From Riverside to Wardrobe

A simple thing: Collarless, cotton tee, buttoned partway down the chest and looking effortless while carrying nearly two centuries of history in its placket. To understand the henley is to trace a path from Victorian underwear to rowing club and from military footlockers to Hollywood boxing films. It's a shirt that has spent most of its life being useful before it ever became fashionable.

CATON WOODVILLE, At Henley Regatta : Engraving London Illustrated News, 1882.

Origins on the Thames

The henley's story begins, appropriately enough, in the town that gave it its name. The Henley shirt began as a rowing kit. Pulling an oar rather than pursuing fashion. Named for the town of Henley-on-Thames, and since 1839 the site of the famed Royal Henley Regatta. 

Leander Club (Britain) 1912 Olympics

Before it had a name of its own, the henley existed as a plain, collarless "undervest." These undervests were some of the first collarless underwear. Rowing teams carried out their early morning training sessions in these undershirts alone, and the garment soon earned the nickname that stuck. Over time teams added colored plackets, and stripes on the trunk or sleeves.

On The Thames 1920s

A charming, if unverifiable, tradition also helped spread its fame: it's said that losing crews would hand their colored shirts over to the winners, a custom that only added to the henley's growing reputation.

Waves to Wheels of Industry

The garment's rise was also a matter of industrial timing. The henley emerged just as Britain's Industrial Revolution was accelerating, and innovations like the cotton gin and water-powered milling allowed cotton clothing to be mass-produced at scale.

Lancashire Cotton 1908 Britain

That meant a shirt once reserved for gentlemen athletes and their undergarments could be produced cheaply enough to spread far beyond the riverbanks of The Thames to the wilds of early America.

California 1907 - As long as a week to cut down this giant sequoia

By the mid-to-late 1800s and into the early 1900s and brought over from Britain to the US the henley had also become a popular choice among the working classes. Prized for the same reasons rowers loved it: practicality, availability and its low cost. Miners, field workers, engineers all embraced the shirt, shedding outer layers in the heat and dirt; its buttons let wearers ventilate their clothing depending on the weather and the work at hand.

Montgomery Ward Catalogue 1922

A Garment in Uniform: Military Use

Long before the henley became a menswear staple it went to the battle field. The long-sleeved henley undershirt saw use as far back as the American Civil War (1861-1865) and was issued to American soldiers all the way through WW2 as the “Wallace Beery” shirt, nick-named for the actor Wallace Beery, who often wore them on screen in his various roles as lovable rogues and tough guys.

Wallace Beery in The Champ - 1931

That endurance says something about the design itself. The same features that made it appealing to rowers: a soft, collarless neckline that wouldn't chafe under a pack strap, and a short button placket that let a soldier vent heat on a march or button up against the cold made it equally practical in a barracks. 

US ARMY M50 - Korean War Issue

Surviving examples turn up regularly in military-surplus and vintage collections, from Cold War-era stock to original WW2 thermal undershirts. Evidence of just how standard the Henley had become as a base-layer. 

The henley's military life carries an undercurrent of toughness. It was never designed to be looked at, it was designed to be worn, and worn hard.

Cotton/Wool Blend WW2

From Kit to Athletic Standard

While the military adopted the henley for its practicality, and rowing for its immediacy, its use in athletics eventually spread well beyond rowing into other sports and the henley remained almost exclusively a piece of sporting equipment until the 1970s from skiing as a base layer to tennis as summer wear...no longer in olive drab or ecru but now in bright modern colors.

1970s Tennis Stripe Henley

The crossover moment came from an unlikely source: retail buying, not the runway from there the shirt began its slow migration from locker room to closet. Ralph Lauren, Gant, and other major menswear names championed the henley throughout the late 1970s, 80s, and 90s, cementing its place as a legitimate wardrobe staple rather than simply an undershirt or a piece of sports kit. 

1980'S Vintage Henley from PRL

Even so, the henley never fully shed its athletic roots; its deep sporting history has ensured the shirt's continued presence in athletics well into the present day, and it remains a favorite base layer for runners, climbers, and even tennis champs who want something with more structure than a plain crewneck tee.

