The plaid stripe clash runs through Archive I as both a formal principle and a historical record. The Swahili woman photographed in Mombasa in bold horizontal stripes; the Victorian cabinet portrait in its mixing of check and plain; the kente and kanga traditions of East and West Africa; the tartan grid of Scottish woven cloth — all arriving at the same structural solution by different routes. The check is a shared language, not a borrowed one.

In the navy merino, that language is present in the plaid woven through the cloth: navy, red, grey, the lines crossing at measured intervals. The bib construction gives the front its formal quality — structured, layered, the shirt declaring its own seriousness before anything else is decided. The extended cuff completes it. Worn alone or open over the ribbed tank, the two pieces carrying different registers of the same Archive I logic.

Limited to 10 editions.