History in the Lining

Sport. It’s a funny old thing. It has the ability to make us scream with delight and shame. It’s pretty much the reason why I get out of bed every day. What makes things even more exciting is when sport acts a bit mental. Summer is on the way (as he looks out of his window to see snow falling on his car roof) and we decided that we would create a pair of shorts that symbolized what we enjoyed so much about sport and the crazy things and personalities involved.

In the late 19th Century, Derby weirdly had it’s own baseball club, Sir Francis Ley, business man and iron works owner, decided it was a good way of keeping his workers fit and mildly confused. Francis loved baseball after visiting the USA and made uniforms that used Lancashire cotton and moleskin due to it’s hard-wearing abilities, rather than the traditional wool. He also made pockets in the trousers so that linings could be turned in and out to let the other players on the bases know whether they were going to stay or steal a base. Each pocket was lined in a different colour and each player had their own code. Brilliant eh?

Some 80 years later and cross the pond in Hollywood, the Stars of the same name realized that wearing wool trousers in the California sunshine probably wasn’t idea in the world and so opted to wear shorts. Knees out at baseball, whatever next? They played in the minor leagues for a few decades before interest dwindled and everyone and their cat started to love the Dodgers (Boo!). However what did remain was this ability to change how we view uniform.

So there you have it a bit of background to our latest pair of shorts and our influences on design. Hopefully you will have read this before you buy them and start speaking slowly and loudly at a waiter in the Algarve, but I won’t hold my breath.