Black Wool Polo - Poszetka x IWP

A design from the archives of the Polish Institute of Industrial Design (IWP)

“Men’s Polo Shirt” - that’s precisely how this 1950s design was labeled in the IWP archives when we found it, in their less “workwear” and more “fashion-oriented” section. What struck us was that, even though we were looking at something nearly 70 years old, it still felt contemporary.

Although it’s not exactly workwear, we approached it with the same rule that guides our Working Class series. Together with the Institute’s team, we made several adjustments to adapt the design for everyday wear. The most important change was the sleeve length - we treated this polo as a sweater, extending it to the wrist. We recreated the original three-dimensional texture (in our view, one of the design’s strongest features!) in wool, while leaving the beautiful open collar shape unchanged.

Its medium weight and thickness make our sweater versatile: it can be worn like a polo shirt with jeans on a warm autumn day, or as an extra layer over a T-shirt or shirt, even under a blazer, when it gets a little colder.