Polo-shirts in focus: Polo Ralph Lauren

Origins

Ralph Lauren  was  born Ralph Lifshitz in 1939. Despite being best known as the quintessential American fashion designer he studied business and did a stint in the army before establishing his own clothing business.  In 1967 he set up the  Polo label – but it didn’t sell polo-shirts at that point, rather, he was instantly successful with ties! His fashion radar told him that the narrow ties and conventional styles of the time were not appealing to the younger generation and created wide, handmade ties using flamboyant colours, very much in the vein of the hippy movement, but paired with opulent materials rather than the cheap fabrics that the hippies wore.  Because he was trying to promote a lifestyle rather than following a trend, he chose a name for the tie line that he felt embodied discreet elegance and classic style: Polo.

 Signature style

After the ties came general menswear, which is when the polo-shirt first appeared, and, in 1971, a women’s label. The signature style of Ralph Lauren is actually a combination – on the one hand its a chic look, which is supported by good fabric and a lot of classic styling, and on the other hand it’s preppy – aimed at the younger generation who want to look fashionable without looking cheap.  The look extends into sportswear, casualwear and home furnishings and is very American.  The Lauren empire was floated on the US stockmarket in 1997, and includes Polo Ralph Lauren, Polo Sport and the Ralph Lauren Collection.

Why we love him

Ralph Lauren can always tap perfectly into the current media obsession – for example in 1999, he had a walk-on part on TV sitcom Friends and developed this into a deal with NBC to sell the Ralph Lauren lifestyle on the Internet and TV. He said at the time that ‘We don’t only sell clothes.  We are selling a dream and a vision’. The wraparound styling of clothing, accessories and home items means that the Ralph Lauren ‘look’ extends seamlessly into the whole of life, and if you enjoy that look, you can base your whole life around it.

 Dissenting views

This year’s Olympic costumes caused a small furore – Ralph Lauren was accused of making the American team look like ‘rich snobs’ and of promoting his brand too prominently on the black jackets which all bore his white polo horse logo.

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Add comment September 4th, 2008

Polo-shirts in focus: Gant

Bernard (sometimes spelt Bernhard) Gant arrived in New York in 1914, as an immigrant from the Ukraine. His first job, as with so many immigrant men, was working in the garment industry as a collar-sewing specialist in a Manhattan factory. Within a couple of years he’d met the woman who was to become his wife: she was a button and buttonhole specialist who worked for the same company.

As he progressed from factory hand to entrepreneur Bernard Gant sold ‘fine’ shirts to private labels in America, including Manhattan Shirts, J. Press and Brooks Brothers and his sons came into the business in the 1940s to help. While they consistently sold to other companies, their shirts always bore a small red ‘G’ embroidered in an unobtrusive spot.

Their ‘preppy’ shirts became fashion must haves on university campuses across the USA in the late fifties and early sixties – worn with the collar undone and no tie, and even with the top button undone unless formal events were being attended. The Gant style included a shirt-front that buttoned down a double-truck hem, and the distinctive Gant loop at the top of the back pleat which was used for hanging up the shirt when changing for athletic events – this was the key feature that made the shirt a success – as sportsmen and their adoring fans found the loop useful, it became a fashion icon. At one point in the 1960s, Gant was the second-largest shirt maker in the world but the family sold the business in 1967 and it has changed hands several times since then – to day it is owned Pyramid Sportswear of Sweden.

Gant has avoided some of the negative connotations that have struck other brands that appeal to young men, such as Fred Perry’s right-wing fan club of skinheads, but has been associated with homosexuals who are attracted to sportsmen in the lyrics of some rock songs.

The Gant style is roomy, often even blousey, and the collars whether hard or soft, have a ‘roll’ – formal shirts have a back pleat and both formal and polo-shirts have the signature hanging loop. Gant polo-shirt collars are often a little wider and flatter lying than other brands; being noticeably more difficult to ‘pop’ or stand up than most.

Gant shirt courtesy of Gant

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Add comment August 21st, 2008

Credit crunch creates ’slow fashion’

The current spending squeeze has changed our purchasing habits, on the high street and online. Slow fashion is fast becoming the way we buy, even if we don’t know exactly what ‘slow fashion’ means. It’s a term that’s increasingly being used by the top retailers and designers to define the way that customers are moving away from ‘fast fashion’ ie quick knockoffs of catwalk styles that are sold very cheaply and not expected to last more than a season, to ‘slow fashion’ which is increasing seen as multi-seasonal, locally-made, organic, recycled or fair trade clothing.

Multi-seasonal means classic styling – no faddy buttons or strange collars, no odd logos or ‘witty’ messages and in simple, easily harmonising colours. Locally-made means produced nationally or even regionally, like Arran sweaters or Harris tweed, and organic and fair trade clothing is seen as fairer to the planet and more likely to have high quality materials in its manufacture, while recycled clothing is obviously hard-wearing (after all its been worn once!) and usually reasonably priced.

What does this mean for polo-shirts?

It means solid classic colours: white, red, navy, grey, cream and simple styling. It means that people are likely to make fewer, and much better considered purchases, and to want to ensure that all new clothing works with a number of items in their existing wardrobe. It also means more sales at the premium end of the market for organic and fair trade clothing because customers are engaged by the issues involved and will be prepared to save money on other things to ensure they can feel good about the few and essential clothing items they are going to invest in.

