That's an Odd One, With a Twist...

I've finally photographed that strange jacket I found back in December.  I also moved the buttons back to their original positions and gave it a good cleaning.

It's simply amazing.  Made of dark navy flannel, it is super soft to the touch.  The gusseted pockets are a very nice touch and add subtle character to the front.  I love patch type breast pockets, especially when their gusseted.

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The sleeves also have French cuffs, lending the jacket a bit of a casual feel, like that of a smoking jacket.

If the front has subtle character, the back is outright crazy.  Along with some pleats along the shoulders, it has fairly long bi-swing back gussets at each shoulder blade, allowing for improved arm movement.  If that isn't enough, it also has dual vents.

While the outer flannel material is a bit boring, the interior lining will make your eye bleed.

This is a custom-made piece and has no union tag.  Amazing quality, fantastic flannel, and great styling.  A superb specimen of the 1920s sports coat.

Except for one thing: it's date 1968.

That's right, this 1920s style sports coat was made the same year as the Battle of Khe Sanh, the Tet Offensive, and the My Lai Massacre.  RFK and Martin Luther King Jr. were both assassinated the year this coat was tailored.  Apollo 8 orbited the Moon.

How does a 1920s style sports coat get made 30-40 years after that style died out?  Well, firstly the 1920/1930s style of clothing was making a comeback in the late 1960s and some of it was quite authentic, as this sports coat shows.  Natural fibers were often used in these 1960s reiterations before the polyester craze of the 1970s took hold.  So perhaps it was made by someone trying to keep up with the new fashion of the time, which was the old style of the 1920s.

Or, maybe, as this was a custom piece in a larger size, an older plumper man who longed for his younger years and styles had this piece created.  I recently discussed this sports coat with a fellow vintage aficionado and expert who, upon learning the date, related the story of an old tailor in New York City in the 1960s who made absolutely perfect reproduction pieces for a specific client, often out of vintage 1920s and 1930s fabrics.  Those 1960s-made pieces would be nearly impossible to differentiate from original pieces if it weren't for the 1960s dates on the tailor's tag.  Remember, there were still plenty of tailors in the 1960s who used the old school techniques often seen in suits and sports coats from the 1920s-1940s.

I like to think that the second possibility is the correct one, that an elderly man longed for the "good ol' days" of his youth and therefore commissioned something familiar and at the time, surprisingly, in fashion.  Maybe he had a sports coat just like this one when he was a youth.

Who knows?  All I know is that this is one fantastic piece of vintage, with a twist.

Fantastic Vintage for Sale...

...at the Houndstooth Haberdashery.  My closet is bursting at the seams so I'm clearing some fine items out to make room for more pieces that will get more wear.

Now it's your turn to own and wear these 'holy grail' vintage pieces.  Or maybe a few pieces will make someone very happy on Christmas day just a month away.

Here are just a few of the suits and sports coats now for sale.

click links to visit sale site and images to enlarge

1930s Donegal herringbone tweed suit

This is a rare and fantastic 2-piece suit from the late 1930s/early 1940s.  Heavy weight tweed, very well tailored, just a fantastic piece to see in person.  This suit will make someone very happy.

Late 1920s/early 1930s 3-piece double breasted suit

This is another very rare suit since suits from this period are getting more difficult to find, especially in good condition and a 'wearable' size like this one.  A few moth holes in the jacket and trousers, they are stitched up, not too apparent and don't take away from this gorgeous suit.  A rare piece of wearable art.

1930s flannel sports coat

The flannel of this sports coat is some of the softest I've ever seen.  This jacket was custom tailored back in the 1930s and the quality shows.  It's a manly and stylish sports coat that will help you dress your best.  Lovely dark maroon pinstripes on a brown background.

1950s bold herringbone sports coat

I just recently found this one for myself but have decided to part with it because it is just a tad too large for me.  My loss is your gain.  You never see one like this again, it's fantastically unique.  Bold, wide herringbone with square patch pockets.  Very Hollywood and it could be yours.  Check it out.

1940s WW2-era suit

A nice, conservative, attractive pinstripe suit from the WW2-era.  Not a lot issues with this suit at all.  It does, however, have a neat 'former' issue.  One part of the right leg has an expertly executed example of reweaving.  Reweaving is the lost art of making a hole invisible by hand-weaving individual threads from another area of the garment into the hole. Let me tell you, the reweaving on this suit is expertly done and is near invisible.  This has been the first and only example of vintage reweaving I've ever seen.  I love this suit but alas, not the best fit so off it goes.

The reweave spot.  Nearly invisible!

I have a lot more high quality pieces that will be going up for sale within the next few days and weeks so keep your eyes glued to this blog as well as the Houndstooth Facebook page.

Cheers,

Will

Quality of the Time

With the way I go on about the quality of vintage all of the time you probably think everything was amazing back during the Golden Era.  And that's not true, there were plenty of bad quality pieces, just like there are today.

