I. Dust, Spice, & Cloth

The Chronicles are heading east.

Next week, I’ll be in Asia visiting our factory – part pilgrimage, part production check-in, part curiosity expedition. And it seems only right that, on the way, we take a moment to revisit a path well-trodden by merchants, monarchs, mystics, and misfits before us: the Silk Road.

After a brief two-week pause – one spent recalibrating our content strategy, sketching out ideas for Spring/Summer 2026, and trying to wrangle the ever-expanding tapestry of Arc & Iveagh projects – The Chronicles return with something a little broader, and older, in scope.

Imagine this: A sun-soaked market square in Bukhara or Khiva, circa…maybe say, 8th-century. The air smells of cumin, dried rose, and dust baked into brick. Traders shout in half a dozen languages, their stalls overflowing with ikat in patterns that pulse like the desert itself. A tailor pulls a bolt of indigo-dyed silk, its weave tight but feather-light, and unrolls not just fabric, but a thread that runs backward through centuries.

This isn’t costume history. It’s cultural continuity – the living kind.

Because the Silk Road didn’t vanish; it adapted. And in many ways, it was never just a trade route. It was the original menswear showroom.

And like all good showrooms, it was less about what was sold and more about what was exchanged. In this week’s issue of The Chronicles we explore this past and the connection to the present.

II. Threads Across Empires: What the Silk Road Actually Moved

Let’s get one thing straight: the Silk Road was never a single, dusty track stretching politely from China to Europe. It was a network – a sprawling, shifting web of caravan routes, trading posts, and crossroads that linked Xi’an to Venice, and just about everywhere in between. At its height, it was less a road and more a circulatory system for culture itself.

Yes, silk moved along these routes – but so did wool, cotton, indigo, lapis lazuli, spices, leather, dyes, glassware, and metalwork. There were looms packed on the backs of camels and tailoring techniques passed between languages. Ideas traveled too: how to shape a sleeve for desert wind, how to wrap a coat for speed on horseback, how to dye fabric with plants that only grow on one side of the mountains.

Central Asia – places like Samarkand, Bukhara, and Tashkent – became the style-conscious middlemen of the empire. They weren’t just trading goods; they were blending aesthetics, refining silhouettes, and adding unexpected flair. Sound familiar?

In truth, what moved wasn’t just fabric – it was a way of thinking. The Silk Road’s real legacy isn’t in the garments themselves, but in the spirit: style that’s shaped by journey, not just destination. Pieces made to adapt, to endure, to be worn across climates and cultures with a kind of rugged sophistication.

Modern menswear – and certainly our vision for Arc & Iveagh – owes more to those ancient crossroads than most realize. Not in imitation, but in intention.

III. The Uzbek Thread: Ikat, Adras, & the Art of the Imperfect Pattern

Now, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve either got a curious soul or an unusually high tolerance for textile history. Either way – welcome. Here’s a small scoop for those reading between the seams: we’re quietly exploring Central Asia – Uzbekistan and its neighboring ‘Stans’ – as inspiration for a future Arc & Iveagh collection. No announcements yet. Just a hunch, a map, and more than a few bookmarks filled with ikat and camel hair.

If there’s a textile with both visual flair and centuries of cultural gravitas, it’s Uzbek ikat, or abrbandi. In cities like Margilan and Bukhara, this technique is still practiced in workshops where the process is as important as the product. Known locally as ‘adras’, it involves tying and dyeing the warp threads before they’re woven, resulting in these rich, feathered patterns. The fabric itself is often a blend of silk and cotton – lightweight, breathable, and ideal for spring layers. Maybe something to think about for the future for us…

Unlike some of the hyper-engineered patterns of Western mills, ikat celebrates imperfection as intention; much like the Japanese with their ‘wabi-sabi’ – we discussed this in an earlier issue of The Chronicles, feel free to check out here: Off the Beaten Path: A Sojourn Into Japan's Timeless Traditions. And within this wabi-sabi logic at play, the blur is the beauty. The human hand is visible, the dye unpredictable, the geometry always just slightly off. And that’s precisely the point.

Historically, ikat wasn’t subtle. It draped khans, diplomats, warriors – men who moved through courts and caravans with equal ease. These were the original statement jackets, long before hashtags and capsule wardrobes. In today’s world, the lineage continues quietly in the collections of Dries Van Noten, Etro, and a few thoughtful ateliers who understand that real character comes with irregular edges – admittedly, not the exact silhouette Arc & Iveagh is styling, but we respect pushing boundaries as these brands do.

Could Arc & Iveagh one day commission a limited run of Uzbek ikat for a spring piece? That’s a story still being written – but we like where the thread is headed.

IV. Caravan Cool: Menswear Lessons from the Original Travellers

Before there were style icons in Soho or ‘sprezzatura’ in Florence, there were merchants moving west from Samarkand, cloaked in dust and dignity, their garments as functional as they were refined. These weren’t just traders – they were diplomats, storytellers, and survivalists, navigating border crossings, mountain passes, and imperial courts with equal poise. And they dressed accordingly – quite impressive when you think about it.

