Kangol
Kangol is a traditional English manufacturer of headgear and, to a lesser extent, other fashion items. Originally, the company mainly supplied the English military with berets and berets , but today their products are mainly considered hip-hop fashion .
Despite the name and the kangaroo - Logos it has nothing to do with Australia. Since 2006 it has been wholly owned by the Sports Direct International (SDI) group of British businessman Mike Ashley . The SDI group also includes other traditional brands such as B. Slazenger , Everlast and Lonsdale .
history
Jaques Spreiregen ( 1893 - 1979 ), one in Warsaw -born Jew, had lived in France and had been inspired by the local fashion. In 1938 he founded a textile factory in Cleator, a district of Cleator Moor in Cumbria in the far north-west of England, after having been importing berets from France for several years. The “K” of the name stands for both “ knitting ” (knitting) and “ silk ” (silk), “ang” for Angora , “ol” for wool .
The popular British field marshal of World War II, Bernard "Monty" Montgomery , made the army cap world famous, but despite some fans in the film industry like Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo , who wore flat caps from the 504 series, the caps remained exclusive niche products, for example for golfers. The fact that celebrities like the Beatles and the Duke of Windsor valued her didn't change that either.
The breakthrough into the mainstream only came in the 1980s with rappers like LL Cool J , who didn't wear the company's famous 504s, but bucket hats from the company. In 1983 the company recognized the potential of headgear as a cult object and chose a kangaroo as its logo. The image is still strongly dominated by black rappers, but since 2006 the Russian rapper Seryoga has also had his own collection. Outside of the rap scene, musicians such as Oasis and Britney Spears have publicly worn Kangol hats.
In the film Jackie Brown (1998) by Quentin Tarantino , Samuel L. Jackson always wore a Kangol 504 hat, which again became a coveted fashion object. In 2012 Jackson developed his own golf collection for Kangol.
In 2006, Kangol was acquired by Sports Direct for £ 12 million.
Since 2011, Kangol has been distributed in Germany by the Wolf-Michel agency.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ beretandboina
- ↑ Bollmanhats
- ^ A beret good show The Scotsman, November 26, 2008
- ↑ Fashion: Hot thing: the 504 `Jackie Brown 'hat by Kangol The Independent, February 18, 1998
- ↑ worldgolf.com ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ London Times
