"Hail the wale"

At the FT, Miles Rohan on the founding of the Corduroy Appreciation Club:

People join every day. During the corduroy-wearing season – the autumn and winter months – I easily get 10 or 12 applications a day from all over the world. At the moment we have about 4,000 members.

We have membership cards made from corduroy. I sell them for $11.11c, which is annoying because it means that I only end up making about a cent on each one. The number 1 is very important to us.

At the Corduroy Appreciation Club’s annual meeting, on November 11, members are required to wear a minimum of two items of clothing made from corduroy.

I see a lot of hats, some three-piece suits, and there is even a woman who has a corduroy brassiere. There is a member who has made an entire monk’s robe, complete with hood, from a very wide wale cord. I’ve even seen corduroy earrings. People push it.

Recently we’ve had a lot of corduroy shoes. I’m not sure how I feel about this as I think it is somewhat disrespectful to have corduroy that close to the floor.