The Henley on Screen: TV and Film

If sport gave the henley its body and the military gave it its toughness, film and television gave it its personality. Costume designers have leaned on the shirt for decades: capable, understated, and a little dangerous, all at once.

Adriano Celentano - Serafino

In Italy, the shirt is known instead as the "Serafino," a name borrowed from Italian cinema specifically the 1968 film Serafino by Pietro Germi, in which a young Adriano Celentano played a shepherd who habitually wore three-button undershirts nearly identical to what we'd now call a henley. 

Bruce - Enter The Henley!

Aside from Wallace Beery some of the earliest and most enduring American examples come from later action and sports cinema. Bruce Lee famously wore a simple white henley in The Big Boss (1971). A little over a decade later, Sylvester Stallone wore a white henley in Rocky IV (1985), notably during the film's iconic training sequences, shirt underling his character's physicality and grit.

\"You're the one that's gonna make sure that he didn't die for nothing.\"

The instinct to reach for a henley when a character needs to look tough without looking showy has carried straight through to contemporary film and television. Michael C. Hall's Dexter Morgan wears a henley as part of his "kill uniform," a choice that makes him look unassuming and workman-like.

\"I had to show someone your watch. It really blew their mind\"

More recently, the henley has become Hollywood's go-to shirt for looking physically imposing without trying too hard, even Daniel Craig as Bond wore one in No Time to Die lending a touch of ruggedness and informality to an otherwise impeccably tailored character.

Why the Henley Endures

What's striking about the henley's history is how consistent its appeal has actually been. The henley shirt has lived several lives: it began as workwear for rowers on the Thames, became a uniform for early 20th-century laborers, then a piece of military issue, and eventually a Hollywood favorite. Not reinvented so much as rediscovered.

Still Sporting 2015 - Roger Federer

Part of that staying power comes down to the shirt occupying a genuinely useful place in the wardrobe. The henley fills the register of dressing that sits between the full casualness of a t-shirt and the formality of a polo (a problem most didn't know they had).

Whitesville Henley

It's a garment that was never designed by a fashion house, only discovered by one. First worn by the men who needed it, then admired and adopted by everyone else.

Off Set Placket Henley - Bronson

That's a rare kind of longevity, and it's exactly why the henley has ended up as one of the most durable staples in the modern closet almost 200 years after it first rowed down the Thames..... STROKE!EDIT: Just got introduced to DARCY from the UK. Their super trad Henley looks fantastic, readers should also check out their fishtail pants and especially their Fairisle Sweaters. Great stuff.

Darcy - Long Sleeve Button Front

Written by and all credit too to our very own u/BillCarnes - Maker and Purveyor of fine hand made belts and buckles. Contact him directly here for commissions and sales.

You can see the comments on his original posting HERE

ECCE ROMANI..!

The earliest known examples of belt buckles date back to 1500 BC.  A number of examples were found in what would have been the Roman Empire.  The earliest pieces were forged bronze as humans were still working their way through the Bronze age.  Bronze was the scientific discovery that allowed humans to stop using stone tools and weapons.  

Early Bronze Roman Buckles

Bronze remained a prized metal by sculptors, nautical tool makers and many industries well after the advent of carbon steel during the Iron Age due to its qualities.  Bronze has the unique ability to be work hardened to a strength almost equal to steel. This was a huge benefit to both industry and war.

Roman Military Official

Early buckles were crafted by skilled workers and limited to Nobility and high ranking military officials. They were mainly used to hold a scabbard for a sword.

HAND TO FACTORY

It was over 1,000 years later before buckles became more decorative and used as we know today.  They were still reserved to people with more financial means as they were expensive to manufacture with only hand tools and skilled labor.  Many early examples were found in Spain.

15th Century Spanish Bronze Buckle

The industrial revolution made it possible to mass produce buckles cheaply and thus the popularity of the modern day belt took off amongst the working class.  The Industrial Revolution also saw Brass start to gain popularity as it was cheaper to make and had properties that made it useful in industry.

WAR and FLAPPERS

There are still thousands of Civil War era buckles in existence today they were mostly issued to the military.  Reenactors have also replicated many of these old buckles to be used today in reenactments.

