Teddy Santis founded Aimé Leon Dore in Queens in 2014, drawing on a specific vision of 1990s New York - Borough Park bodegas, basketball courts, and the thrift-store Ivy League look that filtered through working-class neighbourhoods over two decades of cultural mixing. The rugby shirt is the label’s most recognisable piece: heavy cotton jersey, broad horizontal stripes, corduroy-trimmed collar, embroidered chest logo, woven crest. The construction references the proper rugby shirts of the 1970s and 80s - the Cotton Traders era, before performance fabrics arrived to ruin the silhouette. ALD has done more than almost any other contemporary label to rehabilitate the rugby shirt as a serious menswear object rather than an ironic prop. The stripes read as sports kit to the uninitiated and as something more considered to anyone paying attention. At £189 at END Clothing, it is one of the cleaner entry points into the brand.
£189 - endclothing.com