It appears that there is a fight for the Origin of the
‘pochette’ or the pocket square as it is more commonly known; with links to
Egypt, Greece, France, Eastern Europe, and England. We are going to be biased however and run with the story of Richard
II who ruled over England in the 14th Century, and according to
surviving documents, kept a square handkerchief on his person at all times,
using it to clean his face or nose if necessary. Maintaining a clean and superlative
appearance was required by lords and ladies and soon enough the handkerchief
became the must have accessory for other nobles.
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| King Richard II - Founder of the Handkerchief? |
Typically men would keep their handkerchiefs in their hands
or trouser pockets and consequently it would get dirty. Individuals then began
to keep it in their top breast pocket to keep it clean and soon enough the
trend began to grow.
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| Early 20th Century; the practicalities of the Pochette! |
Throughout the history of menswear the pochette, like
everything has had its ups and downs. In the 1920’s every well turned out gent
would sport a pochette in their top pocket, but the invention of clean
disposable handkerchiefs in the 1930’s tarnished the pochette as unhygienic. In
today’s contemporary society, the pocket square has lept back onto the menswear
radar and is a must have accessory for men when wearing a suit.
The Penrose Pochette collection is designed in house at our
London studio; we draw inspiration from an abundance of sources and after
finalising our designs we then carefully select a seasonal colour palette from
a printed chart of over 20,000 colours… Yes 20,000! The colouring process is
one of the most important and considered steps, as we pride ourselves in being
colour rich and not colourful.
Penrose pochettes are manufactured at a family run mill in Italy;
they use specialist printing techniques and have the most incredible colours
available for us to use which is of great importance to Penrose.
Our summer
pochettes are a balanced composition of cotton and silk which gives the
pochette an exclusively soft touch and adds a more contemporary look in the
gentleman’s top pocket. This introduction of a cotton/silk mix, twinned with a
more generous size than the average pocket square at 42cm2, means
our pochette will not slip down into hiding and will stand prominent when
ruffled in any way the wearer wishes.
For winter we introduced a
heavier weight pochette in 100% silk. The heavier silk content allowed the
colours to really intensify, displaying the rich winter palette and our
signature rolled edge, contrast coloured border.
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| Luxurious Pochettes from Penrose London AW13 collection - Now in stores |
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| Selection of Pochettes from Penrose London AW13 |
How To style your Pochette
There
is a plethora of ways in which you can fold and wear your Pochette. Our
favourite way of wearing anything at Penrose, is without being too particular,
without fuss and with plenty of panache.
A simple yet beautiful technique to show off your pochette, is to pinch the centre of your, bring all 4 corners to the centre and pinch together, then hold the pochette from the other end and voilla!
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| How to style your Penrose Pochette |
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| The end result! Complement your Pochette with a Penrose Tie to complete your sartorial look. |
