The Staufenberger Repository

Staufenberger Tweed

So things are progressing on the Staufenberger Suit.

With its moisture resistance and durability, tweed was always going to be our fabric of choice. But which tweed? We spent hours flicking through endless swatch books...

...debating the merits of Harris vs. Donegal, check or herringbone...oh, the choices.

In the end, there was nothing for it than for us to commission our own tweed. And who better to work with than John G Hardy, who hold a couple of Royal Warrants (apparently, they supply Balmoral tweed to the royal household).

To be honest, we could have picked one the thousands of tweeds already in existence but we wanted ours to reflect cycle culture in some way (even if very subtly). So we set ourselves the task of incorporating the colours of the rainbow jersey into our design.

For the few readers of the Repository who are not bike nuts, the rainbow jersey is the top that the reigning world champion (across the numerous cycle racing disciplines) gets to wear during his/her year at the top of the pile. It looks like this:

So from here the process began.

First, the search to find the yarns that best matched the red, blue, yellow and green of the world champion stripes (we'd already decided the black stripe would be represented by the ground colour).

Once the yarns were selected, a few tests swatches were woven, featuring the colours as flecks:

These we rejected. Not enough colour. Too recessive.

Then we switched to stripes, rather than flecks, for the colours. We ran a few more tests. And then we got it...The Staufenberger Tweed:

We've pushed the button on production and are expecting a delivery of about 60 metres of the stuff in January.

Note to self

Alongside developing the Staufenberger suit we've been exploring other potential products, one of which is a line of notebooks. The first run of 20 prototypes is now in. Each has been lovingly handcrafted here in London EC1, using techniques that haven't changed much in 500 odd years.

We've got two of these to give away, just mail your address and a friendly greeting to John. He'll pick the nicest two emails received.

Wacky update

Yes, it really is their name. It's The Wacky Barber.

But, questionable though it is, the name isn't everything. There are plenty of other things that have a greater bearing on your success.

And the Wacky crew have a few things going for them. They're clearly perky and energetic. They opened with two weeks of free haircuts. They give a free beer or coffee while you wait (not unusual in swankier "salons" but a nice bonus in a barber). And they do their own outdoor advertising (flyers bluetacked around Smithfield).

And this isn't their first branch so they must be doing something right.

Here's to breaking rules.