Shifts in menswear have the tendency to revamp certain fabrics. Chambray was long seen as the ugly duckling of fabrics until the current heritage boom brought around its resurgence. Typically used on shirting, designers have been coming up with ever more inventive ways of using the fabric. While creativity in itself is great to marvel at, we much prefer when it’s mixed with functionality. One perfect mixture of the two is accessories label, The Hill-Side.

The U.S brand was given a small scale launch back in Autumn of 2008. ‘We started The Hill-Side gradually, making one-off pieces from deadstock and found fabrics’ states Emil Corsillo, one half of the brother duo that makes up the label. After attracting more customers, the Corsillo brothers eventually launched their first full collection for the autumn/winter 2009 season. Originally focusing solely on ties and handkerchiefs, later collections saw them expand into scarves and other accessories, all lined with their signature selvedge stripe - something Emil once called a ‘honest decoration’.

As you’d expect for a company focusing on accessories that live or die based on the fabric, it’s where the legwork is put in. A typical collection might feature upwards of 23 different fabrics and they work with over 30 at first, whittling it down to the right number and ensuring that only the best fabrics are chosen.

‘Our products focus on utilitarian fabrics not commonly found in neckwear, including selvedge chambray, hemp/cotton blend selvedge denim, left-hand twill, organic “colorgrown” cotton, and waxed canvas’. The fabrics themselves are sourced mainly from Japan. ‘[There's a] great mill in Kojima where the best denim in the world is lovingly produced with an artisanal attention to detail and craft’.

The Hill-Side, along with a slew of other brands, have captured an emerging customer - one who values quality over the myth of a ‘bargain’. “Inexpensive products are not necessarily selling better during the recession; the products that are really succeeding are the ones that do the best job of communicating to a customer how their value is aligned with their price tag.”

Martin Brighty and David Walker have been around the tie industry for a long time. They first met at legendary English tie-maker Holliday & Brown 20 years ago, brought in to replace the sales director and admin director at the time. Indeed the famous ‘Buster’ Brown first taught Martin how to make ties.

But a few years after they joined, Holliday & Brown was bought by Michelson’s. And four years after that, both were made redundant (this was the early nineties).

That spurred them to start the brand Hunter’s, which has been quietly making handmade English ties for most of the high-end fashion labels, Savile Row tailors and Jermyn Street shirtmakers ever since. It’s probably fair to say they are one of the two last bastions of traditional English tie-making – the other being Drake’s.

Many of Holliday & Brown’s customers followed Martin and David, but “you never know whether the people that said they would buy from you actually will. And even if they do, you don’t know if they will the second season,” remembers David.

The US had been a big client of Holliday & Brown, so the two of them flew over to drum up support early on – having put together a collection of blankets with the help of Vanners – and used the resulting orders to get a bank loan. Production was done by around a dozen hand tie-makers that they knew in the UK, some of whom also worked for Holliday. “And a few of those girls are still alive today and making for us,” says David.

There aren’t many of these at-home tie makers any more. Drake’s has its own factory. But traditionally ties were made by outworkers that had several clients and got paid per item. Weaving, equally, used to be a cottage industry until it was centralised by factories like Vanners.

Martin and David had a small crisis three years ago when the one woman that made all their silk scarves retired. She had several people working for her, usually for three or four months of the year (scarf-making being seasonal work). But the workers got tired of the seasonality and either went to work in Tesco or returned home to Italy.

Eventually they found a girl and her family in Oldham, who now make all the scarves. The tough thing with silk scarves is the fringing – holding many different coloured threads, bunching them together and knotting them effectively. Some that Martin and David trialled previously either used the wrong fringing thread or made knots that gradually loosened.
She used to work for a hand-roll hemmer (hand rolling handkerchiefs, headscarves etc.) and took over that small business when he retired. So it all gets passed on, in bits and pieces. Until someone goes to work in Tesco.

The other half of David and Martin’s operation, of course, is Peckham Rye. Now well-known for its skinny ties and silk scarves, the brand was so successful in wholesale that customers kept asking where the Peckham Rye shop was. Initially they were in Harley Street, then Covent Garden, and now in Newburgh Street (just off Carnaby St) since July last year. It finally feels like a space that suits them – cosy, quirky and decorated with Private Eye covers. As hopefully these pictures demonstrate.

Photography: Andy Barnham

Following up on last week’s post on how the silk for a tie is cut, here’s a demonstration of how it is sewn together.

The key to any well-made tie is the slip stitch that runs all the way up its centre. It begins with a bar tack at the wider end and ends with a similar tack at the narrow end, plus that all important loop – a couple of inches of extra thread that allow the stitch to slip.

