History and Design for Trafalgar Limited Edition Braces

HISTORY
More than three decades ago, Marley Hodgson, Trafalgar's founder, began researching gentlemen's braces. At the time, these elegant accessories were sold by only a handful of stores in the United States. Hodgson's dream was to weave intricately-patterned braces using the finest denier silk yarns that were too delicate to withstand the stress of today's high-speed looms. Working with a European weaver, Hodgson discovered eight 120-year old silk looms in the countryside, and had them rebuilt and refurbished. The looms remain in situ where, to this day, they are tended by the same families who have used them for their livelihoods for generations. These Skilled artisans lovingly and painstakingly weave the silk fabric for Trafalgar Limited Edition braces.

The artistic and whimsical designs of Trafalgar Limited Edition braces come from a range of sources. While many are the result of Hodgson's passion for researching antique designs, others have been generously supplied by members the International Society of Brace Collectors, who on occasion loan us antique braces from their personal collections to be reproduced. More than two dozen braces in the Trafalgar Limited Editions brace collection are faithful reproductions of designs by an early Twentieth Century New York haberdasher named Calvin Curtis. Curtis designed eccentric, and often humorous, braces for influential men of the period. Among Curtis's designs were the 1935 "Head over Heels" braces featuring acrobats standing on each other's shoulders created for circus pioneer John Ringling North. The unusual designs of Limited Edition braces allow their wearers to assert their individuality in a discreet yet stylish way. Many consider Limited Edition braces to be collectibles, was well as wearable works of art.

The craftsmanship and fanciful designs combine to make the Trafalgar Limited Edition brace collection truly unique and unparalleled. The supply of fabric is substantially limited by the small number of remaining antique looms and the dwindling number of artisans with the skill and inclination to tend them. On occasion, even the most adept craftsman can produce no more than 5 meters of the narrow silk ribbon in a day. As life becomes more technologically advanced and the availability of quality, hand-crafted products diminishes, the allure of Trafalgar Limited Edition braces will continue to increase.

DESIGN
Each design of our Limited Edition braces begins with a meticulously researched concept. For example, in creating the "Hands of Time" braces, our designers examined a variety of antique pocket watches and hand selected models ranging in date from the late Nineteenth to mid-Twentieth century. Sketches are drawn detailing how the images would look on the brace and then colors were chosen as the design takes shape. Next, the weavers fabricate jacquard cards to interpret the design into the woven fabric.

WEAVING
The weaving of the silk ribbon for the Limited Edition braces is done on a small scale by expert weavers in the European countryside. These craftsmen employ age-old techniques on manually-driven antique wooden looms as the delicate yarn would break under the strain of modern high-speed technology.

The jacquard cards are the blueprint for the design of each pair of Limited Edition braces. The information found between each bar on a card contains the instructions for just one pass of the six shuttles of the loom. With 3,000 to 5,000 shuttle passes for each design, hundreds of cards are needed to complete the intricate patterns.

Setting up the looms takes two people from one to seven days. Each yarn must be threaded by hand and there are 600 yarns for the warp alone. There are 16 spaces on the loom producing the same design at the same time. The movement is so slow that only 1.5 meters is produced for each space over the course of a day. Depending on the intricacies of the design, a loom can produce only 5 to 24 meters of silk ribbon a day.

ASSEMBLY
Once the weaving process is completed, the silk ribbon is shipped to the Trafalgar factory in Norwalk, Connecticut. It is there that the final assembly of the braces takes place, including the attachment of the back elastic, the tabs, and the gold or silver finish clinches.

NUMBERING
Each Limited Edition brace is boxed with an individually crafted card, indicating the number if that style that were produced.