Fashion Archives - The Chap

31st March 2021 Fashion/The Chap Wears

Blakesby Hats

Gustav Temple spoke to Australian hat maker Blake “Blakesby” Canham-Bennett, who has expanded the colour and shape of men’s headwear, while holding on to classic styles and manufacturing methods. You seem to have broken the mould when it comes to men’s hat styles, while adhering to traditional blocks and techniques. Was this what you set out to do originally? Thanks! I don’t know that this was really my initial intent. I just wanted to make very traditional and vintage inspired hats, and I definitely wanted to create styles I couldn’t easily find. I started with a certified millinery course, which at the… Keep Reading

1st March 2021 Fashion

Stanley Biggs

Liam Jefferies meets the doyenne of Stanley Biggs, a menswear company with one foot set firmly in history. For some, there is no beating vintage. A vintage duffel coat found in the back of a surplus store will invoke a greater sense of worth than a similar model churned out by the thousands in some overseas sweatshop and destined for the high street sales rail. It is rare, however, to find brands which embody the same notions of design, craftsmanship and longevity of the apparel of yesteryear. One such brand is Stanley Biggs. Located in the Midlands, Biggs is a… Keep Reading

29th October 2020 Fashion/Features/News

Clare Bradley, British Sewing Bee Champion 2020

Minerva Miller discusses practical glamour and the lost art of mending with this year’s Sewing Bee Champion and vintage enthusiast Clare Bradley While watching the first episode of the 2020 series of The Great British Sewing Bee last April, one of the contestants immediately stood out: wearing a vintage inspired dress, she expressed her enjoyment of ‘vintage events’ at which there was ‘lots of gin’. This was Clare Bradley from Winchester, whose accurate sewing skills, consistency and creativity eventually led her to win the competition. Clare’s plucky cheerfulness and steely determination (think a combination of Celia Johnson and Jane Marple… Keep Reading

22nd September 2020 Fashion/News

Chap Pocket Squares

The imminent launch of a brand-new pocket square design sees the restocking of our coveted breast pocket adornments The launch of our new eau de cologne Raffish has led to the inevitable question: which pocket square is the correct one to wear alongside this decadent gentlemen’s fragrance? The solution seemed to be the design of a brand-new pocket square bearing the raffish credentials of the scent itself. To this end, we asked our resident pocket square and fragrance label designer Caroline Lindop: please design a motif that captures the louche spirit of a chap setting off at midnight in search… Keep Reading

29th August 2020 Fashion

The Semiotics of Face Masks

A handy guide to understanding what people are communicating via their choice of face coverings during the coronavirus pandemic. When a new item of clothing enters the field, chaps are not normally consulted for their views, because for chaps there is no need for any new clothing items; they are still busy rediscovering things like smoking hats, moustache snoods and peculiar vintage cigarette holders. However, when the new item is introduced for reasons of public health and becomes mandatory, a chap has no choice but to embrace this new accessory. The face covering, being obligatory in public places such as… Keep Reading

27th August 2020 Fashion

Sartorial London

Gustav Temple takes a highly educational sartorial stroll around the West End of London with professional city tour guide Russell Nash We meet on the steps of the Athenaeum Club and head along Pall Mall towards the bottom of St James’s Street, where Russell pauses outside the fabled gables of London hatters Lock & Co. to tell us its history: “In 1676, James Lock opened a hat shop very close to here. At the time, this area behind the Palace was being developed. Henry Jermyn, who had taken a lease on the land, developed it and the aristocracy started to… Keep Reading

5th March 2020 Fashion

Simon James Cathcart

Simon James Cathcart, ahead of opening his first pop-up shop in London, with which The Chap will be collaborating, reveals in an interview conducted in The Chap in issue 92 the origins of his ideas for the menswear brand he founded and continues to evolve. You can read about the pop-up shop at the Clerk’s House, Shoreditch, on 12th-18th March 2020 here. Your business model appears to be slightly unusual. Could you explain how it differs from other new fashion labels? SJC differs by demand, detail and price. My core buyers wear and own some of the most complete vintage… Keep Reading

3rd December 2019 Fashion

The Teba Jacket

Images of southern Spain, usually composed of matadors, barrels of sherry, women in flamenco dresses and orange trees wilting in the heat, do not commonly include tweed jackets. It’s rarely cold enough in Andalucia to don even a waistcoat, never mind a full tweed ensemble. Yet during the 1930s there emerged, from the royal and aristocratic country set, an Andalucian take on the Hacking Jacket that came to be known as the Teba Jacket. It was named after the snappily titled Don Carlos Mitjans y Fitz-James Stuart, XXI Conde de Teba y XV Conde de Baños, Grande de España, or… Keep Reading

4th October 2019 Fashion/Features

Chap To The Future

Wherever you look in pop culture, you will see signs of our beloved Chap Fashion. Whether you are looking into a far-flung cyberpunk future or back to the romanticised past of fantasy worlds, there are clues and signposts all over the place to the classic influences that brought us here. Why have a few very specific time periods had such a large influence on our huge entertainment industry? Take my hand, oh dapper one, and let us go on a journey of discovery through the history of pop culture to find out. As a young person, I’m pretty sure that… Keep Reading

14th March 2019 Fashion/The Chap Wears

Sussex Tweed

You know when you get a new pair of brogues, and then all your other brogues suddenly look tired, old and worn-out next to them? Acquiring a Sussex Tweed cap has the same effect on all your other tweed caps. My collection of bakerboy caps numbers only a modest seven, but when The Windover joined them on the hat stand, they all seemed to cower in humility next to this officer-class piece of headwear. The Windover was presented to me on an occasion that had something of the Japanese Tea Ceremony about it. But the English version, with pints of… Keep Reading

12th February 2019 Fashion

King of the Underworld

A while back, purely because I was very prominent during the 1980s and ran landmark clubs during the so called New Romantic era, some chump on that social media malarkey would not accept that, at that time, I was not wearing copious amounts of make-up. I, of course defended my corner as, being 6 foot 2 and 14 stone with a noticeably broken nose and a few facial scars to boot, blusher and eyeliner were not entirely ideal. He also said that I must have sported frilly shirts and big shoulder pads. Luckily for us both, I didn’t know where… Keep Reading

7th October 2018 Fashion/The Chap Wears

Cordings of Piccadilly

An association between a 1960s blues guitar legend and an English country clothing store seems unlikely, but it is just this odd, eccentric twist on the traditional that makes Cordings of Piccadilly unique among its Jermyn Street neighbours. Eric Clapton became co-owner of Cordings in 2003, but that milestone was only one of many in the company’s illustrious past. John Charles Cording opened his first shop as an outfitter and waterproofer in 1839 at 231 Strand, manufacturing and selling mackintoshes developed by Charles Mackintosh. Cordings became so well-known for outdoor clothing that when Sir Henry Morton Stanley was preparing for… Keep Reading