Goh wat toevallig, dit weekend in de FT.....
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ebf4cc2-90e2-11dd-8abb-0000779fd18c,s01=1.html?nclick_check=1
"[A]s Niels van Rooyen, creative director of the shooting clothing line Holland & Holland, points out, “When Dolce & Gabbana brings out that tweedy look, or Zara, their client is not actually wearing the jacket fishing or shooting. It’s a look that signals the consumer is part of a club, or aspires to buy into one.”
Beste Dantes,
Waar je nu exact heen wil is mij niet duidelijk. Dit artikel beschrijft juist de ontwikkeling dat countrykleding de overstap maakt naar de stad n.a.v. maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen. Dit artikel bewijst naar mijn mening niet jouw stelling, dat een 'beetje engelsman' dit nooit zal doen. Ik ben overigens op zoek naar een volwassen en opbouwende discussie met je op een discussieforum.
Los van deze discussie; In een land met een aversie tegen de jacht zoals Nederland is het dragen van Beretta denk ik een bron van boze blikken. Wel snelle service en geen ruzie in bars
Het hele artikel ter referentie:
Huntin’, shootin’, fashion
By Josh Sims
Published: October 4 2008 02:03 | Last updated: October 4 2008 02:03
Any brand that makes shotguns and other firearms for the world’s armed forces and country sports enthusiasts may seem an unlikely choice for delicate fashion folk.
It also seemed a rather unlikely direction for the gunmakers themselves. “The idea initially was not to turn into a fashion brand but to produce products that allowed people to fully enjoy their passion – shooting,” says Franco Beretta, one of Italy’s leading gunmakers, whose business spans 15 generations. “But as more people came to our stores, the more we realised that there are customers who just like the lifestyle that countryside sports represents. It may be a niche market but there are a lot of people who like that shooting/country style.”
Beretta’s new 1526 clothing collection has been designed specifically to target that niche. Made in Italy from luxury materials, the clothes are more likely to make an appearance on hipsters en route to a bar than on hikers tramping across muddy moors. And Beretta is not alone. Niels van Rooyen, artistic director of Holland & Holland, says the recent boom in clay pigeon shooting in the corporate world – and its association with old money and a luxury lifestyle – has given a new lease of life to gunsmith brands.
What’s more, the look is being adopted even by those who do not shoot. Beretta estimates that these customers account for 15 per cent of clothing sales and that figure is rising. Manufacturers are adapting to meet this new demand. Holland & Holland is reintroducing a bespoke tailoring service to give tweed suits a sharper, more metropolitan edge. Its new collection features the usual country staples such as cords and suede-shouldered gilets but now in new limited editions and lightweight versions to appeal to the urban consumer who simply likes the look.
Duncan Cavenagh, managing director of gunsmiths and country wear brand William Evans, says: “Such clothing offers a degree of escapism – with the prices and crime rates there is some rejection of city life going on among some urban dwellers and, if you can’t physically escape, maybe the clothes offer a sense of escape.”
Cavenagh, who joined William Evans five years ago from Dunhill specifically to develop the non-gun side of the business, which now represents about half of all sales, has recently introduced the brand’s first weekend clothes, including sports jackets, waistcoats and long skirts, designed less for wearing outdoors and more for the relaxed, post-shoot supper or clubhouse drink. “There is clearly an appeal to be made to a wider market than those that want to shoot,” he says.
In part that appeal is its very Britishness (even for Beretta – Italians often do British better than the British) and old-fashioned craftsmanship. Try not to overdo the tweed, though, or you could end up looking at best like a stylish Bertie Wooster, at worst, a bumbling Sherlock Holmes. That said, there are some elements of the look – tattersall shirts, nubuck jeans and waxed jackets, for example – that have become signatures of British style. Van Rooyen has shifted Holland & Holland’s production so that some 60 per cent of goods are now British-made, which has boosted their appeal among British and international customers alike.
“The shooting and country lifestyle is characteristically British and remains essentially aspirational,” he says. “Shooting clothing has an old fogeyishness about it that makes it the English version of American preppy style – simple, functional and easy to wear.”
Today, shooting clothes now account for 35 per cent of sales at gunmakers James Purdey & Sons, up from just 10 per cent a decade ago, with more than a third of those sales exports. “More and more women are shooting now too, so there is the added pressure not just to get the functionality right but to be more fashion-conscious too, In the end this brings in more customers,” says Richard Purdey, director and former chairman.
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Details
www.beretta.comwww.hollandandholland.comwww.williamevans.com.................................................
‘An American feel
Smoke from log cabin chimneys must be in the air. From Roberto Cavalli’s lumberjack-chic to Carolina Herrera’s furry gilets and Thomas Pink’s casual Piccadilly check shirt, it seems that this autumn, urbanites will be dressing as if they are heading for Lake Placid, New York State, the fly-fishing and clay shooting home of the late William Rockefeller, writes Syl Tang.
Little wonder: just as these clothes were being created, destination travellers the world over were buzzing about the sale of The Point, once Rockefeller’s former “Great Camp”, now owned by invitation-only preservation club Everlands. Meanwhile, one of this year’s most popular reads has been Russell Banks’s The Reserve , a novel about a Rockefeller-esque scandal up on a lake.
There is a decidedly American feel to the ruggedness in the clothes. Blame it on the weak dollar but New England is having a renaissance as a vacation spot that is tipping over into the sartorial domain.
“There is an increased interest in a certain rustic lifestyle modelled after hunting lodges,” says Michael Chagnon of the Equinox resort in Manchester, Vermont, where reservations in 2008 are up 20 per cent compared to the same month in 2007. “Now people are dressing the part. Fishing lures on vests are standard garb, and city folk are buying things they see locals wear.”
Of course, as Niels van Rooyen, creative director of the shooting clothing line Holland & Holland, points out, “When Dolce & Gabbana brings out that tweedy look, or Zara, their client is not actually wearing the jacket fishing or shooting. It’s a look that signals the consumer is part of a club, or aspires to buy into one.” After all, those who can’t afford membership of The Point, with its annual fees of $40,000, can still acquire the Thomas Pink shirt at £69.