Look closely at archival paintings and regional artifacts, and you’ll see it: layered robes that drape with the ease of an Ulster coat, sashes cinched like early utility belts, even leather slippers with silhouettes not unlike a modern Belgian loafer. Garments were designed for transit and transformation – able to endure scorching deserts by day and frost-rimmed yurts by night.

Everything balanced function, elegance, and adaptability, and the result was a kind of proto-luxury travel wardrobe. Less about flash, more about fluency – a concept any modern gentleman rotating between cities, climates, and codes of dress should find familiar.

It makes you wonder:

‘What would a capsule wardrobe look like if you had to survive four seasons between Constantinople and Kashgar – dining with governors by candlelight one night, crossing a wind-carved pass the next?’

At Arc & Iveagh, we think about these things. Not just for the romance of it – but because great design still lives at that same intersection: beauty and utility, past and present, city and steppe – ruggedly sophisticated.

V. From Turquoise to Tailoring: Surprising Aesthetic Echoes

Walk through a well-dressed gentleman’s wardrobe today and you might spot a few pocket squares trimmed in lapis blue, a silk tie patterned with intricate paisley, or a jacket lined in raw, slubby silk. All refined choices. All—if you trace the thread far enough—borrowed from the trade routes of antiquity.

Lapis lazuli – the stone of the Pharaohs – and turquoise, prized across Persia and Central Asia, were more than decorative—they were markers of prestige, protection, and permanence. Their rich blues and greens adorned mosques, manuscripts, and, eventually, fabrics. Today, those same hues pulse through menswear accessories like echoes: subtle flourishes that quietly carry centuries of visual tradition.

And that paisley motif stitched into your favorite necktie? Its earliest form – called boteh – was a Zoroastrian symbol of life and eternity. It passed through Central Asian hands long before the Scottish textile town of Paisley ever reimagined it in jacquard. The British may have refined it, but they didn’t invent it.

Then there’s raw silk and washed cotton—fabrics as at home in modern avant-garde ateliers as they were on the backs of caravan riders. Lightweight, breathable, slightly irregular: once prized for practicality, now celebrated for texture and character.

The irony, of course, is that what we now deem ‘eclectic’, ‘exotic’, or even ‘elevated’ was once simply just what worked – pragmatic choices made beautiful, but by necessity. The Silk Road wasn’t about ornament for ornament’s sake. It was about things built to last, to travel, to tell stories – qualities we still admire in a well-cut coat or a perfectly patinated accessory.

And in that sense, the aesthetic hasn’t changed. It’s just wearing a different label.

VI. The Modern Tailor’s Map

Today’s tailoring landscape leans predictably westward. We revere tweeds from Scotland, suede from Tuscany, and cottons from Lancashire – and rightly so. But the deeper origin story of menswear, the one that starts not in Savile Row but in the foothills of Samarkand or the dye pots of Margilan, is acknowledged nearly enough.

At Arc & Iveagh, we’re beginning to see that story not as a footnote, but as a compass. We’re not just building garments – we’re tracing and reimagining the cultural DNA woven into their making.

So what would a modern Silk Road capsule look like?

Could a spring layering piece be cut from handwoven adras, its blurred ikat pattern echoing the pulse of a desert market? Might we trade crisp navy for lapis, cumin, saffron, and rose ash – colors not selected by Pantone, but by centuries of pigment mastery? Could a suede field jacket be rendered in the faded taupe of caravan dust, or a belted overshirt in undyed cotton the color of raw chalk and sun-washed brick?

We don’t have the answers yet – but we’re asking the questions. And increasingly, they lead us eastward, toward a more layered, lived-in, and story-rich idea of elegance.

Because in the end, the best map for a modern tailor might just be an old one – creased at the edges, written in trade winds, and stitched in silk.

VII. Closing Reflection: Weaving Stories, Not Just Jackets

Somewhere between meetings and fabric samples, I envision myself in a dimly lit courtyard off a side street in Margilan. Tea was poured, scarves unfolded, and the quiet hum of the loom became the soundtrack to a conversation that didn’t need perfect translation.

Later, folding an ikat scarf into the corner of a suitcase, the thought lingered: there’s a difference between wearing something well-made and wearing something with meaning. One speaks to taste. The other, to time.

This journey east – both literal and philosophical – reminds us why we began Arc & Iveagh in the first place. We’re not here to chase trends or produce garments for the sake of filling racks. We’re here to craft stories in fabric form. To build something that carries the fingerprint of tradition and the tension of travel.

Our pillars haven’t changed – they’ve only deepened. Rugged sophistication in the face of shifting terrain. Cultural storytelling stitched into every decision. Craftsmanship not as marketing, but as mindset.

Because style with history wears differently. And when you know where it comes from, you walk in it with more intent.

As Jasper once scrawled in the margins of a journal long gone:

“Some roads disappear from maps. But the best ones stay in the seams.”