The Fred Perry Polo Shirt
The Fred Perry polo shirt: possibly the most famous polo shirt in the world. Instantly recognisable with it's laurel wreath logo, the Fred Perry polo has transcended it's original role as a sports shirt to become an enduring and iconic item of fashion. Founded champion British tennis player Fred Perry in 1952, the Fred Perry brand and polo shirt in particular gained mass popularity as a casual wear item in the 1960s and 70s due to association with alternative UK subcultures, notably mods and later skinheads, casuals and others.
Seasonal Highlights:
The Twin Tipped Fred Perry Shirt
The M3600 twin tipped polo shirt is a contemporary adaptation of Fred Perry's signature streamlined fit polo shirt and based on the original M12 Fred Perry polo. Made from cotton piqué fabric, the M3600 polo is available in a diverse range of colourways each season, plus core colours in white, black and dark navy.
The Fred Perry twin tipped piqué shirt was the first to carry the iconic tipping in the 5-4-4 ratio - much copied, Fred Perry's was the first polo to featured the twin stripe tipping and is manufactured today on state of the art technology and available in a huge range of colours.
Fred Perry has also made moves to make their iconic polo more sustainable with responsible features including recycled threads used for tipping and sewing, recycled materials used for buttons and responsibly-sourced Laurel Wreath embroidery.
The M3 and M6000 Polo Shirt
The Fred Perry M3 polo was the original single colour Fred Perry Polo shirt. Launched at Wimbledon in 1952, the Fred Perry tennis shirt was made from white knitted cotton pique with short sleeves and a buttoned placket, and initially was only available in two colours – white and black. The M6000 is the contemporary version of this iconic tennis polo shirt, available in plain colours each season. The M6000 shares the same sustainable features as the M3600 polo.
The M12 Made in England Polo Shirt
A true original, the M12 hasn’t changed much since it was originally designed by Fred Perry in the 1950s. Legend has it that a buyer from Lillywhites requested the addition of football team colours to the plain-colour Fred Perry Shirt and so Fred Perry added subtle club colours to the collar and cuff and the M12 polo was born. The piece that took Fred Perry from sportswear to streetwear was the first to carry our signature twin tipping in the 5-4-4 ratio that’s unique to Fred Perry. Designed in Fred’s famous streamlined fit and slightly boxier than the M3600 – each polo is knitted, dyed, cut, embroidered and hand-finished in Leicester, England.
History of Fred Perry
Who was Fred Perry?
Fred Perry was a British Champion tennis and table tennis player who won ten tennis majors, including eight tennis Grand Slam tournamens and two Pro Slam single titles, as well as six Major doubles titles. Fred Perry won three consecutive Wimbledon Championships from 1934 to 1936 and was the only British player to win the men's Wimbledon championship for over 70 years, until finally Andy Murray won in 2013.
Born in 1909 in Stockport, near Manchester in England, Fred Perry, the son of a cotton spinner who was also involved in local politics, moved to Ealing in London aged 9 when his father, Samuel became the national secretary of the Co-operative Party. It was there that Perry got his first taste of tennis, plaing on the courts of his family's housing estate. He became a world table tennis champion aged 19, but struggled to gain acceptance into the world of tennis, which was dominated by upper classes at the time. On one occasion he was barred from entering a tennis tournament because he hadn't attended a public school. When told he couldn't register for it, Perry turned to another player and asked which school he'd gone to. 'Repton School,' he replied. 'Alright,' said Perry, 'I went to Repton.' Being an outsider didn't discourage Perry, it motivated him and made him more determined to succeed.
Fred Perry went on to become one of the world's first truly international sportsmen, the first player to win the four major tennis titles. He trained at Arsenal Football Club during his amateur days to improve his fitness - something few players bothered with at the time. He would also employ what he called "surreptitious gamesmanship" techniques, such as when he was playing in his second Wimbledon final against the famously fastidious Gottfried Von Cramm, Perry took the lining of his trouser pocket out because he knew it would drive his German opponent mad.
His life off the courts was as thrilling as his achievements on it. Fred Perry was considered one of the world's most eligible bachelors in the 1930s and dated some of the world's most beautiful women, including Marlene Dietrich and Jean Harlow and counted Bette Davis and Loretta Young among his friends. One US columnist said, 'Women fell for him like ninepins and when he went to Hollywood, male film stars went and sulked in Nevada'. Fred Perry would go on to marry four times, the final time to Barbara Riese who he was married to for over 40 years (until his death in 1995). They had two children, and his son, David lead his father's clothing brand prior to a Japanese buy-out in 1995.
How Did Fred Perry Clothing Begin?
Fred Perry launched his famous polo shirt at Wimbledon in 1952 and it was an immediate success, but this isn't where the story of the brand begins. In the late 1940s, Fred Perry had been approached by Tibby Wegner, an Austrian footballer who had invented an "anti-perspirant device" to be worn around the wrist. Perry made a few changes to the design and the world's first sweatband was created. Wegner also wanted to design a sports shirt made from knitted white cotton pique fabric, with short sleeves and a button placket front, similar to the René Lacoste's shirts. This idea became the Fred Perry M3 polo shirt - available just in two colours, white and black, when it launched but still featuring the iconic embroidered laurel wreath logo.
The laurel wreath has become synonymous with Fred Perry clothing. The Laurel Wreath, a Roman symbol for victory had been long associated with tennis tournaments and represented success and triumph. Originally Fred Perry, an avid pipe smoker, wanted a pipe as the logo - luckily he was convinced otherwise! Unusually for the time, the logo was embroidered onto the polo shirt.
Moving forward, more items of sportswear were added to the Fred Perry range and the brand was adopted as a 'look' by many UK subcultures and movements, most notably mods in the 1960s, mod revivals and skinheads in the 70s and 80s and then indie fans in the 1990s and beyond.