COLLECTIONS

31/01

My home is the sea, wax to waves.

My home is the sea, wax to waves. Necessity. It is the pressure of circumstance. If your home is the sea, your environment demands solutions. Living by the sea, working on the sea, finding balance with the sea. Necessity. For many cycling is a necessity. To get paid, to get free, to get refreshed, to get to see new places, to get to meet new people. Whatever the reason is, whatever the impulse might be, whatever it is about the simple act of turning pedals and spinning wheels, it becomes a necessity. Necessity. In the 19th century, fishermen around the world needed to find a solution to the regular battering that the meteorology of the ocean delivered. Keeping dry in cold temperatures was sometimes a matter of mortality. The Inuits used seal and whale intestines for the best solution to block water in one direction but permit moisture to travel in the other. In Hastings, one of the oldest fishing villages in the United Kingdom, they were doing the same thing with Oilskins. Necessity. A bicycle is not a metal cage, it leaves you open to all the elements. That’s one of the reasons to love it, but also why it demands solutions to nature’s elemental offerings. Clothing is the equivalent of windscreens and doors and rooves and temperature control systems. Necessity. You use what is available to hand. Sailcloth and oils. Linseed and other oils were used to stiffen and strengthen sailcloth to make strong outer layers that were cut into coats. Thicker and thicker cotton was used and the oil penetrated the cotton so that water beads off the surface, just as it does on the Suzette. The result was a waterproof, durable outer skin. But it smelt badly and was slightly sticky to the touch. Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh doubled up and used the stickiness of the first layer to add a second layer, thus making a comfortable and easy to handle garment. As the first to patent the system, he's commonly referred to as the inventor of the rain jacket. Necessity. If the act itself is a necessity twelve months of the year then necessarily the odds are that you will ride in the rain. The pressure of the circumstances demands a rain jacket that will allow you to see out the saddle time in comfort. To find the balance between blocking the water coming in and letting the perspiration out. Breathability during the efforts and protection during the rest-in-between or simply for the duration of the long steady distance. These are the rides that make the good high-summer ones even better. Necessity. When space underfoot on what is known locally as 'The Stade' was at a premium, the fishermen of Hastings came up with the same solution as the developers of Manhattan Island. Build up when you can’t build out. They had to give way for increasing tourism and incoming commercialisation. The result is the three storey high 'net shops' that still stand to this day. They stored not just nets but all the fishermen's materials that would otherwise rot if not protected from the coastal weather. Necessity. Just like the Hastings 'net shops', a cycling rain jacket cannot take up the real estate of a Humphrey Bogart mackintosh or a Steve McQueen Barbour jacket whilst protecting its contents. It has to be sleek like the rest of the road cyclist's package to cut through the wind and to pack into the pocket. So wafer thin smart membrane fabrics are used, reinforced with rip stop weaving and drizzled with the technical details like fully taped seams, a waterproof zip and specially cut cuffs. Necessity. Necessity created a unique aesthetic in what are now Grade II Listed Buildings, protected for their appealing form and their historical significance. The beautifully black, beautifully wooden, beautifully maintained ‘net shops’ make up the visual calling card of one of Britain’s oldest fishing villages and have photographers and cinematographers flocking like the seagulls. Necessity. Function is a necessity but that does not mean that form can be forgotten. It can be found in the history of the rain jacket, in the evolution of the fabrics and in the places where they were born. Suzette, for men and women, comes in classic Lemon Chrome, a hue of yellow to act as a nod to the past fishermen of Hastings and beyond who've been battling the elements for centuries. Footnotes: Photography : Benedict Campbell, with special thanks to Steve Peak at the Hastings Chronicle for permitting use of the beautiful archive photos of the Hastings fishing community during the 1890s.

COLLECTIONS

26/11

Tied & Dyed, fabric from Italy

Tied & Dyed, fabric from Italy “Tie-dye has never been tasteful” according to New York Magazine. Or at least “American tie-dye ….. is too loud to be chic” But what about a Franco-Italian tie-dye? Replace gaudy designs and neon colours with subtle hues and renaissance-esque patterns. Combine this with a cutting-edge performance fabric for something singularly lightweight, fully wind stopping, water repelling and with an interior coating containing Aluminium ions to reflect body heat and add warmth. What if? Just north of Italy’s fashion capital, the Serates fabric factory is located a stone's throw from the idyllic Lake Como and only four hours from Nice. Perfect for a cross-border collaboration to turn a fabric fit for a super-model into one ready for chilly mornings or fast descents. In fact, tie-dye was not born in the 60s or 70s. From the Indian, the far Eastern and African continents, patterns have been created for centuries using 'resist-dying' : a technique used to create designs by restricting the run of the dye into the cloth. Japanese shibori sounds much more high-brow than psychedelic swirls. Since around 2016 the fashion world started to realise this and has refocused on the multifarious possibilities of combining different fabrics with tie-dye creativity. Run by the Ramundo family and with over 40 years’ experience in the market, the Serates factory serves a mix of elite brand clients from both the sports and the fashion world; Nike and Prada to name drop just two. If the corridors of power are where governmental decisions are taken, then these are the corridors of cloth where fashion trends are made. Their fabric production is completely in-house, literally one storey below the management offices. Each day they roll out three kilometres of the finest hand-crafted technical cloth money can buy. That means after four days there would be enough to line the road from the Café to Col d’Èze with fine Italian fabric….. Ripstop is one of the pillars of their performance range. Reinforcements of thicker threads woven into thinner cloth deliver strength without weight and provide aesthetics in a micro crosshatch pattern. Modern developments mean machines do the weaving work, but hands still do the quality control. Small defects at this stage can have big consequences so there are many eyes keeping a constant vigil on every metre that runs off the rollers. Once the roll is complete, the fun can begin. Colour creativity turns the technical into the desirable. Everyone knows about the primary colours. Some know about the Pantone Matching System. Few get to experiment, test and refine the eye to see every hue of every variation of every colour. It's at the heart of tie and dye. You could be forgiven for thinking it's child’s play. The same passion is there but to deliver products to meet the expectations of the world’s best brands, it takes precision and a methodology. Powder is weighed on scales, water temperature is regulated, notes are made, second, third and fourth tests are analysed meticulously before the final dye is made. The dye concentrate is diluted into vats of water that supply the jets over the conveyor belt of colour in the Serates factory. Do-it-yourself tie and dye methods involved exactly just that. In Como, the fabric is not tied but rather folded once and then laid nonchalantly on the conveyor belt. It's this deliberately random process that ensures that once the cutting is done, each individual piece will carry it's own unique tie-dye pattern. At the entrance jets apply the dye as the cloth passes underneath before heading into the oven section where the heat expands the fibres to allow the colour to penetrate them. At the exit point jets of water rinse the cloth and help spread the concentration of colour. Here again the fabric is man-handled, both to squeeze out the excess water and to inspect the results of the dye process before going into the industrial tumble dryer. With the cloth coloured, art meets science in the final performance treatment. Serates technicians blend a resin that provides both heat reflectivity and water repellency. Within the resin are aluminium ions that help reflect the body’s heat. The resin is applied with heat and transforms a fine fabric into a technical piece of performance. Back at Ramundo senior’s desk the prototypes are poured over in late afternoon light. Matteo explains how the brief was met from the original concept, Sebastiano asking how they performed each element, both of them admiring the run of colours achieved. Their eyes don’t meet but their hands are connected by the fabric that they hold together. Serates S.R.L., Via Civati, Albavilla, Province of Como, Italy

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