Our head designer, Paul, has walked the length and breadth of the islands of Malta to feed his curious mind. This pastime has translated into elements and inspiration for collections and for the 2022 high-summer collection of polo shirts & swim shorts, he has drawn on the myriad of brightly painted fishing boats, called luzzus, found in villages all around the coast of Malta.

You may have seen these on postcards, adverts and maybe even in real life; they are wooden in construction and generally family owned. They are re-painted every year and each is a work of art, personalised with emblems & colour variations. Each family down to the individual member is identifiable by the colour combination and symbols of their craft; the main colours being red, blue, yellow and green with orange also appearing.

In the 1970s, Desmond Morris was living in Malta and decided to document each boat in a book published (and recently re-published) called The Boats of Malta, this book and a conversation with a young man working on his boat, kicked off Paul’s creative juices and he decided that the vibrant colours would perfect for the height of summer at the beach or the pool!

But he went further than that. With new knowledge of the fishing process and the pride and pitfalls fishermen face, Paul’s mission was to try, in some small way, to help to preserve the way of life of these fishermen by using yarn made from recovered marine plastics - actually recovered from the Mediterranean - to make the swim shorts that are part of the collection.

So, have a blast of colour this summer, enjoy the beach / boat and reunite our swim shorts with the sea… And over a fresh fish dinner, spare a thought for all the thought that goes into making collections.