137 years ago, a small workshop in Normandy began knitting sweaters for fishermen braving the icy waters of the North Atlantic. 137 years later, that same brand unveiled something new at the MIF Expo in Paris: a striped shirt that glows in the dark.
01 Light on the Sea: A Garment Born for Survival
In 1858, the French Navy adopted a white‑and‑blue striped knit as the official uniform for its sailors. The reason: on the open sea, horizontal stripes are far more visible than any solid colour. Back then, a man overboard was the greatest danger — being seen meant being saved.
In 1889, the Legallais family workshop in the Norman town of Saint‑James officially became the Société Anonyme des Filatures de Saint‑James and began mass‑producing these sailor shirts. It is the first verifiable brand to have produced the striped Breton shirt on an industrial scale. Each standard “Breton stripe” shirt has exactly 21 white stripes — commemorating the 21 times the French fleet defeated the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The blue‑and‑white pattern was never just a design; it became a living piece of French national memory.
In 2025, Saint James unveiled the Phospho collection at the MIF Expo in Paris — the first time luminescent elements were woven into the brand’s iconic stripes. Inspired by bioluminescence in the ocean, the shirt absorbs natural or artificial light for three hours, then glows green in the dark for up to two hours. The effect comes from a polyester yarn mixed with non‑toxic mineral pigments, embedded directly into the fabric during manufacturing — not added afterwards.
A garment that was once designed to be seen in 1858 now lights itself in the dark. It took Saint James 167 years to complete that journey — and behind it lies 137 years of uninterrupted handcrafting tradition in Normandy.
02 One Sheep, Three Sweaters: 137 Years of Unbroken Craftsmanship
In the workshop at Mont‑Saint‑Michel in Normandy, every Saint James wool sweater made this year still follows the same meticulous process as the one from 1889 — a process that may seem almost excessive.
The wool comes from pure new wool shorn from healthy, live sheep in Australia, New Zealand and South America. Saint James never uses inferior recycled wool (from slaughtered animals). From raw fleece to clean wool, about 40% of the weight is lost — 1.8 kg of raw wool yields only 1 kg of usable wool.
A classic Matelot sailor sweater requires 23 yards of wool. In simpler terms: one adult sheep’s entire annual fleece produces three Matelot sweaters. The whole process goes through 18 steps — knitting under the supervision of experienced knit engineers, flat‑drying on racks for 72 hours (no steam treatment), hand‑cutting along the pattern, panel assembly by seamstresses, quality control, and final corrections by dedicated repair artisans. At Saint James, even a tiny flaw is sent to the raccoutrage (repair workshop) and fixed by hand. Nothing is overlooked.
The brand holds the EPV (Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant — Living Heritage Company) label, a French state distinction granted only to workshops that master exceptional traditional or high‑tech skills and preserve a specific economic heritage. Among the companies awarded EPV status in the same year as Saint James were workshops like Hermès in Paris. They share the same values: tradition combined with innovation, technique fused with creation, deeply rooted in local heritage yet facing the future.
03 From Chanel to Picasso: Who Made the World Wear the “Breton Stripe”?
After the Saint James sailor sweater had conquered the Atlantic gales and won the trust of the French Navy, the task of pushing this functional uniform onto the world fashion stage fell to a woman in high‑waisted trousers and pearl necklaces.
In 1917, Coco Chanel — holidaying on the French Riviera — drew inspiration from sailors’ outfits and put her “nautical collection” on the runway, turning the humble striped shirt into a chic item overnight. Chanel herself was a devoted wearer of Saint James striped sweaters.
With Chanel’s endorsement, Saint James began to attract the most discerning eyes of the era. Pablo Picasso painted the striped shirt into his works, even wearing it in a self‑portrait. Audrey Hepburn appeared countless times in striped shirts, both in private and on screen, pairing them with shorts and a gamine crop — fresh and playful. Brigitte Bardot’s striped silhouette on the beaches of St. Tropez became an eternal classic. James Dean, Jean Seberg, John Lennon — all made Saint James their signature.
France’s then Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, once cited brands like Saint James as core forces in promoting French fashion worldwide. Today, French style icon Jeanne Damas — described by the media as the most “Parisian” of them all — still uses Saint James striped shirts to express the essence of French style: simple, effortless, unstudied.
A garment that once weathered the North Atlantic gales has travelled across Picasso’s canvases, Hepburn’s films, James Dean’s streets — and finally into an ordinary person’s wardrobe. For 137 years, Saint James has followed one trajectory: from necessity to cultural icon.
04 More Than Heritage: Bringing 130 Years of Craft to the Young, the Global Stage — and the Night
If one phrase could sum up Saint James’s recent moves, it would be: honouring the classics while embracing the new.
In 2020, Saint James joined the French “Tricolore” collective initiative, committed to reviving France’s domestic wool industry from shearing to spinning, weaving to finished garments. The brand collaborated with young designer Guillaume Larquemain on a conscious double‑breasted coat collection.
In collaborations, Saint James has shown sharp curation: a partnership with American luxury brand COACH blending Breton marine style with New York modernism for limited‑edition bags, apparel and beachwear; a second drop of the INTERVALLE capsule with French streetwear label AVNIER, mixing Norman handcraft with Japanese aesthetics and drone‑era visual culture; in Taiwan, local limited editions with designer Wu Ri‑yun and concept store glimmer boutique; and in New York, moving its store from Madison Avenue to Bleecker Street in the West Village to greet a new generation of consumers with a fresher attitude.
At the same time, Saint James has begun a new dialogue between 130 years of tradition and the future. The Phospho glow‑in‑the‑dark collection, unveiled at the MIF Expo in late 2025, was called “the first brand to integrate luminescence into a striped shirt”. In spring 2026, Saint James will release its first striped shirt made from flax grown and spun entirely in France — a long‑held wish of the brand, as CEO Luc Lesénécal put it, “from raw material to finished product, entirely made in France.”
🏁 The Last Striped Shirt: 30 Years in Your Closet
People say that a Saint James striped shirt is something you can inherit from your father and pass down to your child. A thirty‑year‑old knit, its label faded, its cuffs softly frayed — yet it still holds the familiar warmth you’ve known for decades. In its weave lie the steps of the Normandy workshop and the patient rhythms of eighteen artisans refined over generations.
Saint James wool sweaters can endure time’s marathon — but they aren’t afraid to glow in the dark, either. In an era when we’ve grown used to “buy and toss,” Saint James offers another path: a garment that grows better with age, a shirt that on a certain night, when you press the shutter, will softly light up.
As a knit engineer who once worked in the Normandy workshop put it: “We’re not knitting clothes. We’re knitting time.”