Double RL, Forever Shirt
With Purposeful Activity when we talk about clothes broadly we want to focus on the beloved, and the new but soon to be loved.
Items of actual quality. Imbued with purpose and ever present in my activity.
By that I mean treasured items which have been lived in and used for a number of years, and their newer but properly tested direct counterparts.
So new is never newer than a few months and often ours for longer. For us we believe that the only way to offer fair and true recommendations is to live with and use items for a while.
Alongside this, items featured previously will continue to weave their way through our tale of great things.
I believe passionately in buying less, buying better, and living life. So, wearing and using; using and wearing; repairing if needs be but loving always.
If this helps promote that cause, then I have succeeded.
Clothes from American dreams worn on New York stoops, Mayfair mews, south western plains, and all the good spots between.
Hang on, isn’t RRL clothing made to look like for work, but not up to work and never worn to?
Well, a forever shirt doesn’t become such hanging in closets or folded in drawers. It gets there on backs, with brains moving, limbs doing, places going.
Through wear, wear and worn some more. Getting dirty, hot, wet, cold, in the act of being human, being yourself.
This has been across the globe and back, worn over and under everything: t-shirts in summer; sweats in autumn; worn buttoned up on spring early dog walks; and there, my companion on mid-winter cashmere topped late morning coffee runs.
If car keys are missing or wallet hiding, I check these pockets first.
And as the light softens and seasons change, when we think of hunkering down; preparing for winter; log splitting and stacking; slow food cooking and philosophical musing, it jumps even more frequently from front of wardrobe and onto my back, visiting nigh on daily for months, under, over, doing life in it.
Starchy flat when washed and hung dry, it softens as I move. Garment dyed, over time it’s faded to colour of Land Rover’s found decades later in English country barns. Western shirt turned olive, turned mine. Flashes of original colour wink from behind pocket flaps and hints behind cuffs buttoned, once, twice, thrice or left open, catching the breeze then rolled back under the midday sun.
There is little I haven’t or wouldn’t do wearing it. Whilst rarely digging roads, I’m out and about, dawn till twilight, busy, busy, busy like you and won’t tolerate things that let me down.
I guess I am a country boy with occasional city living and a city boy with country home. In one you want to look the part, the other have to dress it or the elements will leave you undone.
Whether that’s a swift Guinness in the Guinea or Prince Leo; tasting menu at Osip or ‘buta miso’ at Koya; animal feed buying at Baber’s or heirloom purchasing at Connolly it has to work.
And especially when hopping over and fixing fences, leading horses, shifting sheep, minding the gap on tube and dashing through the snow. Looks part, does part. That’s the key. This isn’t dressed for Christmas, sparkly hat and not feeling yourself. But understanding that the right time is always, the right place is where you are this second and the right gear always sees you through, as you.
Because often the things that look the part don’t work the part, and vice versa. The marketing is good, the hype high and the clout real, but the reality is a fleeting dream to be replayed and replaced, that thing just out of reach and so the cycle runs.
This forever shirt is different and as ever Ralph gets it right.
His genius, like all true genius is simple. He presents a stage and picture paints. Lights go down, curtains part and there this shirt floats looking the part. A simple story of mid west America, owned and loved for years, but it works it too.
It’s a masterpiece of elegant, purposeful design. Useful pockets, tactile snaps, enough weight to wear rather than wear you, and like all the best design, it comes from the mind and hands of the expert, the designer at the top of their game; the painter of pictures; the confident creator; and actual realiser of dreams who hands you their work, and over time with slow use, it becomes yours. “Oh this old thing?”, “Had it years”.
What is slow use? Well, bought early 2010s, worked hard and loved from moment one. The tag said RRL, still does, and perhaps when bought it was Ralph’s. Now it’s mine. Mayfair, South West, New York, trouble, high jinks, and peace.
