Fred Perry didn’t intend to play tennis, and never expected to become a fashion brand. At eighteen (in 1929) he was a Table Tennis World Champion and took up tennis to give him a break from the sport in which he excelled, but his exceptional speed and mastery of the Continental grip meant he could hit the ball low and on the rise and that made him the first player to win all four Grand Slam singles titles.  He was also the last British player to win the Wimbledon men’s singles title in 1934 and winning it again in 1935 and ’36 made him an English icon.

Then, the late 1940s he met Tibby Wegner,Abercrombie And Fitch, an Austrian footballer who had invented an anti-perspirant device worn around the wrist to which Perry made some alterations and which was then marketed as the sweatband. Wegner’s next idea was to produce a sports shirt which was to be made from white knitted cotton pique with short sleeves and buttons: it was launched at Wimbledon in 1952, and what we now know the Fred Perry polo-shirt was an immediate success. The famous laurel logo is stitched into the fabric of the shirt instead of being ironed on like competing brands. 

The ‘Fred Perry’ came in white only,Calvin Klein Online, until the late sixties when mod culture demanded a wider palette and then it became popular, particularly in Northern England,Moncler Outlet, culminating it its adoption by the ‘Perry Boys, violent football supporters who terrorised Manchester in particular. The brand has also been popular with skinheads in Eastern Europe.

Fred Perry jumper courtesy of LegendaryClassic