Civil War Brass Buckle

The Roaring Twenties saw more decorative and elaborate buckles often featuring enamel or precious stones. WWII saw all metals being shipped off for war efforts.  In 1943 the Federal Reserve resorted to making steel pennies due to the cost and lack of available Copper. There was very little metal for buckles. 

1920's Reproduction Buckles Alexandra King

Leather workers became resourceful and designed buckle free belts that were tied on.  Rilleau Leather pioneered two knotted belts and still makes them today.

Rilleau Knotted Belt

GO WEST(ERN) YOUNG MAN

The 1950's slowly saw metal reserves returning and the simple buckle shapes we know today started being manufactured.  The classic Western trophy buckle saw rising popularity during this time as Cowboys in Texas began crafting them more often.

Vintage Western Belt

Today Master craftsmen like Wilson Capron, Beau Compton and Michael Pardue make beautiful custom buckles.

Wilson Capron Buckle set

The 1970's saw a surge in handmade cast brass buckles.  These buckles ranged from pictorial wilderness scenes to various abstract shapes.  Tech Ether was a popular collective of artisans which designed and created these buckles, many of which are collectable today.

The History in this era is hard to piece together but I have had a number of anecdotal conversations with industry professionals which suggest a number of causes that brought down the American buckle industry.

ITS A GAS GAS GAS

Science started showing the hazards of melting brass in foundries.  Zinc and lead start to vaporize into gas before the brass actually melts which can cause occupational health hazards.  This led to tighter regulations and better exhaust and air filtration in the foundries.  Unions had been gaining strength for some time.  Cast items are very rough when they are done.  When the men machining the sprues off the rough castings became union members, labor costs went up.  Rising costs made it difficult to make small items like buckles in the US.

OUTSOURCING ABROAD

In the 80's US companies and investors built foundries in Taiwan to manufacture small hardware that was no longer profitable to make in the US.  Shareholder profits were increased and a lot of people lost very good jobs.  Most buckles today are made in Taiwan.  Even historic foundry Abbey England has begun selling some imported hardware to remain competitive, though they continue to produce their own historic designs.

FORGING A WAY AHEAD

I began forging buckles in 2015 and started selling them the next year.  I began doing this out of sheer frustration from not being able to find US made buckles.  I was also driven by the fact that most buckles fit very thick workwear belts very poorly and caused the leather to bunch up and create a bulge.  The forged buckles I made fit medium weight straps well but I had to learn metal casting to make buckles that fit heavy weight straps.

Clintonville Leather Forged buckles

HANDMADE HERE

At the time handmade buckles were somewhat uncommon and difficult to find.  Information on how to create buckles was also difficult to obtain.  Internet forums and YouTube have made sharing this information easier to do.  Much like in the 1970's there has been a resurgence in handmade buckles. 

Tech Ether Brass buckle

Today one can find buckles from Blacksmiths, Jewelers, Silversmiths, bit and spur makers and even some leather craftsmen.  Making it much easier for the individual to wear a unique buckle instead of a mass produced cookie cutter item.

The Bandana:  Practical Tool, Statement, Style

Few textiles carry so many cultural references in so small a package as the bandana. This square of printed cotton, typically no more than a couple of feet on each side, has wrapped the necks of cowboys and the hair of factory workers, signaled allegiances of miners and gangs; and lately draped artistically around the necks of rakish urbanites.

It has been a symbol of rebellion, utility, fashion, and identity, often all at once. The bandana can trace a journey across continents, empires, industrial revolutions, and countercultures, revealing how a simple piece of cloth can absorb the meanings from everything it touches.

Block Printed

Bandana Born in South Asia

The word "bandana" itself offers the first clue to its origins. It derives from the Hindi word “bāndhnū”, which in turn comes from the Sanskrit “badhnati”, meaning "to tie" or "to bind." Pointing directly to the technique that produced the earliest bandanas: bandhani, a resist-dyeing method practiced in India for thousands of years, with strong roots in the regions of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

18th Century Indian - Smithsonian

In bandhani dyeing, artisans pinch small sections of fabric and tie them tightly with thread before submerging the cloth in dye. The tied sections resist the dye, creating intricate patterns of small dots, rings, and geometric shapes once the threads are removed. The technique is related to, though distinct from, what is known in the West as tie-dye, and it shares family resemblances with resist-dyeing traditions found in West Africa and Japan (where a similar method is called *shibori*).

