Its history
The Breton shirt, the vogue for stripes.
When the decree of March 27, 1858 gives the official list of the marinière, new dress of the French Navy, it describes with precision "the blue knit of current service" that the sailors and quartermasters will have to put on under their tunic. The width of the stripes, their number on the sleeves, the size of the neckline, everything is referenced with necessarily military rigor.
But those who designed this striped knit, supposed to help locate a man fallen overboard or in dangerous maneuvers, are far from imagining that these stripes will experience a surprising destiny when the fashion for marine clothing will colonize, from Cannes to Deauville, the most chic seaside.
After the First World War, the marinière became a fashion icon thanks to Coco Chanel, who included it for the first time in her women's collections. Worn by many celebrities in fashion and the 7th art, the marinière became a chic, geometric and even eccentric icon in the 1950s when fashion designers began to decline the stripe. The marinière continues, even today, to inspire young generations of designers.
Guarantor of tradition, Armor-Lux continues to manufacture striped knitwear by perpetuating ancestral know-how. Go behind the scenes...
A creation in 3 steps
Knitting
The knitting of your marinière is done in our historic factory in Quimper, Finistère. Our factory is equipped with 90 knitting machines, which allow us to produce large quantities of our main types of striped knitwear. For knitting, the loom is equipped with 72 bobbins (50 bobbins for the background and 22 for the stripe). A spool weighs 2 kilos and contains 112 km of yarn. For the knitting of your marinière, 20 to 25 km of yarn are necessary.
The knits will then be washed for 2 to 3 hours. This step removes all impurities from the cotton to guarantee maximum softness when worn.
The knits will then be washed for 2 to 3 hours. This step removes all impurities from the cotton to guarantee maximum softness when worn.
The cup
The rolls of knitting are then transported to our 2nd production site, also located in Quimper. 3 different cuts are made for the marinières: the body, the right sleeve and the left sleeve. The knits are superimposed in quantities of 30 to form what is called quilting. Our striped fabrics are necessarily cut by hand using electric scissors to allow the agreement of the stripes at the seams.
Our cuts are specially developed in our design offices to dress the whole family, at any age, from size 3 months to 4XL.
Our cuts are specially developed in our design offices to dress the whole family, at any age, from size 3 months to 4XL.
The making
The different parts that make up the marinière are gathered and sent to the confection. This workshop is made up of 140 stitchers (assembling parts and making collars, slits, etc.), hemmers (sewing hems) and sergers (shaves, stitches and overcasts the knit in a single pass thanks to the presence of a knife) . A tracking sheet accompanies each item for proper monitoring of the assembly range.
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