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Where to buy Brad Pitt's cool F1 sweatshirt
In cases of exceptionalism in film fashion, few are so prominent as Steve McQueen's outfit in The Great Escape. His character, Captain Virgil Hilts, the Cooler King, spends much of the movie in khaki chinos and a blue sweatshirt, while all around him fellow prisoners are in much more formal military uniforms. He also has a baseball glove and ball to bounce against walls. Why did the Germans allow this PoW to wear this chic gear? Could it be because the King of Cool had to look the part even in a period wartime drama?
Now, while it is perfectly reasonable that a captured United States Army Air Force pilot might wear this sort of gear, the details tell a different story. Those chinos are more slim than they would have been in the 1940s, and McQueen's A-2 brown leather jacket just looks like too good a fit. Plus his short-sleeved sweatshirt is so perfectly campus track-and-field that when paired with his ever-present baseball and glove we are looking at something much more 1960s Sunday-in-the-park US than behind-barbed-wire Second World War Germany.
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Of all the clothes, it is, for my money, the sweatshirt that says most about Hilts's nonconformist attitude. With its raglan sleeves and weighty cotton, it says he is no uniform wearer. A sweatshirt is neither T-shirt nor sweater, but a hybrid piece that when taken out of its original habitat — the gym or field of play — suggests that the wearer really is a relaxed dude. The sporty heritage still clings to the garment and, unlike knitwear, a sweatshirt is never smart. What we have here is something that resolutely says 'off duty'.
And now Brad Pitt, an actor who is surely heir to McQueen's brand of American cool, is wearing a sweatshirt in F1: The Movie, which is released today. He's been pictured on set in a green one, worn with jeans, and apparently sports this and a pink loopback model in the film.
'Loopback' is the name given to the cotton material that has a soft fleecy side made of fabric 'loops'. These are named after the 'loopwheel' machine used originally to knit the material. They make a sweatshirt comfy and soft, and also remove moisture — a process known as 'wicking' — helping to regulate body temperature. Hence making the sweatshirt ideal for exercise.
Pitt's sweatshirt is by the British brand Sunspel, which today releases a limited edition of 100 pieces of the style in both the thyme green and the pale pink versions that feature in the film. And lest you think this British interpretation is somehow not as authentic as a US-made sweatshirt, consider that this 165-year-old producer of T-shirts, knits and polo shirts has a history of confounding our American cousins. That famous Levi's ad from the 1980s, in which the model Nick Kamen stonewashes his jeans in a 1950s-style US laundromat, sees him sitting out the wash cycle in a pair of white cotton boxer shorts also made by our friends from the Midlands.
However, Sunspel's sweatshirt is a more recent addition to its collections than its T-shirts, polo shirts and boxer shorts, which were introduced many decades ago. Jonathan Anderson, of the JW Anderson label and the recently appointed creative director of Dior, worked as the creative director of Sunspel from 2011-14. He developed a sweatshirt for the brand, but insisting that it be cut slimmer than the typically baggy athletic styles so it can be worn under a jacket.
Nicholas Brooke, the CEO of Sunspel, remembers: 'Jonathan is real fabric technician, and he found these loopback cotton underwear pieces in the Sunspel archive and immediately saw that we had a history of making this sort of material. Its logical contemporary use is for a sweatshirt, so Jonathan introduced the style to our range.'
It is said that the sweatshirt owes its origin to the American football player Benjamin Russell Jr. Apparently in 1926 he came up with the idea of a cooler, more comfortable cotton jersey to wear instead of the wool ones that made him itch. His dad, who had founded Russell Manufacturing in 1902, turned the idea into a commercial project, and in 1930 the company started to make these for the public. In 1973 the firm rebranded as Russell Athletic.
Fun fact: Russell Athletic today says that the V detail at the neck of many sweatshirts — Sunspel's included — was originally an area of thicker cotton fabric designed to help 'collect sweat and control the stretching of the collar after years of wear'.
Anderson's desire to elevate this item from its gym bag origins is something that now, a decade later, can be seen similarly playing out in many designer collections. Witness Saint Laurent's coloured Cassandre sweatshirts, so named because they feature a tone on tone version of the house monogram of the interlocking letters of the founder's initials (YSL), which was designed in 1961 by the graphic designer known as Cassandre.
Dior has the CD Icon sweatshirt in grey or black cotton fleece, which has a CD logo subtly embroidered on the chest in a matching colour. However, it also offers a sweatshirt it has done in partnership with Lewis Hamilton that comes in red, white or navy blue cotton fleece with striking embroidery on the sleeve and front in contrast colours. At Drakes there is a rib cotton jersey sweatshirt with sporty contrast stripes around the crewneck, cuffs and waistband, which comes in three colours — blue, ecru and green.
Gucci's range of printed cotton jersey sweatshirts comes with a variety of motifs, including the green-red-green house stripe, the brand's logo and letter G designs, and fun surfer and dolphin decorations. Paul Smith, too, uses the style as a type of sketchpad, with blue loopback cotton jersey styles with raglan sleeves that come with multicoloured embroidered bicycle wheels or a Smith 'Happy' logo on the fronts. The British designer also has a penchant for zebras and offers a 100 per cent organic cotton sweatshirt in multiple colours that features a subtle embroidery of the animal on the chest. Burberry, Balmain, Dolce & Gabbana and Ralph Lauren are among the many other brands that offer sweatshirts in their collections.
And while The Elder Statesman has the Daily Crew sweatshirt style in cotton and cashmere and Brunello Cucinelli offers a pure cashmere model — both complete with that V-at-the-neck detail — there really is nothing wrong with going for the no-nonsense loopback cotton version and pairing it with its equally no-nonsense sister symbols of Americana, a pair of chinos or jeans. Just like Steve. And Brad.
The Sunspel Brad Pitt Loopback Sweatshirt is released today as a limited edition of 100 in two colours, thyme green and pale pink, £135,