Japanese Shibori Indigo

These early Indian textiles were not humble handkerchiefs but often luxurious goods—silk bandhani cloths were worn as turbans, saris, and shawls, and carried significant cultural and ceremonial meaning. The patterns and colors could denote region, community, and even marital status.

The Colonial Trade Route

The transformation of bandhani to the bandana began with European colonial trade. As the British East India Company and other European trading powers established routes through South Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Indian textiles became prized commodities. Silks, chintzes, and calicoes flowed westward, and among them were bandhani-style cloths, which English traders began calling "bandanas," anglicising the Hindi term.

Complex Block Print - 19th Century England

European manufacturers, always eager to capitalize on popular imported goods, began producing their own imitations. By the eighteenth century, printers in Europe had developed techniques using block printing and, later, roller printing, without the painstaking hand-tying process. This shift from an artisanal, tie-resist technique to a mechanically printed one marks a crucial turning point: the bandana was becoming a mass-produced object rather than a handcrafted luxury.

India to Turkey to Scotland

Turkey red dye, a colorfast red derived from madder root, became closely associated with these European-made bandanas. The deep, durable red, often paired with white printed patterns, became something of a signature look. Manufacturing centers emerged in England, France, and later Germany, churning out printed cotton squares that carried echoes of their Indian ancestry in name and pattern but were now thoroughly industrial products.

Persia to Paisley

The paisley pattern that became so strongly linked to the bandana in this era has its own layered history. The teardrop-shaped motif, known as *boteh* or *buta*, originated in Persian and Indian textile traditions, symbolizing cypress trees and the concept of life and eternity.

19th Kashmir Paisley

The pattern gained its Western name from the Scottish town of Paisley, where textile mills in the nineteenth century mass-produced imitations of Kashmiri shawls featuring a very simplified version of this design, making it accessible and affordable to a broad European and American public. 

Crossing the Atlantic

Bandanas arrived in North America through the same colonial trade networks that brought them to Europe, and they found fertile ground for reinvention. In the American colonies and later the United States, the bandana's utilitarian qualities made it an object of everyday practicality across social classes and occupations.

Washington Print

One particularly notable moment in early American bandana history involves a claim (though its full historical certainty is debatable) that Martha Washington commissioned a printed bandana featuring the portrait of George Washington to commemorate his presidency, making it one of the first examples of political commemorative merchandise in the new nation. 

I like Ike

Whether or not this specific attribution is entirely accurate, it is well documented that printed cotton kerchiefs bearing portraits of political figures, patriotic slogans, and commemorative imagery continued in America even through to the late 20th century.

These "kerchief prints" served to spread political messages, celebrate military victories, and build public sentiment around figures and causes.

The Bandana on the American Frontier

Perhaps no image is more thoroughly associated with the bandana than that of the American cowboy, his face half-hidden by a red or blue paisley square as he rides through dust and desert. This association, cemented in the late nineteenth century and immortalized endlessly by Hollywood Westerns in the twentieth, was rooted in genuine practicality.

1907 - Equity Bar - Old Tascosa, Texas

Tied over the nose and mouth, a bandana filtered dust, wrapped around the neck, it absorbed sweat and could be pulled up for warmth. It served as a bandage in emergencies, a sling, a rag, a way to carry small items, and even a signal flag. Its multi-functionality made it standard equipment for anyone doing outdoor labor in the American West.

Late 19th Century Rail and Mine Workers

Railroads also played a significant role in popularizing bandanas, both among laborers who needed practical headwear and neckwear for grueling outdoor work, and as promotional items. Railroad companies and other businesses commissioned printed bandanas featuring maps, logos, and route information, turning the humble cloth into an early form of branded merchandise and advertising.

Industrial Labor and War

As the American economy industrialized further into the twentieth century, the bandana followed workers from the open range into factories, mines, and mills. Its practical virtues remained constant: it protected hair from machinery, absorbed sweat, filtered dust and debris, and could be tied in countless configurations to suit different tasks.

