It doesn’t seem like it, but Orgueil‘s Knitted Trainer Sweatshirt is a playful take on the early days of men’s sportswear and serves as a perfect reminder that heritage fashion isn’t all stitch for stitch reproductions and can birth new, inventive ideas.
Modeled after the very first iteration of the ‘sweatshirt’ or ‘training shirt’, Orgueil intentionally diverges from surviving examples by using soft 100% lambswool as opposed to course, tightly knit wool jersey material. In other words, this piece is much more like a knit sweater than a sweatshirt and therefore much more comfortable to wear.
It also means that the two-tone detailing is more a celebration of once necessary, functional elements as opposed to a replication. This is most notable in the shoulder and “V” neck gusset panel. Original sweatshirts would have used a separate panel of fabric to reinforce points of stress and would have been sewn in separately. Orgueil’s contrasting here is purely color blocking and therefore achieves the same look without the same construction method. This has to be my favorite detail I’ve seen in a while and I wish more brands would spotlight historical details in creative ways like this.
Available for $320 from Clutch Cafe
