Avre Friday Briefing #56
Batch No. 3 — The Packaging
We love an unboxing, so we usually invest significant time and energy on getting the packaging right for our garments. We see it in layers, a bit like pass-the-parcel or a Russian doll, with each layer revealing something new, and the prize being the garment itself, safely ensconced at the centre.
Sure, we know some of you just want to get to the prize and nothing will stand in your way (we've seen your unboxing videos!). But we also know that some people like to savour the process, meticulously peeling back the layers, with each one adding to the anticipation. Having waited sometimes many months for an order to land on the doorstep, an extra few design choices between the postage label and the garment, and a little bit of ceremony, we think is a nice surprise.
This week we've been working on the layers. We don't want to spoil the surprise entirely, but we've shared this image before — it gives you a flavour of what to expect.
Vat 01 Design Part 4: The Bottle
The bottle itself is an important part of the overall experience of both purchasing and drinking a whisky. The bottle reflects both the brand and the fluid within. Whisky bottles have a more interesting history than you might expect. The standard 70cl bottle that dominates every back bar today only became the European norm in 1990. Before that, British bottles were standardised at 26⅔ fluid ounces — a figure inherited from the 17th century, when the size of a hand-blown glass bottle was determined by the lung capacity of the person making it. The industry spent three hundred years following the average breath of a Venetian glassblower.
Bottle design was originally a practical matter. Ballantine's distinctive flat rectangular bottle was designed during Prohibition specifically so salesmen could stack more bottles in a suitcase without them clinking.
Later, brands started designing bottles around more symbolic ideas. Glenfiddich's triangular bottle, representing water, barley and air, was designed in 1956 by Hans Schleger, who also designed the London Transport bus stop sign.
The bottle we chose for Vat 01 is modelled on the broad-shouldered, heavy-based Scottish flask that was standard in the 1940s — heavy in the hand and unpretentious. It's the shape a serviceman would have recognised.
On This Day - The First Battle of Narvik
10th April 1940
Exactly 86 years ago today, five British destroyers entered Narvik Fjord before dawn and surprised ten German destroyers at anchor.
The Germans had taken Narvik the previous day, overwhelming the Norwegian defences despite fierce resistance. Narvik was a strategically important port for Germans, their goal being to land troops there as part of their invasion of Norway.
On April 10, 1940, a flotilla of five British destroyers, led by Captain Bernard Warburton-Lee aboard HMS Hardy, entered the fjord under cover of darkness. Their mission: to surprise and neutralise the German fleet. They succeeded in sinking two German destroyers, damaged several more, and hit the harbour installations. The British lost two destroyers of their own in the withdrawal, and Warburton-Lee was killed on the bridge of HMS Hardy.
Captain Bernard Warburton-Lee
Commander of the British 2nd Destroyer Flotilla
He was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously — the first of the war to be gazetted.
The citation reads as follows:
"For gallantry, enterprise and daring in command of the force engaged in the First Battle of Narvik, on 10th April, 1940. On being ordered to carry out an attack on Narvik, Captain Warburton-Lee learned that the enemy was holding the place in much greater force than had been thought. He signalled to the Admiralty that six German destroyers and one submarine were there, that the channel might be mined, and that he intended to attack at dawn. The Admiralty replied that he alone could judge whether to attack, and that whatever decision he made would have full support. Captain Warburton led his flotilla of five destroyers up the fjord in heavy snow-storms, arriving off Narvik just after daybreak. He took the enemy completely by surprise and made three successful attacks on warships and merchantmen in the harbour. As the flotilla withdrew, five enemy destroyers of superior gunpower were encountered and engaged. The captain was mortally wounded by a shell which hit the bridge of H.M.S. Hardy. His last signal was 'Continue to engage the enemy'."
From WW2 HQ — The Golden Lions' Impossible Stand
Most people know Bastogne. Almost nobody knows what happened to the 106th Infantry Division.
In Episode 7 of Walking The Ground: Beyond Bastogne, James and Al are on the Schnee Eifel — a frozen ridge in the Ardennes where a green American division, six weeks into their first European deployment, found themselves in the path of the German Fifth Panzer Army on 16 December 1944. The 106th — the Golden Lions — were there to gain experience in a quiet sector. What they got instead was a two-pronged encirclement by the 18th and 62nd Volksgrenadiers.