The Staufenberger Repository

"Big old shoulders and double breastiness"

It's nearly time to unveil The Staufenberger suit.

To keep you occupied till then, here's another timely bit of generic suit coverage, courtesy of The Observer.

Factory visit

We went up to Huddersfield last week, to see the Staufenberger tweed on loom, as they say in the trade.

It was fascinating. Knowing very close to nothing about the weaving process, our visit proved most educational. We learnt about warp and weft, about heddles and creels and about all manner of weaving trivia. 

To our untutored eyes, the surprising thing about the factory is that despite the process being completely different in detail, the principles of weaving are unchanged since the invention of the loom. The relentless march of mechanisation that began during the Industrial Revolution has, as you would expect, transformed the the way fabric is woven. But this transformation is a series of adjustments that make the same process faster, more efficient, less labour intensive.

Perhaps it's naive to expect a higher degree of innovation. After all, the internal combustion engine has not changed, in principle, since its invention. The likes of the Wankel rotary engine never gained widespread acceptance.

On reflection, this lack of change makes perfect sense. Because it's not the machine that innovates it's the product or output. In other words, the nature of weaving hasn't changed because the nature of fabric hasn't changed. But that's a whole other topic.

Anyway, all that mechanisation means that our little order was produced very quickly. In fact it was produced so quickly that we nearly missed it, having been delayed en route to Huddersfield.

Now that it's been woven, it just needs to be checked for imperfections (knots and the suchlike), given a wash to remove the impurities and pre-shrink the fabric and then pressed before delivery.

It's all very exciting.

 

What goes around comes around

Whilst in Huddersfield we had a delve into the archives at HFW.

Huddersfield Fine Worsteds is the result of the consolidation of a number of weaving businesses, many dating back to the 19th century. Of these, Martin Sons and Company is the name under which they produce all their bespoke work, including our city-meets-the-country tweed design. They produce these bespoke fabrics for a number of fashion houses including Chanel, Armani, Givenchy and Prada. So we're in good company.

We had a lot of fun thumbing through swatch books of their previous years' designs. As you would imagine, the 70s provided some highlights, including many shades of brown and much lamé.

The more of these books we flicked through the more we began spotting influences across the decades. Just like the fashion world's current obsession with the 80s, at one point during the 70s there was a thing for 30s styling, driven in part by the popularity of movie of The Great Gatsby.

Today, designers often make the trip to Huddersfield to peruse the HFW archives looking for inspiration for their forthcoming collections.

I wonder if anyone will ever be inspired by our slightly eccentric Staufenberger tweed.

What goes around comes around 2

One of our reasons for doing The Suit was that we felt it was a time for a change from the scruffy, dress down thing that has been popular for men for, well, for a long time now.

Thankfully, we're not alone. At least, we're not if this article is to be believed.

Let's hope they're right. Otherwise, we'll be sitting on a lot of suit fabric.

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.

The Staufenberger Suit

(Photo credit: Brian Wilson. See also A Taxonomy of Amsterdam Bicyclists.)

Regular readers will be well aware that we're a bunch of bikeheads here at Staufenberger Towers.

In addition to the occasional weekend jaunt up Mill Hill and beyond, and the odd spot of bike polo, we cycle to and from work. It goes some way to offset what is probably a pretty shameful carbon footprint.

And seeing as we have the bikes at the studio most days, we usually cycle to meetings. Which has been known to create confusion at our destination: our willfully scruffy attire means we often get mistaken for couriers by our clients' receptionists.

This in itself isn't that much of a problem. The messenger - or fakenger - look is very now for many urban cyclists.

But when combined with the fact that dressing down has lost its rebellious edge - let's face it, most of our clients wear jeans and ironic t-shirts to work - we thought it might be time for a change.

So we've decided to go smart. More precisely, we've decided to make our own cycle-friendly suits.

Obviously, when I say we're making them I don't mean we've invested in a sowing machine and a tin of pins. We're partnering with an established tailor, so they'll look like suits and won't fall apart, and we're spec-ing the cut, detailing and fabric.

We thought we'd document the process in the occasional post. So watch this space for more suit related ramblings.