In a small town south-west of Nottingham in England’s East Midlands, lies one of the world’s true textile pioneers. Founded in 1860, Sunspel has been quietly revolutionizing the industry by developing ever-better quality fabrics.
As a specialist in luxury underwear for men, having introduced the boxer short to Britain in 1947, it was ideally placed when the T-shirt evolved from under- to outerwear (thanks to its adoption by American G.I.s and Hollywood antiheroes such as Marlon Brando and James Dean). Sunspel’s trademark crew-neck style T-shirt, in its smoother finish, has since become the staple by which all others are measured.
In 1955 it introduced another iconic design, the Riviera Polo Shirt, launched by Sunspel’s then-owner, Peter Hill – great-grandson of founder Thomas Hill. Finding the standard pique fabric for polos too rough and starchy for his holidays on the French Riviera, he set about creating a lightweight, breathable cotton mesh, Quality 75, that was cooler and more pleasant to wear, drawing on the same techniques of lace craft that the company had been founded on, using warp knit machines in Nottingham.
The Riviera became a mainstay of Sunspel’s luxury range, made in the same material right into the 21st century. Then, with the release of Casino Royale, the James Bond film starring Daniel Craig, came an intriguing development. As part of what was effectively a reboot of the 007 franchise, the film’s costume designer, Lindy Hemming, commissioned Sunspel to produce polos, T-shirts, and underwear befitting a 21st-century Bond. Having worked with the brand on numerous films, she recognized in Sunspel a combination of quality and Britishness that felt right for the character. In response, the Riviera was recut to a slimmer silhouette to better suit Craig’s physique, with shorter sleeves to accentuate 007’s impressive guns.
Since, it has been reimagined in super-fine Californian Supima cotton, and now, to mark the 20th anniversary of its appearance in Casino Royale, a new limited-edition version is being released in Sea Island cotton, the world’s finest and rarest cotton. Sunspel’s design director David Telfer explains that this is as good as it gets. “The interesting thing about the way Sunspel works is that we always look to improve over time. Most brands tend to launch a product and then think, how can they get the margin up? Whereas what Sunspel, as a brand, has always intrinsically done is to make sure we always improve on the quality.”
Nobody does it better.
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