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Add comment August 18th, 2008

Polo-shirts in focus: Abercrombie and Fitch

Origins

The company was established by David Abercrombie in 1892 and New York lawyer Ezra Fitch was one of his regular customers – buying outdoor clothing for shooting and hunting. At the turn of the century Fitch bought a major share of the company, thus becoming co-founder and in 1904, Fitch’s surname was incorporated and Abercrombie & Fitch came into being. It was a stormy relationship - Fitch saw value in taking the company in the direction of general apparel, while Abercrombie wanted to continue selling professional clothing and accessories to professional outdoorsmen. Finally, after many arguments, Abercrombie sold his share in the company to Fitch in 1907 and returned to manufacturing outdoor goods.

Signature style

The A&F brand is defined as using ‘the finest cashmere, pima cottons, and highest quality leather to create the ultimate in casual, body conscious clothing’. Along with ‘implementing and/or incorporating time honoured machinery and techniques in order to produce the most exclusive denim ever created’, these two statements define how Abercrombie & Fitch sees its place in the market.

Why we love them

There is something quintessentially American about the brand. See a ‘Crombie from half a street away and you know the style immediately. It’s not just in the distressing, although that often makes the clothes look like comfortable things you’ve had for months, even straight from the shelf, it’s in the detailing: the flat turned seams and the dropped shoulders, and the careful attention to decreasing/increasing American teen sizes that allows everybody from the skinny chick to the fat kid to find a polo-shirt that feels just right.

They even have their own slang:

• An Abercrombie zombie is a man or wom an, boy or girl who only ever wears their clothing
• An Abercrombie & Fitch witch is a woman (often a bit older than the average buying age for their lines) who wears t he brand all the time because she’s scared she’ll lose her looks and popularity if she doesn’t.

Dissenting views

They have often been criticised for sexualising young people and children, for the levels of music in their stores (it’s supposed to be 80 decibels, tests in the USA in 2006 found thirty stores playing it at 90+ decibels, which causes permanent damage to the ears) and their All-American styling which has led to discrimination cases being brought against the company by non-white, non-American people who believe they have been refused employment or promotion because they didn’t fit the brand ‘style’. So far, all cases have been settled out of court.

Abercrombie & Fitch billboard courtesy of daniel spils

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Add comment August 15th, 2008

Wimbledon Polo-shirts

As Andy Murray bows out, Wimbledon will be counting the profits. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, which is responsible for staging the internationally famous tennis tournament, is actually a private club founded in 1868 as The All England Croquet Club. In 1875 lawn tennis, which was a game that had been introduced by Major Clopton Wingfield a year earlier and at that time was known as Sphairistike, (not quite so catchy, was it?) was added to the activities of the club. It was such a hit that in 1877 the Club was re-titled The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club and instituted the first Lawn Tennis Championship. A new code of laws was drawn up. So comprehensive were they that there are virtually no changes in today’s rules except for details such as the height of the net and posts and the distance of the service line from the net.

And the Wimbledon shop (properly called the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club shop) has a lucrative franchise - this year’s polo-shirts are a sweltering £30 each, but vintage Wimbledon polo-shirts are also selling on eBay so you might get a bargain if you’re lucky.

Andy Murray courtesy of Fimb

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Add comment July 3rd, 2008

When men became peacocks … male fashion

After a bomb-damaged East End could no longer provide a suitable home for London’s garment business, many tailors moved to Carnaby Street and the trend towards turning this otherwise modest street into a ‘rag trade’ centre accelerated when John Stephens, the son of a Glasgow grocer, opened his first boutique in London’s Carnaby Street in the late ’50s selling Mod gear. His greatest success was getting men to follow fashion just as much as women did, but it wasn’t until 1965 when Mary Quant designs clothes hit the streets that swinging London was really born and Carnaby Street became the place to see and be seen.  The sixties were also the era of male fashion – there was Twiggy of course, and Quant herself, and other sixties icons like Jean Shrimpton, but above all it was the men who were in the spotlight.

Whether you were a Beatles fan or a Rolling Stones follower, or whether the Beach Boys or The Doors were your groove, masculine fashion filled the newspapers and the newly developed colour television. Long suede coats with fringing, headbands, embroidered jeans and tie-dyed tops made men look dramatic and androgynous – combined with the long plaits and massive outbreak of facial hair that heralded the hippie era, it often looked as if city streets had been attacked by a bunch of fashion conscious bears. 

When you see the die-hards who still dress ‘sixties’ it can seem like a blessing that the phase of the peacock male has passed, but it has left its imprint – men are more adventurous in clothing and more conscious of the impression they make.  Proof can be found in the sudden upsurge of pink polo-shirts being worn this summer: that would never have happened before the 1960s!

Lennon courtesy of All Posters

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Add comment June 12th, 2008

Fred Perry – polo-shirt icon with a darker side

Fred Perry didn’t intend to play tennis, and never expected to become a fashion brand. At eighteen (in 1929) he was a Table Tennis World Champion and took up tennis to give him a break from the sport in which he excelled, but his exceptional speed and mastery of the Continental grip meant he could hit the ball low and on the rise and that made him the first player to win all four Grand Slam singles titles.  He was also the last British player to win the Wimbledon men’s singles title in 1934 and winning it again in 1935 and ’36 made him an English icon.

Then, the late 1940s he met Tibby Wegner, an Austrian footballer who had invented an anti-perspirant device worn around the wrist to which Perry made some alterations and which was then marketed as the sweatband. Wegner’s next idea was to produce a sports shirt which was to be made from white knitted cotton pique with short sleeves and buttons: it was launched at Wimbledon in 1952, and what we now know the Fred Perry polo-shirt was an immediate success. The famous laurel logo is stitched into the fabric of the shirt instead of being ironed on like competing brands. 

The ‘Fred Perry’ came in white only, until the late sixties when mod culture demand