The CHECKER Story

A look back to the 80s: Mike Oldfield, Alan Parson and Foreigner storm the charts.

In the same year, 1982, Italian Mario Antonio Mazzola founded the CHECKER brand. With the aim of tailoring a comfortable and stylish shirt of outstanding quality. To underpin his international claim, the brand was initially called Compass at first. But things turned out differently. Whilst on the phone to his lawyer in Germany, Mazzola learnt that this brand name was not available. As he was in a taxi in New York at the time, he spontaneously asked if the name CHECKER was available. It was free. The brand was born.

And it was obviously the birth of a dream child. The launch of the collection sparked a run on the cool new shirt with the mother-of-pearl press studs and casual topstitching across Europe. In the 80s, there is no one who can escape this trend. Although the term “it-piece” had not yet been invented, this is certainly how CHECKER shirts would be described today. Quality has always had its price, and so parents are begged, grandparents are pleaded with and pocket money is saved until the item hangs in the wardrobe. Or even better: it could be taken out to the trendy clubs, which were still called discos back then.

In the evening, you casually undid the press studs, or at best, someone did it for you. It was a wild time. There were no mobile phone photos and social media was still a long way off. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. You have to be there to experience it. Not virtually and digitally, but for real. Live and in colour. Speaking of colour. There is hardly a colour in which the shirt is not available. Not to mention the cool denims. And while the shirt gets damp while dancing in the evening, the mums curse while ironing those seams that can’t be tamed with the best will in the world. As I said, it was a wild time. However, as with many trendy 80s brands, at some point the zenith is passed. After half a million shirts were sold in high-end boutiques every year, buyers gradually changed their minds. The cool denim shirts became business shirts. Olive becomes white, 2 open buttons on the shirt become a tie. And Raider becomes Twix.

M.A. Mazzola retires and lets the sun shine on his nose at his new home on Mallorca. Quite nice for a few years. But is that it now? And the calls for these shirts, for this brand and for this lifestyle are not dying down. On the contrary. They are getting louder. So loud that they can even be heard on the distant Spanish island of fashion icon Mazzola. Another person who also hears these calls for the wonderful 80s and the hip looks of this era is Essen-based fashion entrepreneur Jörg Messerschmidt. Together with the Italian, the German customised clothing producer is dreaming of the resurrection of the CHECKER brand. The look of the past with contemporary cuts. All in top quality. Something is possible.

2023: The Mazzola/Messerschmidt duo relaunches CHECKER. With an exclusive and high-quality collection of selected styles, the top brand of the 80s enters the European fashion stage once again. The success story of CHECKER. It continues!