Found in 1939 in Paris, ORCIVAL has a long and glorious history in making classic french sailor’s shirts. The name of the brand comes from a small village in the centre of France, cherished by the founder.

Their iconic shirts became internationally known, when top-notch celebritys like Pablo Picasso, James Dean, Brigitte Bardot, Jean Selberg or Charlotte Gainsbourg were seen in them, beside many others.

ORCIVAL was knitting fabrics with its own RACHEL looms. One was dedicated to silk fabrics for ladies underwear, another from 1947 on to cotton fabrics for Marine Nationale Jersey. Later on a circular loom was introduced to make heavy cotton fabrics in open end yarn. The usefulness of such knitting machines, which look like looms lies in their capacity to realize complex draughtsmanship. The design of the fabrics, born in the 50’s, and worn by Picasso in 1952 at Vallauris, is a subtle mix of irregular stripes that classic looms are unable to reproduce. Moreover, t-shirts produced with such machines keep their shapes and their good appearance no matter what the weather is like. Their stripes remain horizontal and parallel thanks to the fabrics meshes. The company selects its own yarns with care, and has ever manufactured fabrics and t-shirts in France – so they keep a full mastery of the in-built quality of its products. In the 70’s ORCIVAL was more and more introduced beyond its traditional markets (French Navy, fishermen…) to reach new consumers.

Each season, ORCIVAL creates exclusive new colours, sober or trendy, yet genuine. This keeps their range very fresh and vivid and makes every visit to B74 an even bigger pleasure, as you can explore new stuff from them regularly. It is some kind of a natural fact that we at B74 love these shirts, as they stand for true craftmanship made in beautiful France and – it can’t be mentioned too often – James Dean wore them. How cool is that?

No products were found matching your selection.