The reason we don't see those pieces very often nowadays is that they were cheap and didn't survive.  A cheaply made piece isn't going to last as long as a well made piece, especially if it is all the owner can afford and wears it to death.  Not to mention certain materials didn't always behave the way the owner might have wished:

THE SHRINKING SONG

Woolen socks, woolen socks!
Full of color, full of clocks!
Plain and fancy, yellow, blue,
From the counter beam at you.
O golden fleece, O magic flocks!
O irresistible woolen socks!
O happy haberdasher's clerk
Amid that galaxy to work!
And now it festers, now it rankles
Not to have them 'round your ankles;
Now with your conscience do you spar;
They look expensive, and they are;
Now conscience whispers,
You ought not to,
And human nature roars,
You've got to!

Woolen socks, woolen socks!
First you buy them in a box.
You buy them several sizes large,
Fit for Hercules, or a barge.
You buy them thus because you think
These lovely woolen socks may shrink.
At home you don your socks with ease,
You find the heels contain your knees;
You realize with a saddened heart
Their toes and yours are far apart.
You take them off and mutter Bosh,
You up and send them to the wash.
Too soon, too soon the socks return,
Too soon the horrid truth you learn;
Your woolen socks can not be worn
Unless a midget child is born;
And either sockless you must go,
Or buy a sock for every toe.

Woolen socks, woolen socks!
Infuriating paradox!
Hosiery wonderful and terrible,
Heaven to wear, and yet unwearable.
The man enmeshed in such a quandary
Can only hie him to the laundry,
And while his socks are hung to dry,
Wear them once as they're shrinking by.

--Ogden Nash

Some of the worst-made suits (yet highly collectible today) are British 'Demob' suits from the 1940s. As British servicemen were returning from the war the government gave them suits to help them get back on their feet. They were often very crudely made with all sorts of errors: misshapen lapels, funky proportions, low quality materials. 

click images to enlarge

But they were only meant to be worn a short time to allow the owner to get a job and eventually buy new suits.  Demob suits sell for big bucks but beware: not every vintage suit advertised as a Demob suit is really a Demob suit.

A demob suit.  Note the wonky lapels and the poor pattern matching on the back seam.

Photos via Baron Kurtz Vintage.

Now let's once again look at the other side of things: good quality.  While poor quality items did exist they were definitely the exception, not the rule.  Let's face it, people back in the day cared more about quality and were more thrifty, fixing and salvaging and reusing items without tossing them away like we do today. As a result, we're able to find both the high-end and lower-end pieces from 70 years ago, often in perfect condition. And looking at vintage 'mid-level' pieces from run-of-the-mill department stores like Sears, Younkers, and JC Penney, we see that garments from these places that everyday low- to middle-class folks use to buy are often still better quality than higher-end off-the-rack of today. 

I regularly find vintage top quality tailored suits and other pieces from long gone shops that were once found in tiny farming communities. Back 70-100 years ago nearly every decent sized town had one or more men's clothing store and/or one or more tailor shops. They dotted the landscape from coast to coast. My great- great- grandfather owned, in central Iowa, as many as four quality men's clothing shops within 50 miles of each other back in the teens and '20s. The quality was better and people were willing to pay more for that quality.  

Examine the late 1930s/early 1940s drape sports coat shown below.

This sports coat is artful, finely crafted.  It has a gorgeous, subtle herringbone pattern to its wool material.  Add in the attractive leather buttons and the sleek roll of the lapels and you have an incredible piece of vintage.  Here are a couple more views of the sports coat:

For so fine a garment you might expect it to be a high-end custom piece from a custom tailor.  Let's have a look inside at the label:

Younkers is a local, midwestern department store that was founded in 1899 in Des Moines, Iowa.  Below is the original Younkers site from which the above sports coat was sold.

Interesting, that a department store company similar in concept to the more famous J.C. Penney's department store company would sell such a finely made garment.  I think this point demonstrates that quality mattered much more during the Golden Era than it does today.

Just out of curiosity, how much would that Younkers sports coat have cost back in, say, 1940?  Well, here's a comparable sports coat from a Spring and Summer 1940 Montgomery Ward catalog.  The price for this piece is $12.50 in 1940 dollars. 

How much is $12.50 from 1940 in 2013's dollars?  $208.52.  If we were to walk into any of the big name department stores like J.C. Penney's or Younkers and purchase a sports coat at a full price of $200 I think we'd be very disappointed in its quality when compared to its 1940 counterpart.

I think it's pretty safe to say as a rule of thumb, vintage clothing will be better quality than most modern clothing, even much of the higher-end stuff today.  Quality mattered back during the Golden Era, though from time to time junk would make an appearance.

Around Town

Cassie and I took some photos while we ran some errands around town the other day.  It was cool outside but still nice and we enjoyed getting out of the house.

click images to enlarge

Penney's Change

Hopefully you've heard by now that J.C. Penney's, now under new management, has dropped its "American Living" brand.  Manufactured by Ralph Lauren, American Living was meant to be an affordable choice for chic folks.  Reasons for its cancellation include poor sales and questionable quality.

I own several American Lving pieces and have had no issues with quality.  Actually, its 'Newsboy' jacket is a perfect copy of a 1930s reversible belted back jacket and is very nice quality.  Check out the photos below.

