A.G. Spalding & Bros

A.G. Spalding & Bros began in Chicago in 1876, when Albert Goodwill Spalding, a baseball player from Byron, Illinois, founded the company with just 800 dollars. It made the first official National League baseball, and went on to make America's first tennis ball, football and golf ball, plus the world's first basketball. Its Fifth Avenue shop in New York opened in 1885 and gave the company its full name.

Today the label also makes leather goods, from bags and wallets to aluminium pens. Its sweatshirts are made in Wakayama, Japan, on vintage hanging knitting machines, in loopback terry that softens with every wash, drawing on its archive. Its 1920s and 1930s training sweatshirts are now collectors' items.