Let’s look at how one is made at Drake’s ties. The first image, above, shows the tie’s lining being placed along its middle. The lining determines the weight and feel of the tie, and has to be carefully balanced with the weight and handle of the silk. Here the lining is a wool and cotton mix.

The lining has a rough and a smooth side. It makes little difference to the shape of the tie which side is uppermost, but proprietor Michael Drake prefers the rough side to face the front – if only because otherwise there is a chance the texture could show through onto the back of the tie when it is being pressed.

In the second image, the lining is being pressed down into the front tip of the tie. The tipping is picked out to harmonise with the colour of the silk, here a white tipping for a small blue-and-white check: both very summery-feeling colours.

There is slightly more tipping on a Drake’s tie that a normal tie. This is because Michael likes to have the bar tack a little higher than average, allowing the end to splay out a little and “display more character”. It’s more expensive as it requires more material – a place someone could save a little money if they wanted to.

The two sides of the tie are then folded over the lining and tipping, and pinned all the way up their length. That’s the pinned (and weighted-down) tie you can see in the background of the image above.

In the foreground is the needle that is used for the slip stitch. This is unique to the job, with a slight curve that makes it easier for the sewer to catch both sides of the tie, and the lining, with each stitch and yet not prick the front. It is crucial that the lining be held with each stitch, so it does not move around the tie and provides consistent body along its length.

The bar tack is the first, anchoring stitch – it holds together all those elements mentioned above, plus the tipping. Some companies use an oversized stitch to demonstrate its strength. Drake’s considers that ostentatious.

The image above shows the stitch half-way through its progression. The self loop has just been inserted and stitched into place. By the way, a slip stitch is a loose, irregular stitch that allows the thread a certain amount of movement, while still securing the material.

At the end of the tie, a loop of excess thread is left (as shown below) before the thread is secured in a final tack. This loop means that the tie can be stretched, knotted or contorted, yet left to hang under its own weight will return to its original shape.

A tie without one is pretty much DOA.

Photography: Andy Barnham

With some brands merely pay lip service to the notion of being hand-made, there are several companies who make good on this promise, making products from scratch in their home country. One such label is US-based Tanner goods.

Based in Portland, Tanner Goods originally came to life as a spin-off to streetwear brand, Hecklewood. The company mainly focused on the making of belts before branching off into other accessories such as wallets, satchels and leather wristbands. They’ve also become known for their low-key collaborations, having teamed up with 3Sixteen for a series of tote bags and made the patches for Tellason’s denim line.

In the beginning the belts were given names like ‘The Scout’ and ‘The Eastern Bloc’ to reflect their military influences. In the words of the belt makers, the belts combined “heritage styling with Eastern European military functionality”.

Fabric-wise, they mainly use leather, using English bridle leather for belts and lanyards and grain leather for wallets and bags. Sourcing all the materials from US-based tanneries, they usually produce pieces in four colours: black, brown, tan and an untreated natural colour.

Whilst all colours do well, the natural colour is very popular amongst denim aficionados as they’re the ones most prepared to wait for their clothing to grow old gracefully. With a great line of products and upcoming collaborations with the likes of The Brooklyn Circus, a New York based boutique, Tanner Goods future is looking very bright indeed.

Judy Bown loves geeky detail; I love geeky detail. Talking to the bag designer and manufacturer was always going to be a pleasant experience.

Indeed, Judy’s first-ever post on her Designer’s Diary says it all: “Some brands believe that their customers don’t give a fig where or how things are made anymore. I think there are people who want to know the provenence of what they buy. It’s not about being elitist, it’s about a quest for quality.”

Now, it’s very easy to say that you care about quality construction and quality materials. Slightly harder to prove it. Fortunately, Judy spells out every aspect of how her bags are made and the qualities that go into it.

Take the brass hardware that is featured on Bown travel bags. Real brass has a deep colour and warmth that is lacking in the most common alternative, Zamac. This cheap imitation can snap under stress, feels thin and tinny and doesn’t age well. Indeed, you can often spot it by the artificial ‘aged’ look it is given. Judy says Zamac has crept up the fashion ladder – it used to just be seen on cheap high-street bags, now “so-called luxury brands think their customers can’t tell the difference and happily promote it as solid brass”. And she should know. Judy designed the bags at Mulberry for nine years, before working at Coach in New York and then consulting for Tocca, Asprey and Tanner Krolle.

