When it came to style, JFK’s Ivy League, all-American, Brooks Brothers charm was inoffensive at worst and polished at best. But it was his wife, Jackie Onassis, who was renowned for her exquisite taste and demure, elegant sense of style. And whilst she was often spotted in couture by French houses such as Christian Dior, Balenciaga and Givenchy, for her outerwear, she chose Sealup.
Sealup is the Italian outerwear brand you’ve never heard of, because for many years it predominantly produced cloth for fashion designers like Karl Lagerfeld, Walter Albini, Romeo Gigli and Prada, just to name a few. More recently, Sealup has collaborated on special collections and limited-editions with brands such as Connolly, Comme des Garçons and Beams. They flew relatively under the radar until Onassis’ debuted one of their raincoats in the Sixties, and today they’re worn by menswear icons such as Shuhei Nishiguchi of Beams, Max Söderberg of Engelska Herr and Roger Mazzeo.
With over 2,500 samples in their archive, which has been growing since 1935 when Piero and Germana Chiesa founded Sealup, their guiding principle has always been simplicity and function. These are coats that don’t mess about: they’re the sort of wearable staples that go with everything, over everything and to everything. They’re smart, but not formal; slick, but not showy; functional, but not aesthetically compromised.
