Fleurs de Bagne Mariniėre Esperance “Carnet d’Alexandre Lacassagne” – Natural (A-07927)

Enter Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne. In the late 19th century, this French military physician and father of forensic anthropology realized that if you wanted to read a criminal's mind, you first had to read their skin. He began painstakingly tracing the tattoos the "bousilles"off the bodies of soldiers in penal battalions and convicts bound for the colonies. He compiled them into his now-legendary Carnets (notebooks): a literal atlas of the criminal underworld.

For the convicts, these tattoos weren’t fashion choices; they were declarations of war against a society that had discarded them. And one of the most recurring symbols of all? The Anchor of Espérance (Hope).

To a free civilian, an anchor is just a maritime motif. To a man locked inside a floating cage bound for Devil's Island, the anchor, often accompanied by the word Espérance, was a tragic, defiant irony. It was a symbol of hope where none existed, an ink-and-needle prayer that maybe, just maybe, they would anchor back home one day.

Our friends at Fleurs de Bagne took Lacassagne’s meticulous, haunting sketches from the Lyon archives and placed them right where they belong: on a classic French Marinière.

It’s a striking juxtaposition. You take the iconic, breezy striped shirt of the French coast and drape it in the heavy, raw history of the nineteenth-century milieu (underworld). On the front, the anchor of hope. On the back, handwritten cursive pulled directly from old prison registries—the cold, bureaucratic text that permanently categorized a human being by the markings on his skin.

It’s part textile archaeology, part beautifully made knitwear.

• 100% Cotton Jersey Knit
• Fluid, light & resistant
• Rolled edges with 3/4 sleeves + collar, clean cut, simple shave 
• Sailor cut inspiration

Model is 179cm, 72kg and wearing size M.