\"Gun Thugs, Rednecks, and Radicals\" (ISBN: 9781604866469)

Indeed one origin story of the term "red-neck" is not sunburned necks of white field workers, but linked to the West Virginia coal wars (1912–1921), arising out of a dispute between coal companies and miners. During the confrontations workers wore red bandanas around their necks. However it is worth noting that the term "red neck" was in use as early as 1930. (Thanks to u/waiting_in_vain1 for the info)

Working The Land

During World War II, the bandana took on new symbolic dimensions in the United States. As women entered factories in unprecedented numbers to support wartime production, the bandana became an iconic accessory.

Woweeee!

Immortalized in the "Rosie the Riveter" imagery that celebrated women's contributions to the war effort. The bandana tied around the head, keeping hair safely away from industrial machinery, transformed a practical safety measure into a lasting emblem of wartime solidarity.

Countercultural and Political Symbolism

By the mid-twentieth century, the bandana had accumulated enough cultural history to become a canvas finding new life among counterculture and civil rights movements. Members of the American Indian Movement and various civil rights organizations adopted bandanas as expressions of solidarity and cultural pride, later bikers and rock musicians embraced them as symbols of rebellion and nonconformity, tying them around the head, neck, or wrist in ways that broke from earlier utilitarian norms.

Never Trust a Hippy

The 1980s and 1990s saw the bandana absorbed into gang culture in cities across the United States, most famously in Los Angeles, where specific colors of bandana became loaded signifiers of gang affiliation and territory. This association added a layer of danger and controversy to an object that had, in other contexts, always been fairly innocuous, and it even led some schools and public spaces to institute bans on bandanas as clothing accessories.

80s Bloods

The Bandana on Screen

Hollywood did as much as any single force to cement the bandana in the popular imagination, particularly through the Western genre. From the silent era through the mid-twentieth century's golden age costume designers reached for the bandana as visual shorthand for frontier authenticity. 

A bandana knotted at the throat or pulled up over the nose instantly signaled "cowboy," "outlaw," or "drifter" to audiences. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood wore the bandana so consistently across their Western roles that the accessory became the archetype of the rugged American frontiersman, reinforcing and exaggerating the garment's historical use.

1940s Durango Kid

Beyond the Western, film and television have repeatedly used the bandana as a fast, legible costume choice for signaling working-class identity, rebellion, or danger. In war films and adventure movies, a bandana tied around the head marks a character as tough, resourceful or unconventional. 

\"Anytime, anywhere, man!\"

Music mirrored these same associations, particularly in genres built around outlaws, survivalists, and countercultural figures. Music videos and their stylists treated the bandana as a retro style statement, pulling it away from its earlier association with hard labor and repositioning it as a nostalgic accessory.

Brucey Bandana

Bandana to Neckerchief

The fashion world too has repeatedly rediscovered the bandana, cycling it through eras of high fashion and street style alike. The neckerchief, the bandana's slightly more polished cousin, has its own lane in contemporary fashion, especially as workwear-inspired or "quiet luxury" aesthetics surge in popularity. 

Rakish Charm

Where the bandana leans casual and rebellious, the neckerchief often signals a more curated, old-world elegance. Silk scarves knotted loosely at the collar, paired with tailored blazers or denim jackets. Accelerated by social media styling videos showing dozens of ways to fold, knot, and drape these simple textiles into eye-catching looks.

What ties both accessories together is their accessibility and adaptability. A single bandana or neckerchief can transform an outfit without demanding a big investment or a dramatic style overhaul. 

A Cloth That Holds Many Stories

What makes the bandana such a compelling object of study is its refusal to settle on a single meaning. Born from a sophisticated South Asian textile tradition, appropriated and industrialized by European trade and manufacturing, adopted by American laborers as a tool of survival, claimed by nearly every subculture and now adopted as a sign of rakish nonchalance or rugged heritage. Flexible and expressive, the bandana has been endlessly reinvented.

Personal Favorite - Sable New York

It remains a remarkably democratic object: inexpensive to produce, easy to wear in dozens of configurations, and open to whatever meaning its wearer wishes to project. Whether tied around the neck of a rancher, the head of a factory worker or as quiet silk luxury the bandana continues to do what it has always done, to serve as both a practical tool and as a woven statement of place, time and culture.