Workwear Belongs Here
By Charlie Gladstone I first started visiting France each summer 25 years ago. My love affair with this infuriating but wonderful country stems from many things; the food, the insouciance, the countryside, the wine. But most of all it stems from the design.
It’s the land of some of the finest vernacular design in the world; Godin stoves, Duralex glasses, Tolix chairs, Mauviel cookware and the legendary bleu workwear jacket (recently renamed The Chore Jacket by fashion companies seeking to make it more approachable, I think).
Coincidentally, the year of that first annual visit was the one that we started our clothing, homewares and vintage business, Pedlars. I've been interested in clothes since I was about nine and Pedlars afforded me the chance to design a few pieces. One of the first things I did was emulate the French workwear jackets that I saw on farmers in Burgundy. We made the jacket from linen and it wasn’t terribly good and very few people wanted it. But you’ve got to start somewhere.
“We started by buying a few and slowly but surely we built contacts that would source them for us, culminating in a haul of hundreds and hundreds of vintage jackets from a shop that closed in 1956.”
Charlie GladstoneFast forward a few years and I was buying van loads of vintage to bring back to Britain to sell at Pedlars. For vintage-hunters France offers a rich seam of opportunity; they make amazing things and they have a long tradition of wonderful vintage markets. For me this was the dream job. I am never happier than when scouring barns or markets for vintage bits and bobs and our customers’ appetite for my finds was pretty insatiable…..win/win! Little excited me more than finding some original bleu jackets for a few Euros and they were always the fastest things to sell when we got home. We started by buying a few and slowly but surely we built contacts that would source them for us, culminating in a haul of hundreds and hundreds of vintage jackets from a shop that closed in 1956.
And each time we put them online there was a frenzy to buy them. The rate that they sold at used to make us laugh with surprise. I remember the very first Good Life Experience; we had around 100 for sale and they went so quickly that one happy customer was offered a ridiculous sum by another guest to take the jacket from her back. The next year we printed our logo on the back of some vintage deadstock and the next year we made enamel pin badges in the shape of the jackets. More than anything, perhaps, the humble, elegant, built-to-last workwear jacket had become a symbol of The Good Life Experience.
Image: Department Two
Image: Department Two(Our jackets pictured above were manufactured by Yarmouth Oilskins and printed on by Alfie’s Studios.)
And then the supply in France dried up. Or more accurately the supply of affordable jackets dried up as the trend went mainstream. Where once a decent jacket could be had for a few Euros, by 2015 the price was 45 Euros and so we stopped buying. For us, at least, it was over.
“With SGI Threads we have emulated this by designing and making a jacket in Britain of British materials; for us this makes not just a beautiful piece of clothing but one that speaks of truth and care and history.”
And now we have our very own jacket, modelled on the French version, not just in style but in provenance. The lovely thing about the French jacket is that it’s truly, properly made in France. I’ve visited the iconic Le Laboureur factory several times. Here a cotton jacket, made in France of French material and fit for a lifetime’s use can be made in almost any colour. I love this provenance, this soul and not least of all because it is so unusual. With SGI Threads we have emulated this by designing and making a jacket in Britain of British materials and we’re even using natural dyes; for us this makes not just a beautiful piece of clothing but one that speaks of truth and care and history. It’s been a long and expensive process but I can happily report that it feels real when I pull mine on; there is absolutely nothing that isn’t honest about it and that makes me truly happy.
