Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men’s Polo Shirt

Harar, Ethiopia  ·  Clothing > Men's > Sergio Tacchini

Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men's Polo Shirt

A knit polo carrying a custom jacquard check woven from the house's own Damarindo double stripe — woven in, not printed on, so nothing peels — with a solid rib-knit collar showing rare restraint. In Humus or Maritime Blue. Harar comes first: the walls of Jugol, Rimbaud's retirement, and the hyenas.

↓   Tour Harar, Ethiopia

Four stops before the checkout

Harar, Ethiopia
01
Flagler Village tennis drills — Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men's Polo Shirt photographed beside the walls and gates of Jugol in Harar
Stop one

The walls and gates of Jugol

Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men's Polo Shirt: Harar Jugol is UNESCO-listed and wrapped in old walls and historic gates, because apparently even sacred cities needed a perimeter to keep out the usual freeloaders. The masonry gets the glory; the people who hauled the stone probably got the back pain.

02
Flagler Village tennis drills — Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men's Polo Shirt photographed at Arthur Rimbaud House in Harar
Stop two

Arthur Rimbaud House

Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men's Polo Shirt: Arthur Rimbaud is remembered here because the French poet spent years in Harar working as a trader in the 1880s, proving that even literary rebels eventually discover invoices. Romantic exile, now with paperwork.

03
Flagler Village tennis drills — Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men's Polo Shirt photographed near hyena feeding at Fallana Gate in Harar
Stop three

Hyena feeding at Fallana Gate

Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men's Polo Shirt: Harar is famous for nightly hyena feeding, where spotted hyenas are hand-fed near the city gates, because humanity looked at a powerful carnivore and thought, yes, let’s make this a tourist shift. Somebody gets tips; the hyena gets dinner.

04
Flagler Village tennis drills — Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men's Polo Shirt photographed at Shoa Gate khat and spice market in Harar
Stop four

Shoa Gate khat and spice market

Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men's Polo Shirt: Around Shoa Gate, khat and spices keep the market moving, since civilization is mostly people trading leaves, powders, and excuses to stand in traffic. Khat is chewed as a stimulant in Ethiopia and the wider Horn of Africa, so at least the commerce comes pre-caffeinated.

The Harar, Ethiopia track

Sergio Tacchini Damarindo Check Men's Polo Shirt

Written for this world alone.

Of course they turned the stripe into a check. Sixty years of putting two parallel lines down the side of a garment and eventually somebody in a meeting says the words "what if it went the other way as well", and here we are. Predictably, it works.

Credit where it is owed, and I give it grudgingly. The check on this polo is a custom jacquard — jacquard meaning the pattern is woven into the cloth on the loom, not printed on top of it, so it will not crack, fade or peel off in the wash the way a print does.

And the geometry is derived from the Damarindo double stripe, the house's own signature, so it is at least stealing from itself. The collar is left solid rib-knit rather than checked, which is the one decision on this shirt that shows genuine restraint: a checked collar under a checked body is how you end up looking like a tablecloth.

It is a knit polo with a breezy, lightweight hand, in Humus and Maritime Blue, and there is a matching Damarindo Check short for anyone who has entirely given up on moderation. It is not a technical performance top and it does not claim to be, which, naturally, is the most honest thing about it.

There are walls around Jugol with gates in them and a whole town living inside. Rimbaud quit poetry at twenty and came here to trade — gave up the thing everybody remembers him for and did something else entirely, which is more interesting than the poems.

Harar is a city I refuse to be cynical about, and believe me, I tried.

At the Shoa Gate they sell khat and spices in quantity. And every night at Fallana Gate a man feeds hyenas by hand. For the hyenas.

Not for tourists originally.

The pattern is woven in, not printed on. Nothing here is going to peel. That, at least, I believe.

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