The best design offers innovative solutions to the relentless stream of everyday challenges, uniquely reflecting and interacting with their origins. Seersucker, the brightly colored cotton fabric associated with Southern Gentlemen, J. Crew catalogs and Easter egg hunts, is certainly no different. Both an iconic achievement in fashion design and functionality, seersucker’s ceaseless timelessness stands as one of America’s finest fabric achievements.
Dishtowels, with their no-nonsense pattern design (that blue/white or red/white check or plaid or stripe has endured for decades) and soft texture (the finest are usually 50 percent cotton/50 percent linen), are not only nostalgic (lay one over that apple pie while it cools!) but well… handy. You can clean up messes, dry things, spray your cleaner and wipe away stains.
50% Cotton-50% Linen Kitchen Towel
I found these great vintage Swiss military bread bags at an Army-Navy surplus store the other day. Amazingly well-made. I was immediately drawn to them aesthetically, and seeing how I’ve been building up a vintage Italian road bike as of late, I thought they’d be perfect candidates for panniers.
Vintage Swiss Army Bread Bag
Perhaps one of the more interesting facets of innovation, despite advances in technology and engineering, is the reliance on successes of yore. Nature’s unflagging way of providing the most effective solution to a design problem continues to amaze.
Canvas Sails / USS R-14 in 1921
Du Pont Canvas Utility Bag
Sometimes, we as consumers don’t necessarily have access to everything quality and well-made. Throughout history, the military has provided a fine example of an institution that reserves the right to some superior products for themselves. The dependence of a person’s life on a functioning buckle or zipper or the endurance of a material under extreme conditions, draws an attention to detail that consumers often don’t get the luxury to experience. Industry is another good example.
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