The Bown brass is made by a family firm in Florence that can make small handmade orders to Judy’s designs. It is also individually lacquered to protect it from tarnishing and preserve that warmth – so while it retains the qualities of brass (such as strength with that little bit of give) it doesn’t need much maintenance.

My favourite detail is probably the zips though. These are made by RiRi in Switzerland, the best manufacturer of them in the world, and are all made to length. That means that each tooth matches up exactly down the length of the zip. You’d think that would be easy to do, but the alternative – peeling off single sides of a zip from a big reel – sometimes means the teeth miss ever so slightly. Leading to that annoying jarring.

Each tooth of the zip is individually stamped, polished for 18 hours to remove all rough edges and then washed for a further six hours. If you run your finger down the inside of the zip, you’ll feel no rough edges at all – unlike cheaper, mass-produced zips. Most of the best manufacturers use RiRi zips – I noticed recently that my Albam gilet, which I always thought zipped up in a very satisfying fashion – also has a RiRi zip.

On the Bown linings, I love the anecdote Judy tells about a customer who discovered accidentally that they have a waterproof backing. “He’d driven from Bonn to London and on getting out at the other end, tired and in a hurry, threw the debris from the passenger seat into his bag. This included a styrofoam coffee cup that he thought was empty. When he came to unpack the next day, he was horrified to see the cup on its side, dribbling coffee. Carefully removing his other possessions first, he saw that coffee was sitting in bubbles on the lining. With a bit of kitchen roll he dabbed it up. Absolutely no stains.” The inside is not absolutely waterproof as the seams are not sealed, just sewn. But unless you want to transport water in your bag, that’s unlikely to be a problem.

All this, and we haven’t even talked about the leather yet. Bown bags are made of many different types of leather – including a rather nifty one that is a whole goat on either side – but one thing that unites them is the vegetable tanning. This is pretty commonplace with men’s shoes, but more and more bags are being chrome tanned or use synthetic or corrected leathers. The advantage of vegetable tanning is the natural appearance and the way it ages.

You don’t want a big fault in one side of the bag, but it is nice to see the neck lines down one part of it where the skin has grown. And the unique patina that a natural leather has can never be replicated aesthetically by an artificial process. Chrome-tanned leathers have less subtlety, individuality and do not get better as they age.

Then there’s the inking – how the black stuff is painted down the side of leathers when they are sewn together. You can tell it’s done by hand because there is no line up the middle of the join (makes it stronger too). But I think we’ve had enough geeky detail for now, even for me.

I’ve been using my Overnight Cabin Bag in dark tan for about a month now. And I get a palpable pleasure from using it – whether it is the buttery feel of the leather or the knowledge of its craft that comes from the details above. Few accessories (non-clothes) I have ever bought give me that same sense of satisfaction.

If you want more, I highly recommend the Designer’s Diary on the Bown website. I read it all, backwards, (much in the way I hope people trawl through the archives of this site). Thanks to Judy’s descriptions of leather working I now really want to take one of the courses run by Val Michael and Neil McGregor at their workshop in Tetbury. So much better to do it than just talk about it.

While most blog-favoured companies get their start in the noughties, there are a few who started up just before the internet became the primary source for information. One such company is Jack Spade, who has been going since 1996.

Created by husband/wife team of Andy and Kate Spade, the line originally began as an offshoot to his wife’s namesake women’s accessories collection. Kate Spade was first made in the couple’s attic and the bags aimed to be ‘neither overly precious or boring basics’. That line eventually grew to the point where they began making bags for hardware stores, which in turn led to the men’s collection.

When asked in US Esquire about why he called his range Jack Spade instead of the more obvious namesake choice, he said, “There were two guys I really admired–Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, and Jack Kerouac. I thought its art and commerce. It’s straightforward, unpretentious. So we named the company Jack Spade. Jack is like a drop of mercury. You can never put your finger on it; you can never figure it out.”

Fabric wise, the company uses cowhide, vegetable tanned and full grain for their leather collections, whilst using canvas and nylon for their messenger bags. The focus is on day bags, whether it be backpacks, totes, messenger or small holdalls, although they do make wallets and key rings. The bags are all US made and they’ve recently branched out into clothing for SS10 season, making clothes with Cuan Hanly. Hanly had previously worked with Paul Smith for 10 years in addition to running a Dublin-based tailoring business, so he was deemed the perfect choice for the job of bringing clothing that sat comfortably alongside the accessories.

When asked about how his clothes, Spade replied, “I like my clothing with character. Things that have been lived in–imperfect and with stories. I don’t mind if it’s too small. I don’t mind if it’s too big. One thing I hate, though, is the perfect length. I have no patience for a flawless break in the pant.”