The Henley Started on a River
The Henley Started on a River
It was underwear, then it was a rowing uniform, then it was a shirt.
A Henley is a knit pullover with a band neck and a short placket of buttons. That is the whole definition. It has been almost unchanged for nearly two hundred years, which tells you it solved something real.
Undervests
In nineteenth century England these were undergarments, and they were called undervests. They were among the first collarless ones. Before stretch cloth existed, a few buttons at the throat were how you got a knit shirt over your head.
They were made in unbleached cotton for summer and wool for winter.
The River
Henley-on-Thames, in Oxfordshire, has hosted the Royal Regatta since 1839. Rowing crews trained in their undervests, and the open placket gave them ventilation and a collar that did not fight the neck on the recovery.
The shirts picked up the name of the town. Losing crews handed theirs to the winners, which spread the garment faster than any advertisement could have.
By the early twentieth century it had left the river. In the 1970s it stopped being sportswear and became a shirt.
The Waffle
A waffle knit creates a grid of raised squares and recessed pockets into the surface of the cloth. Those pockets hold still air against the body, which is what actually keeps you warm. It is the same principle as loft in a down jacket, at a much smaller scale.
It also means the cloth touches the skin at the high points only, so a thermal breathes better than a flat knit of the same weight.
Ours
Our thermal Henley is a heavy waffle knit at 11.5oz, in a blend of 75 percent cotton and 25 percent modal. The waffle runs unbroken through the neckline rather than stopping at a seam, which is a harder way to cut it and the reason the collar looks right.
It carries custom Black Bear Brand shell buttons. Shell is cut from the inner layer of a shell and every button is a slightly different piece of it.
It is garment dyed, which means the finished shirt goes into the dye whole. Vintage Rose is one of ours. The color exists nowhere else.
How to Wear It
Buttons open or buttons closed, both are correct. Under a jacket it does the job a shirt does without the bulk of a collar. On its own it is more than a tee and less than a button front, which is the exact gap it was invented to fill.
A Way Of Life.
Shop the Story
the Vintage Rose Thermal Henley
the Double Front OLD MONEY Green Cords
Related Reading
Men's Corduroy: History, Wales, and How to Wear Cords