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With 2017 slowly melting away like a stray snowflake in a muddy puddle by the side of the road, now seemed like the perfect time to cast our peppered minds back over the last twelve months, and try and reel off our favourite things.
So without further chatter, here’s our list of things we were into this year…
10 – Orange Jackets
At ten, orange jackets. Obviously navy, dark green and beige are classic colours that should NEVER be ignored or overlooked, but if there was such a thing as a ‘hue of the year’, we reckon that ‘rusty old barge’ shade of orange would rank pretty high.
Holubar, Albam and Sassafras knew the score.
9 – Those white leather Finn Comforts
Comfort shoes have been an Oi Polloi fixture for donkey’s years now, but for some reason the elusive white, perforated Finn Comfort has been notably absent from our shoe wall for quite some time.
Luckily, in 2017 it returned in all its orthopaedic glory. When every man and his dog is pretending to be a trainer collector, it’s always nice to throw on something like these and stride into brave new pastures.
8 – Stone Island
It’s been a cracking year for jackets with little compasses on the sleeve. Luckily, there’s more to this stuff than the label, and whether it’s fancy garment dying techniques or mad metallic fabrics that make the T-1000 look like the tin-man, this lot have really been going for it lately.
7 – Sports
Handball might be a completely daft sport, but that doesn’t mean we can’t hanker for long-lost handball trainers.
This year saw some absolutely classic sporting garb dusted off and re-jigged, and one can only wonder at what obscure sporting garment will come next…
Kayaking helmets? Pole-vaulting girdles? Chess gloves? Only time will tell.
6 – Leisure Suits
In at six, the humble leisure suit. Thanks to Italy’s President's and those clothes we made with Edwin, this year it was easier than ever to dress like an expendable henchman from You Only Live Twice. Now all we need is a monorail and a hollowed-out volcano…
5 – That Arpenteur stuff
Arpenteur make amazing clothes every year, but 2017 was the year we finally got to work with them on making sweet metaphorical music.
Obviously it’s pretty self-centred to include clothes we had a hand in making in this list, but 2017 has also been a banner year for narcissism, so we may as well get in on the act.
4 – ¼ Zip Sweatshirt Things
The sweatshirt will always be one of life’s great inventions, but just when we thought they couldn’t get any better, companies like Still By Hand and National Athletic Goods decided to whack little zips on the collar.
We’re now standing at the summit of sophisticated sportswear, and our necks have never felt snugger.
3 – Universal Works
This year we melded minds not once, but twice, with Universal Works, and without sounding too cocky, we were pretty pleased with the results.
We’ve long been fans of their laid-back half-shirt, half-jacket hybrid beauties, so getting to meddle with their classic design was a true honour.
2 – Fusion
Just missing out on the top spot, we’ve got what we’d call ‘fusion’. What do we mean here? Well, things have come a long way in the last few years, and we’re now living in the age of everything.
Just like how you can now find sushi on the same shelf as a cheese and pickle sandwich, it’s now perfectly fine to wear your trackies with a smart wool jacket. The boundaries have fallen and the world is your toy-store.
1 – Those Adsum caps
Every year something crops up at Oi Polloi HQ that everyone here can agree is really, really great.
This year, it was those caps from New York’s Adsum. Sure, it’s only a cap… but what a cap it is. Simple cotton twill… good shape… nice closure… in a world becoming more and more crammed with nonsense and gimmickry, it’s great to know that you can still get your hands on something that’s actually, legitimately, undeniably good.