The Trench
History of fashion
I present to you WATSON, a direct descendant of our Nestor trench coat, improved, revisited, with Jean-Michel our favorite Parisian designer.
Some people sometimes make the mistake of using the word avatar to designate a mishap or damage, it's quite the opposite. An avatar is one of the successive reincarnations of the God Vishnu, it is far from being a tile but an iconic transformation or a happy evolution. Watson is therefore a perfect avatar of Nestor and I will tell you why.
A quick reminder of previous episodes:
The Trench is more than a century old. It took shape in 1914, in the workshop of a certain Thomas Burberry, on order from the British army wishing to protect the officers of His Gracious Majesty in all weathers . Adapting the heavy serge coats of the French and British armies, our patriotic tailor designed functional raincoats, ready for combat and... perfectly cut, embellished with epaulettes and buckles. Functional and elegant, it's compatible. Do you see me coming?
In the hell of the trenches, from the Marne to Verdun, the garment gained its iconic name of trench frock coat or “trench coat” for posterity.
It spanned history, including the Second World War, carried by the liberating Allied officers.
All the ingredients of a romantic epic were there. Hollywood and fashion took hold of them, these Olympus where the gods know how to transform the ordinary into the sublime, moving from the mire of the trenches to the limelight of the catwalks. Saint-Laurent of course, from the 70s made it a leitmotif of its collections, followed by Dior, Balenciaga, Hilfinger, Paul Smith... finally the Burberry brand and its emblematic tartan acquired their letters of nobility. The punks and the goths also draped themselves in it, which shows that the object was - still is, more than ever - a bearer of singularity and universalism at the same time... the dream of every stylist.
In my mental landscape, where inspiration resides, I can simply admit to you that the two trench coats stuck together, of Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard kissing in the rain of Breakfast at Tiffany's and Ingrid Bergman , heartbreaking, in the arms of Boggart tight in his trench coat, impervious to the rain, not to the incandescent passion of Ingrid (in Casablanca obviously), are not foreign to our drawing.
Far from me the idea of daring to speak familiarly with these gods of Olympus by offering a slavish copy of these iconic trench coats, nevertheless, I wanted to offer you with Watson a design which sticks even better to all the canons of the gender. Working together with Jean-Michel, our model maker friend, we have notably developed an evolution of Nestor with raglan sleeves, for greater ease when you sing and dance in the rain.
Our partner factory in Prato in Tuscany, BSCI certified, adheres to our “zero waste” concept. In fact, we found an existing canvas with a greige base, whose dye is Oeko Tex certified, in order to offer you a slightly lighter shade of beige than Nestor, and absolute chic we have developed our own color!
I would like to remind you here that a BSCI certified factory using Oeko Tex products is a factory which belongs to the crème de la crème of factories.
BSCI stands for Business Social Compliance Initiative, a charter of belonging to modes of production that respect fundamental human and social rights. Oeko Tex is the quality label, guaranteeing the absence of toxic products for the body and the environment in the manufacturing process and use of materials. That our partner factories adhere to BSCI and are Oeko Tex certified means that they are in line with our manifesto “make beautiful, do good, do it well”...
“Elementary my dear WATSON” would exclaim Sherlock Holmes, prince of detectives.
CH