ONCE A DAY
GARMENT STORIES
The Linen Herringbone Safari Overshirt
Most designs start with a sketch. This one started with a fabric. The herringbone weave – Roman geometry, a Swedish name. The Linen Safari Overshirt, built for warmer days and worn beyond them.
Our head designer found this fabric before the design existed. A herringbone linen made for suits – at 230g, slightly heavier than one might expect for summer. That weight and structure made it perfect for an overshirt with real character. The Safari Overshirt followed.
THE SWEDISH HERRING
The Romans built herringbone into their roads. The V-shaped stone arrangement distributed load so evenly that remnants of those roads still exist across Europe two thousand years later. Textile makers borrowed the geometry for the same reason – the interlocking structure holds form under pressure.
"The Europeans who encountered this weave named it after the same fish."
The English called it herringbone. The Swedes called it sillbensmönster – herring bone pattern. The resemblance to a fish spine is too obvious to miss, and herring has been on the Swedish table for a thousand years – pickled, smoked, served at every midsommar, Christmas, and ordinary Tuesday in between. We are a Swedish brand. Making an overshirt from this weave was never going to feel accidental. Like the fish itself, this overshirt works just as well at midsommar as it does on a regular weekday.
LINEN IN SUMMER
In Hong Kong and New York, summer runs two climates at once. Outside: heat and humidity from May through October. Inside: air conditioning at maximum in every restaurant, office, and shopping mall. A piece that only works in one of those environments spends half its time folded on a chair. At 230g, this linen herringbone handles both.
In Stockholm, it works regardless.
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THE DESIGN
Three hexagon pockets, five natural brown horn buttons, a dropped shoulder that lets the piece rest without effort. Clean and intentional. When the fabric is this considered, the design gets out of the way.
HOW IT WEARS
Linen wrinkles. This one does too. What the herringbone holds is a visible structure through the cloth even as it creases, so it never fully loses its line. Wear it for a few weeks and it settles into something personal.
AVAILABLE IN
Copper Red, White, Copper Camel, and Rusty Brown Melange, 230g Herringbone weave
The Weave: Herringbone linen at 230g. The Romans built roads with this geometry. It holds its line just as well in summer.
