Sometimes we are asked to replicate an old threadbare blazer, or, as is often the case, a club will want advice on designing a new blazer. In this case clubs are not only limited to plain colours but we can design a very specific striped fabric, edging and personalize it with buttons and crest. Our Creative Director, Kristie Robinson, works very closely with each new customer or club helping them to design their perfect traditional Henley blazer which epitomises their club and which each individual is proud to wear as a sign of allegiance to their club or country. Plain blazers can take 4 – 6 weeks and striped blazers can take 10 – 14 weeks depending on the time of year.
1) Cloth – Plain or Stripe
Plain we have an extensive range of plain colours and if we do not have your exact colour we can dye it up for you. Plain colours are available the next day but if we need to dye up your unique colour this will take around 3 weeks.
Stripes Our Creative Director works very closely with each new club to design their own commissioned stripe fabric which is then specifically woven up for the club at the mill in Yorkshire. This process can take around 8 weeks from approval of your initial design.
At Collier & Robinson we believe that the ‘pièce de resistance’ of any blazer is surely your club crest as this is, in essence, your club identity. Kristie Robinson, our Creative Director, will want to spend time considering your club emblem for your blazer pocket, which should reflect the club’s heritage and ceremony of the blazer and may require more creativity and richness to the embroidered design than the everyday club training sportswear.
On our team, we have the resources for both traditional wire work embroidery and the creativity of our local embroiderer, who is an innovator…
Blazers
Some schools of thought suggest the blazer owes its origins to the Royal Navy but we know that the more colourful and stripy blazers started to appear at the Henley Royal Regatta. The Times reported that the Lady Margaret Boat Club’s vivid scarlet jackets, first worn in 1852, were called ‘blazers’ and from then the term stuck. Blazers have now become one of the most recognisable items of clothing associated with sport.
At Collier & Robinson we feel very proud and honoured to be helping our customers carry on a tradition that started back in the 1800’s in our very own town. To this day all our blazers are still based on the original blazers worn by the oarsmen at the Henley Royal Regatta in the early 1800’s just a few hundred metres from our workshop.
