Everything you need to know about the classic French top.

Continuing the series celebrating our Vive La France collection with 14 French brands, we speak to Mr Marco Petrucci from Armor Lux about the history of the Breton top, a wardrobe staple 300 years in the making. Armor Lux is one of few brands that still make this iconic item of clothing in Brittany, where it originated. Read what Mr Petrucci has to say, below, and shop the pieces made in collaboration with us at the bottom of the page.

Brittany has a couple of iconic fashion items that have their roots in workwear, one of which is the Breton striped shirt. It has a rather cruel background. These days Breton shirts all look similar, but about 300 years ago, each family or region had its own unique pattern, which would be worn on by fishermen on boats. When a boat sank, you would often find the shirts first, and you could use them to identify people.

These fishermen were also hired by the merchant navy. All their striped shirts looked disorganised, so in 1858 the military made a decree saying all shirts had to have 21 stripes – to denote the number of battles won by Napoleon. The sleeves had 15 or 16 white stripes. And the stripe ratio was 2/3 white and 1/3 colour. This became the uniform.

The early 20th century saw it starting to creep into fashion. In the 1910s Ms Coco Chanel was inspired by seeing fishermen in Breton tops and began introducing menswear into ladies’ fashion. She was wearing men’s trousers and men’s striped shirts. It was all oversized. That’s the starting point of it becoming a fashion item.

Much later, people like Mr Jean Paul Gaultier adopted the look. In the 1960s you had loads of celebrities who were wearing the striped shirt – the likes of Mr Kirk Douglas and Ms Brigitte Bardot. By then, it had nothing more to do with workwear. Today it has become an essential fashion item.

Last year, MoMA defined 111 classic garments that everybody should own, and the striped shirt was one of them. We made a special piece for the museum. People can buy any striped shirt nowadays, but recently there has been more concern about where it comes from and how it is made. In the French presidential campaign before last, for example, all the political parties wanted their public relations T-shirts to be made in France – something they never used to care about.

There only two jersey suppliers left in France that make a Breton or a plain shirt. One is Armor Lux. We are a fully integrated company – we do our own fabric dyeing, washing and assembling, all under one roof in Brittany. It’s our 80th birthday this year so we’ve been producing the Breton for that long – whether it be for political parties or high fashion. We’ve worked with Comme Des Garçons, YMC, Nigel Cabourn.

The pieces we’ve made for you – one is the classic stripe. The other piece is our way of combining something traditional – the stripe – and something that MR PORTER stands for, something a bit more modern. It has a hoodie and a sweatshirt; one part is plain and the other part is striped. It’s classic design mixed with sportswear.

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