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Soft, thick flannel in a classic color and pattern.

Cotton twill on the reverse side.

But even with demise the chic and classic though flawed American Living brand and the restructuring of its leadership, J.C. Penney's is still full of classic and even vintage-inspired clothing.

Before the rebranding I was a bit dissatisfied with the suit selection.  Narrow lapels, notched lapels, neutered peaked lapels, dark colors, boring fabric patterns, and uninspiring fits dominated the racks.  However, now after the rebranding I see more satisfying changes.  Yes, while the above list of complaints still does exist it is not as widespread.  Becoming more apparent are bolder classic patterns (plaids, windowpanes, houndstooth, etc), cuts, and features.

I was at a smaller Penney's recently and found multiple plaid, windowpane, and other bold patterned sports coats. Most had a 1960s aesthetic going on though a couple looked more from the 1930s.

I really like the suit/sports coat shown here. The silhouette is maybe the best thing about this jacket: pretty good looking dimensions and it fit me well. Labelled as "slim fit", it has a more vintage (shorter) length than most modern jackets, nicely shaped medium width peaked lapels, a ticket pocket, and dual vents. Nicely balanced 1930s aesthetic to my eye. Made by Stafford. 

Sorry for the poor quality cellphone photos.

Not easily seen in the above photo is the Prince of Wales check AKA plaid.  Really traditional colors and pattern sizing going on.  Here's the online link for this jacket.

Unfortunately the matching trousers are still stuck on trendy: low rise, flat front, extreme taper, and no cuffs.  Hopefully the trousers will soon swing back towards the traditional like the jackets have.

I rather liked this blue windowpane sports coat. Again, made by Stafford and also labelled "slim fit".

Both jackets are surprisingly made of medium weight material: the plaid sports coat is worsted wool and the windowpane sports coat is tweed-like.

Penney's has a lot more to offer for the budget-minded man looking for classic clothing and suits.  Ties, knit wear, and dress shirts looked quite nice and quality-made.  The shoe department also showed some positive changes, in my mind.

If you haven't in a while, stop by Penney's and see what you can find.

WIW: Hollywood Wants its Jacket Back

The Hollywood jacket: the epitome of the 1940s/1950s 'in crowd'.  Movie stars and hipsters alike wore them.  They were the casual wear item for a generation of cool kids.

Heck, Elvis wore a very cool two-tone mint green and black belted Hollywood jacket (along with co-star Judy Tyler) in "Jailhouse Rock".

click image to enlarge

Like young Elvis, I was a "cool kid" today.

Recently I ran into a near-perfect condition belted Hollywood jacket in my size.  Unlike Elvis' jacket, mine is made of very fine suede leather with matching leather buttons.

Today it was paired with Ralph Lauren 'Chaps' trousers and a blue herringbone shirt to give the kit an extra pop of color.

It has the typical  style of lapel found on Hollywood jackets, just with subtle stylistic differences.  The front actually reminds me of pre-WW2 casual German jackets with the slanted yokes, slanted breast pocket flaps, and gusseted breast patch pockets (the Germans did some very interesting and eccentric sartorial things in the 1930s and even after the war).

The back is just as nice as the front, with its gathered back beneath the yoke:

Here's the tag showing it was made in Mexico.

I'm lucky to have such a great Hollywood jacket in my collection, especially in this great condition.  It looks to be unworn and with the original belt- somewhat unusual to find since belts were often separated from their jackets over the decades.

At roughly 60 years old this is a fine showcase example of the iconic Hollywood jacket.

An Oddity Lost

Well, not quite 'lost', just no longer in my possession.

You might remember this amazing 1930s sports coat I posted about nearly two years ago.  The photos from back then were crude at best but I recently upgraded them, as you'll see below.

Quite a rare sports coat, it is.  Lightweight donegal tweed material, a very large size, really nice condition for its age (aside from two missing buttons), and, most interestingly, four pleated patch pockets.

click images to enlarge

And with such uniqueness going on in front we would expect some more to continue in the back.  But we'd be wrong.  It just has a boring, plain, ventless back, as if someone had robbed it of its belt, pleats, and gussets.

Not that I'm complaining; just look at that fabric pattern.  It doesn't get much better than that.

This illustrates just how vintage (especially 1930s) fabrics kick the tar out of modern fabrics.  Even though this is lightweight tweed (contradiction?) it drapes and flows beautifully.  Exceptionally fine tweed like this isn't made today.  It is extinct, except in vintage examples like this jacket.

 The pleated pockets are just the icing on the cake.  Sure, you'll find sports coats with the occasional gusseted pockets but how many times do they have multiple pleats per pocket?


Made by Foreman & Clark, a quality maker back in the day.  This tag is a definite sign that, when it comes to vintage, you're getting a nice product.

Unfortunately this sports coat is way too big for myself and, while I loved having it in my collection, it only ever stayed in the closet, collecting dust.  So I sold it so someone else could own, wear and enjoy it.  Because what good is clothing if it cannot be worn?

To my eyes it is a piece of artwork.  I have a feeling the new owner would agree.