Origins

The creative inspiration behind the CV22 ready to wear collection ORIGINS reaches back to the very birth of British sports kits and tropes of classic menswear, considering the physical aspects; fabrications, design and construction as well as the social narratives, roles and rituals. 

The ORIGIN of sports uniform lies in 1800s Rugby town;when Mary (Penrose) Arnold constructed raw cotton clothing to provide the first dedicated alternative too wearing everyday clothes for playing sport, hence enabling participants to assume their role as sportsmen and team members. This idea of Mary (Penrose) Arnold providing garments to clothe these prototype sportsmen, in What was to become the first playing kit, defines and informs our development of unique fabrications and palette.

We created ORIGINS as a modern uniform, a collection from raw, unbleached cotton in a monochrome hue of ecru, following the spirit of the cotton colour and construction of those first strips. English Fine Cottons spin Supima yarns for us in an original Victorian cotton mill near Manchester, the spiritual home of the British cotton industry.