Archival features, deep reads, and enduring perspectives.
Showing 1–20 of 166 articles
The camel hair coat entered Western fashion in the 1920s, when polo players at matches in Long Island and Buenos Aires began wearing long, loose-fitting coats made from the soft underhair of the Bactrian camel during breaks between chukkas.
Marcus Wei · 2025-10-13
William Green founded his shoemaking company in Northampton in 1866 under the name Green and Sons, later abbreviated to Grenson.
Marcus Wei · 2025-10-13
Piaget has been obsessed with thinness since the 1950s, when the company introduced the calibre 9P, a hand-wound movement measuring just two millimetres thick.
Thomas Nakamura · 2025-10-12
The baseball cap's ancestor is the Brooklyn Excelsiors' round-topped cap introduced in 1860, which evolved through various brim shapes and crown structures before settling into the modern six-panel, structured-crown format in the early twentieth century.
Catherine Avery · 2025-10-12
David Nelken founded Globe-Trotter in Saxony, Germany, in 1897, using a material that was revolutionary for its time: vulcanised fibreboard, a compressed paper product treated with heat and pressure to create a lightweight yet remarkably durable material.
William Ashford · 2025-10-11
The monk strap shoe traces its lineage to the enclosed sandals worn by Alpine monks in the fifteenth century.
Thomas Nakamura · 2025-10-11
The duffle bag takes its name from the same Belgian town, Duffel, that gave the duffle coat its name: a centre of heavy cloth production whose textiles were used by military forces across Northern Europe.
Daniel Hurst · 2025-10-10
The word tweed is widely believed to be a misreading.
William Ashford · 2025-10-10
Fair Isle, a three-mile-long island lying halfway between Orkney and Shetland in the North Atlantic, is home to fewer than sixty permanent residents and the most famous knitting pattern in the world.
Sebastian Cole · 2025-10-09
In 1996, Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, co-president of Chopard, launched the L.
Oliver Ramsey · 2025-10-09
The bucket hat's origins are humbler than fashion mythology sometimes suggests.
Sebastian Cole · 2025-10-08
Gerry Ettinger founded his leather goods company in London in 1934, initially producing wallets, billfolds, and small leather accessories for the British market.
James Alderton · 2025-10-08
In 1965, Seiko introduced the 6217-8000, its first purpose-built diver's watch, rated to 150 metres.
William Ashford · 2025-10-07
For most of the nineteenth century, the tailcoat with white waistcoat and white bow tie was the only acceptable form of male evening dress.
Daniel Hurst · 2025-10-07
Johnstons of Elgin was founded in 1797 by Alexander Johnston in the Scottish Highlands town of Elgin, Morayshire, originally processing locally sourced wool from Cheviot and Shetland sheep.
James Alderton · 2025-10-06
The bush jacket, closely related to the safari jacket, emerged in the tropical colonies of the British Empire during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Sebastian Cole · 2025-10-06
The four-in-hand knot, the most common tie knot in the world, takes its name from the Four-in-Hand Club in London, a nineteenth-century gentlemen's driving club whose members reputedly tied their reins in a similar configuration.
Marcus Wei · 2025-10-05
The Wellington boot takes its name from Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington, who in the early nineteenth century instructed his bootmaker to modify the standard cavalry boot into something sleeker and more suitable for both riding and evening wear.
Sebastian Cole · 2025-10-05
The Harrington jacket is not technically called the Harrington by its maker.
Thomas Nakamura · 2025-10-04
In 1975, three years after the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and one year before the Patek Philippe Nautilus, Girard-Perregaux introduced the Laureato: a stainless steel sports watch with an integrated bracelet and a slim, tonneau-shaped case.
Catherine Avery · 2025-10-04