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Brooks Brothers sold its first button-down collar shirt in 1896, borrowing the idea from English polo players who fastened their collar points so they would not flap during a match. Plenty of menswear started that way, as a practical fix that outlived the problem. The Oxford shirt and raw selvedge denim live here, along with the MA-1 bomber and its orange rescue lining, the waxed Barbour from South Shields and the Champion hoodie. So do the designers who bent those shapes into something stranger, such as Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons and Massimo Osti, who founded Stone Island in 1982. History comes first because it explains the details on the garment. After that comes the useful part, which means fit and fabric, and the difference between a jacket worth twenty years of wear and a copy that pills by spring.
Stories
Style5 min read
The Chore Coat Was Built for Men Who Worked
French laborers wore it boxy, blue and patched at the elbow. Menswear adopted it as the jacket you reach for once you're done with blazers.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
The Hoodie Started on a Rochester Sideline
A 1938 patent turned a sweatshirt sideways. Eighty years later MoMA collected it and Authentic Brands paid $1.2 billion for the company.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
The Oxford Button-Down: From Polo Collar to Ivy Canon
How a collar borrowed from English polo players became the most democratic shirt in menswear, and why the details still matter.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
How Detroit Workwear Became Carhartt WIP
An importer in Europe wanted the real American thing. Thirty years later his version of Carhartt sells collabs with sacai and runs over 100 stores.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style5 min read
The Penny Loafer Started in a Norwegian Village
A fjord shoemaker, a Maine bootmaker with a pun for a product name, and a coin in the strap that nobody has ever fully explained.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
Stone Island, Massimo Osti and the Compass Badge
It started with truck tarpaulin in a town outside Modena. Forty years on, a cloth compass still tells strangers exactly who you are.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
The White T-Shirt Was Navy Underwear First
Issued to sailors in 1913, worn as an entire outfit by Brando in 1951. The plainest thing in your closet has the busiest résumé.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
Raw Denim, Selvedge and the Loom That Started It All
Raw is about finishing. Selvedge is about the loom. A Reno tailor, a closed North Carolina mill and Okayama's makers explain why it matters.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
The MA-1 Was Built to Be Found
Sage green outside, rescue orange inside. How a Cold War flight jacket from Knoxville ended up on punks, mods and a $47,000 Grailed sale.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons and the Heart With Eyes
She studied aesthetics, not tailoring. In 1982 she showed Paris a collection called Destroy, and fashion has been arguing about her ever since.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
Barbour's Wax Jacket Was Made for the North Sea
Oilskins for sailors, a motorcycle suit for Steve McQueen, a riding coat for the Sloane set. The waxed cotton jacket keeps finding new owners.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Style4 min read
Patagonia Synchilla and the Long Road to Gorpcore
A climber who forged his own pitons, a Massachusetts mill and a polyester pullover with four snaps. Then fashion noticed.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
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