Planning on flexing your sartorial muscles in the blog arena? You’ll need to come packing. And no, we’re not referring to your pocket square game. Every week on The Eye, we’ll cover a basic term you need to know right now... before you get laughed off the internet.
Much in the same way we commemorate the original American colonies by stitching thirteen alternating stripes on our national flag, the first Breton shirts boasted a proud twenty-one stripes for each one of Napoleon’s victories. As a tribute to the triumph of their once mighty leader, the French government passed the 27th of March 1858 Act nearly four decades after Napoleon’s death, establishing the blue-and-white striped shirts as a central piece of the French naval uniform. These sailors were stationed in the Brittany region in North-west France, and so the shirts soon picked up their commonly known moniker: Breton stripes.
It’s said that the stripes made it easier for sailors to be spotted if they ever slipped (or drunkenly toppled) overboard, and so the shirts were quickly adopted by seafarers of all kinds. In 1917, Coco Chanel saw the shirts and decided that their relad boatneck style would make a perfect addition to the collection of nautical inspired pieces that she was debuting. Once Chanel got her hands on Bretons, it was only a matter of time before the shirts began appearing at high society events, worn under blazers by upper-class characters and suddenly dubbed "chic." Throughout the mid-century, the shirts became a favorite of Europe’s most prominent creatives, worn by everyone from French existentialist Jean-Paul Sarte, to Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, to silver screen starlet Jean Seberg.
Armie Hammer earns his stripes in the pages of GQ
Eventually Breton striped shirts became the garb of French beatniks and found a receptive audience in a like-minded circles here in America, for instance Andy Warhol and his "factory" of artists began wearing the striped shirts throughout the Sixties. The beats and boatmen were certainly onto something, and so each spring, those twenty-one stripes (maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, depending on if you’re buying Saint James or Commes Des Garçons) resurface, bringing the intoxicating air of the French Riveria, and the comfortable feel of French style, along with them.
Jake Gallagher writes the blog Wax-Wane. He lives in Manhattan.
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