In the early days of military aviation, fliers often kept silk maps on their person. The maps were sometimes compressed to very small sizes, and other times even sewn into their clothing. The reason? If they were forced to eject from their planes, or to make an emergency landing, silk was far more durable and concealable than paper, and wouldn’t be damaged by water. In one famous case, the maps were even folded into Monopoly game pieces distributed to POWs in Italy and Germany.
We found a cache of a few dozen such maps in the collection of an antique map dealer, and have transformed them into pocket squares, the flagship design in our new Winter collection. Each square is hand-cut an features hand-rolled seams. The maps make beautiful accessories and remarkable conversation pieces.
In honor of Veterans’ Day, we’ll be donating every penny of profit from the sale of the squares to Swords to Plowshares, a veterans’ service organization founded and operated by veterans. Swords offers everything from job counseling to direct assistance to homeless veterans to help dealing with VA beaurocracy for disabled veterans. I love and trust Swords in part because my father, a veteran of the Navy, both worked with them and benefited from their services when I was a child.
Military service is an incredible sacrifice, not just to those who are injured or killed, but also to those who carry their military experiences with them for the rest of their lives. The people at Swords to Plowshares are vets who get vets and know how to help them, and we’re glad we can help support their work.
We’re all sold out, sorry. You can check out the rest of our collection here.