Holliday & Brown: A century of British gentleman style, sharing Italy's top silk craftsmanship with Chanel, and interweaving silk legends
Although accessories are just embellishments, they are more than just pure decoration. They are an extension of personality and an unspoken declaration of taste. For a gentleman, a carefully selected tie whispers his rich inner self silently, and therefore choosing an accessory is equivalent to choosing what symbol to represent himself.
Holliday & Brown , a tie brand from the UK that shines in Italy and embodies the same top silk technology and craftsmanship as Chanel , is a symbol of such low-key yet profoundness. It is also a legendary brand that interweaves British elegance and Italian craftsmanship across centuries.
Writing a century-old British overture
The story of Holliday & Brown began in London in 1926. Founder Aubrey Brown ran a high-end menswear store in Mayfair , which is not only a traditional wealthy area and luxury goods center in London, but also a symbol of the exquisite lifestyle and long-standing aristocratic tradition of the British upper class.
Therefore, he was able to sense the demand and business opportunity for high-quality silk ties among men during his business operation, and opened a specialized store in Burlington Arcade in 1919 , dedicated to creating ties with unique prints and elegant colors.
But Aubrey Brown did not run the business for long. After his death, his brother Basil and son Colin took over. Colin injected new inspiration into the brand with his experience working at Harrods and his hard work in design and weaving.
He knew very well that the soul of an excellent tie lies in its unique pattern and color combination, which also laid the British tone for the brand.
Opening the Silk Poetry on Lake Como, Italy
60 years after the brand was founded , it moved to Savile Row in the 1990s, the mecca of global men's haute couture . In 2002 , the classic brand, which had been around for 70 years, accepted the acquisition proposal of the famous Italian silk group Mantero Seta Group based on the consideration of expanding its business pattern, and moved to the shores of Lake Como, Italy, opening a new chapter.
Mantero was founded in 1902 and is located in Como , the ancient capital of silk . This ancient city is located on the southern foot of the Alps and the shore of Lake Como. Because of its clean and high-quality soft water and sufficient fertile soil, mulberry trees can be planted on a large scale, providing a good production environment for silk. Therefore , the silk industry has been developed since the 14th century, thus earning it the reputation of "Silk City".
As time goes by, coupled with its strategic geographical location connecting Italy and Central Europe, it is an excellent trade relay station, which has strengthened the agglomeration effect of industrial clusters, making Como have a fairly complete silk ecosystem. In such an environment, the Mantero Group has grown step by step and become a silk giant that cannot be ignored in Italy.
Despite this unique environment, the Mantero Seta Group is internationally renowned for its outstanding expertise in creation, production and distribution, and has consciously accumulated a historical archive, including the entire production chain from raw materials to finished products, including 118 leather-bound volumes and thousands of original design samples. All the information has been fully preserved, of course, this is also partly due to Holliday & Brown .
As century-old brands, the combination of the two can be said to be a powerful alliance, which has created a fairly complete tie design heritage, allowing it to have the most complete craft archive of tie and scarf manufacturing in the world, and allowing the brand to constantly learn from history, absorb past wisdom, and create new designs.
Holliday & Brown and Channel 's luxury connection
With its excellent craftsmanship, Mantero Seta Group is not only a core fabric supplier for global luxury brands, but has also established a deep cooperative relationship with Chanel for more than 50 years since 1973. In 2025, it became its important shareholder, holding a 35% stake, which allows Holliday & Brown and Chanel to share the same excellent craftsmanship and quality standards at the source of manufacturing.
Precisely master the silk jacquard craftsmanship that is thinner than a hair
If history and superior craftsmanship are the blood of Holliday & Brown , the vertically integrated production capabilities of the Mantero Seta Group are the backbone of the brand's sustainable development.
Vertically integrated production, like a top chef, not only designs the menu himself (brand design), but also insists on growing the freshest ingredients by himself (controlling the selection and processing of raw materials, such as silk thread), and cooking each dish in his own kitchen in the way he knows best (weaving, printing and dyeing in his own factory), and finally serving the perfect dishes to the guests in person (finished product production and finishing), achieving 100 % Made in Como.
In simple terms, it means having one-stop production capabilities. From design to finished product, all key steps are strictly controlled by the brand or its parent company, Mantero Seta Group, in its own workshop in Como. As a result, the brand can flexibly respond to market changes and quickly realize the creative sparks of designers, such as launching small batches, multi-style special models, or even unique limited editions to meet customers' desire for "uniqueness".
When talking about Holliday & Brown's current manufacturing technology, we have to mention the Jacquard process. Strictly speaking, Jacquard technology is not uncommon and is quite common in home furnishing fabrics, but their real strength lies in - silk jacquard.
The jacquard craft appeared in China in the 1st century AD, but it was not until the 18th century that the Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard developed the jacquard shuttle loom. In a manner similar to punching, the warp yarns (straight yarns) and weft yarns (horizontal yarns) are interwoven to form large three-dimensional patterns, much like embroidery, but the jacquard pattern is completed while weaving, unlike embroidery which is processed on the finished cloth.
Therefore, the difficulty of jacquard technology lies in calculating the number, direction, and weft of the yarns, and understanding the characteristics of the material, in order to weave a beautiful pattern in one go. The strength of Holliday & Brown lies in the use of extremely fragile silk - 100% pure silk, to create jacquard patterns.
The diameter of silk is very thin, about 10 to 15 microns, which is one-third to one-tenth thinner than human hair (about 50 to 100 microns in diameter). At the same time, silk is very smooth and can easily slide or even break during the weaving process. If the control is not good, the woven pattern may be damaged, uneven or deformed.
Therefore, when making silk jacquard, not only more sophisticated and expensive looms are required, the weaving speed will also be much slower, and the output cannot be increased much. This also makes Holliday & Brown 's ties and scarves as rare as works of art.
Classic and timeless design, just the right taste
Holliday & Brown 's ties are mostly pure silk jacquard patterns, with a standard width of 8 to 8.5 cm and are presented in a three-fold posture. They are not sensational, but they are definitely not ordinary. The brand draws on distant memories from historical archives and re-describes amoeba vortex, geometric patterns, animal and floral patterns. Each design is engraved with the historical imprint and innovation of men's clothing.
Now, OAK ROOM has specially introduced Holliday & Brown , which carries rich culture and mixed styles . In addition to classic ties, there are also pocket squares , scarves and other top-level craftsmanship, waiting for you to come and feel the eternity and taste the resonance.