pride of place in the world of fashion. It represents a dizzying array of meanings, ranging from formal to funeral, classic to chic. Scores of books and scholarly papers have traced its history and importance to the way we dress. It’s built into our vestiary […]
Image credit: Tullio Saba / Public domain Have you ever read ‘Ode to Autumn’ by John Keats? It’s the one that kicks off talking about the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ (An opening line that’s been repeated enough times to have become essentially synonymous with the fall season). Well, courtesy of more years studying […]
Image credit: Mat Reding on Unsplash Bandanas are having something of a moment during Covid-19. During the pandemic, they’ve frequently served as a simple and comfortable face-covering option, albeit one that research suggests offers less protection than purpose-made masks. In the decades preceding the coronavirus, bandanas rarely appeared outside of very specific American subcultures. Wearing […]
Image credit: Grisha Chernigowsky on Pexels Whether you know it as a vest, a tank top, a singlet, or by one of its many, often unsavoury names, one thing is certain: few garments have had a shakier reputation historically speaking than the sleeveless undershirt. The humble tank — so called after a swimming pool or […]
Image credit: Project 290 on Unsplash Last year the headwear company New Era celebrated its hundred year anniversary. If you’re a fan of sports, hip-hop, or just baseball caps in general, there’s a good chance that you own a New Era cap. At the very least, you’ll probably have seen their logo around. It’s a […]
Image credit: Benjamin Rascoe on Unsplash Earlier this week I wrote about sweatpants, the item of clothing that has come to represent the inescapable reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. It seemed natural somehow to turn next to its opposite, a sartorial symbol of an ideal past and future in which we can go out and […]
Image is my own / All rights reserved It’s hard to think of a more unlikely success story in fashion than Ralph Lauren — both the man and the brand. The former was a poor Jewish kid born to immigrant parents who changed his name from Lifshitz only to go on to rule the WASPy […]