Wednesday, 9th June 2010
This is for all who practice the art of relaxation. Because if you’re going to relax, you might as well relax properly. And here’s how to dress for the occasion.
Our new range of loungewear is designed to make you feel cosy and liberated all at the same time. It’s easy lavishness for a laid-back day. But, as you’d expect, we’ve cut no corners here.
Tuesday, 1st June 2010
Good news if your underwear drawer is looking a little neglected. We’ve updated our range of boxer patterns and colours for summer with some fresh new checks and bold, bright colours.
Thursday, 22nd April 2010
Our new colours for the spring and summer are now available here on our website. There are several new blues there (including ‘cobalt’ and ‘india ink’), a subtle grey we’re calling mist, and even a pink.
Tuesday, 26th January 2010
We’ve just recently got back from showing our autumn/winter 2010 collection at the menswear trade show Pitti Uomo in Florence. Pitti is a fashion institution and it’s where the trends for next season start emerging.For our stand we wanted to present something simple, where our clothes did the talking. We picked some Robin Day chairs for their classic modernist simplicity (and realised that by coincidence they’re what we have in our canteen back in Derbyshire – or at least we have the mass-produced stackable version).
These photos give a glimpse of some of the new t-shirt colours and boxer colours and patterns we’ll be introducing. Read full article »
Monday, 14th December 2009
There comes a moment in life when an M&S T-shirt just looks lazy. Sleep in one by all means, but otherwise save it for walks with Rover. If you’re going to saunter into the office wearing a white T-shirt this basic piece of wardrobe kit needs refining. Sunspel has been making underwear since 1860 and continues to excel at producing long-lasting sharp-looking, well-tailored T-shirts, boxers and polo shirts.
The clincher: Feather-light, paper-thin and made of the softest Egyptian cotton, Sunspel’s ‘mesh’ underwear range keeps you warm in winter, but gives good ventilation in summer. V-neck white T-shirt, £38. At Selfridges 0800 123400, sunspel.com
Wednesday, 18th November 2009
A few weeks back I was lucky enough to get a ride in a legendary motor. The Mercedes-Benz 300SL “gull-wing” sports car of 1954 was the fastest production car of its day. This machine is quite simply a thing of beauty. With its smooth, streamlined curves, and extraordinary futuristic upwards-opening gull wing doors, it can’t be bettered.
It got me wondering: what other products could simply be rolled out half a century later and still hold their own? I realised that I was wearing one.
At first glance, the humble T-shirt might not seem to have much in common with a piece of spectacular German engineering but, as with the 300 SL, it’s hard to improve on. The name, just like the “gull-wing”, comes from its shape – a simple T across the shoulders and down through the body. And its use as a casual outerwear garment dates from roughly the same time as Mercedes’ famous coupe.
T-shirts, though, have a long history as underwear garments – dating back to the 19th century when they were worn by stevedores and miners and apparently the US Navy, which had them as military issue around the same time of the Spanish-American war.
The garment became a piece of outerwear only after the Second World War, when US veterans took to wearing them on civvy street. Before that you may have seen one on a labourer or ranch-hand, but not in everyday use. By 1951, though, when Marlon Brando wore one in A Streetcar Named Desire, the T-shirt was establishing itself as an alternative to the shirt for the youth of the day. Two years later, Brando immortalised the T-shirt, jeans and leather jacket combo when he donned them as ultra-rebel Johnny in The Wild One – and a new teenage uniform was born.
I’m more of a T-shirt and suit man than a hairy biker and choose my Ts accordingly. Thus my current favourites are short-sleeve crew necks by Sunspel, a small outfit in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, which I have mentioned in this column before as a hidden gem (although it has collaborated with designers such as Paul Smith, Margaret Howell, Thom Browne, Richard James and Kris Van Assche).
Sunspel, founded in 1860, makes Ts in luxurious 100 per cent twofold Egyptian cotton: two very light cotton threads are twisted together and linked.
The garments are strong, lightweight, smooth, breathable and of great quality so they don’t lose their shape. They also feel as if they are tailored in a sleek way, which is pretty flattering (especially in the “darks” – black, charcoal and navy – which are always a good idea, as colours go, for those of us spreading gently into middle age). They are medium length, so they sit at the hip, have a bound neck, a double-stitched hem and are machine washable at 40C. What more could a man want?
Article by ‘The Mutton’, published in The Times, Wednesday 11th November, 2009.
See our Mens T-shirts.
View article on The Times online.
