Palm Beach: the Summer Fabric

Palm Beach was a famous brand that created a uniquely blended fabric for warm weather wear.  It was very popular during the Golden Era (before dying out in the 1950s) because it offered men one of the best and most stylish ways to stay cool in the heat while wearing a suit.

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What was Palm Beach fabric?  It was a warm weather blended fabric created in the late teens/early 1920s.  The blend was kept secret and is still up for debate, but general consensus is that it's a blend of linen, mohair, and, added in the mid-1950s, rayon and nylon.  One 1950s Palm Beach material tie is tagged with the following blend:

50% rayon

32% mohair

12%cotton

6% nylon

It should be noted that this is a later blend after Palm Beach was sold by Goodall in 1953.  The previous original blend did not contain rayon nor nylon.  While the Palm Beach fabric died in the 1950s, it should not be confused with the Palm Beach brand, which existed separate from the fabric from the 1950s up to at least the 1980s if not later.  After the 1950s the Palm Beach brand name was just that: a name.  Unimpressive wool and polyester Palm Beach brand suits and jackets litter thrift shops across the country; these later garments share no heritage to those made out of true Palm Beach fabric.

I was able to pick up a Palm Beach suit the other day.  Surprisingly it fits me pretty well.  It has stains throughout but I'm currently working on them.

The interesting thing about this suit is that the two pieces are not original to each other.  If you look at the photo of the jacket above you'll notice by the low button stance, highly padded shoulders, and very generous lapels that this jacket dates from the Bold Look, or the mid-1940s to the early 1950s.  It dates from before the Palm Beach name was sold by Goodall in 1953 because the brand tag still mentions Goodall.

The trousers, however, have a button fly as well as an NRA tag in them, dating them from 1933-1935.

Thankfully for me the material blend and weave didn't really change in the time between when these two pieces were manufactured so they match perfectly.

With so many stains throughout this suit it will be somewhat difficult to clean well.  Palm Beach fabric can easily develop dry rot if stored in a hot, dry area and can shred at any attempt to clean it.  Oxiclean has been known to also destroy the material as it's a fairly harsh cleaning method.  From a couple experts I've talked to, the best bet for cleaning vintage Palm Beach fabric is in soapy water with a mild soap.  However, if dry rot has occurred even a gentle hand-wash in soapy water can still shred Palm Beach.  Avoid dry cleaning.

Anyone lucky enough to find a good-condition garment made of Palm Beach fabric can attest to its usefulness in the warm summer months.  I've thankfully finally joined their ranks with this great suit that, with a little elbow grease, will serve me well.

And just in time for winter...

A Bold Look for the Summer

It's that time again: Summer.  Warm weather, outdoor activities, BBQing with friends and family, cruisin' around in cars with the windows rolled down.  It's a great time of the year.  But it can get really hot.

How did guys stay cool and stylish back in the 1940s?  The following images from a 1948 "Look" magazine (64 years ago, when the "Bold Look" officially began) answers that question.  And interestingly enough there was a bit of a debate about it.

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Cover:

Article Page 1:

Article Page 2:

Article Page 3:

Article Page 4:

Article Page 5, the "Aztec" inspired clothing is rather wild:

Article Page 6, I'll take one of everything, please:



Where do I stand in the debate about summer material?  Do I prefer loosely woven fabrics or light-weight tightly woven fabrics for warm weather? 

I like loosely woven materials, like linen.  I find that allowing air to flow through a garment makes it much cooler than a light-weight tightly woven material.  For example, I have a heavy-weight three-piece tweed suit that is super warm in the winter.  Even so, its tweed material is surprisingly loosely woven and at times will allow a gust of wind to cut through.

Your experience may differ along with your preference, but that has been my observation.



WIW: Spring Madras

Madras has recently come into fashion with younger folks but, unsurprisingly, it is a more traditional fabric pattern that your grandparents or great grandparents were putting to use long ago. Below are a few 1930s Esquire and Apparel Arts illustrations that put "Indian Madras", as they called it, to work.

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And while I'd never be caught dead in this suit, the shirt did give me a bit of inspiration last Sunday:



Here is my take on the Madras shirt/jacket combination.




Madras is a loud fabric pattern and therefore should be worn with restraint. However, when worn right it will add a dash of color to any warm weather outfit.

WIW: The Conversion

The conversion from Summer to Fall is always an interesting time, especially when it's fairly quick.

Sunday was very cool and drizzly; the kind of weather I love. Good for staying inside and being a bum. And for sweaters.



Everything I'm wearing was thrifted and only the jacket is vintage: a 1940s suede leather jacket with a belted back. A very rugged, easy-wearing jacket.



I love a sweater with a large collar. And is it ever so itchy even with a long-sleeved shirt underneath, being 100% wool!



Combine elements (classic sweater with rugged leather jacket) to create a unique and simple yet attractive kit.

Intentionally Wrinkled

Having traveled a short distance to hang out with a friend this morning, it came to me that linen would make a very good travel fabric.

Here's why.

It wrinkles. It's supposed to wrinkle. A linen suit or jacket without wrinkles is like a car without wheels: they just have to be there for it to work. And since we sit for long periods of time when we travel, our clothes tend to wrinkle even if they aren't supposed to.

So next time you want to travel wearing a suit or jacket, be like Cary Grant and try linen. That way when you arrive wrinkled, it looks natural. It looks right.


Of course your suit or jacket can't just be wrinkled, but it has to be wrinkled in the right areas: arms, back of the jacket (from sitting), at the back of the knees, etc. You want wrinkles, but you don't want to look like you just pulled the suit out of an overstuffed closet. The wrinkles must be specific.


I took a cue from Mr. Grant today and went all linen, since it was absurdly hot outside. I paired a jacket and trousers of slightly different colors as well as different types of linen to help contrast the look. Throw in a pink 1930s "Fruit of the Loom" tie, spectators and a Stetson and we've got a great summer kit.

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The jacket is made of smooth, finely woven linen while the trousers are a little more course and loosely woven. Both are lightweight and drape very well.


Give linen a try if you're travelling this summer.

WIW: Lounging

Yesterday was beautiful. I was a bit under the weather but not enough to enjoy the weather. It was warm and sunny with big puffy clouds in the sunny sky. Isolated rainstorms rolled through the area and every so often we'd get a light rain for 5 or 10 minutes while it was still sunny outside.

There's nothing like the smell of a cool rain on the hot, dusty concrete.





The light-weight cotton shirt and linen trousers kept me cool while the hat and boat shoes added some color.

The 'Optimo'-l Summer Hat

The Optimo style straw hat (not to be confused with the Optimo hat works in Chicago) is considered to be a somewhat outdated style hat by many in the mainstream.

Thankfully we're not in the mainstream, here.

The unique look of the open crown with a solitary ridge running down the center of the crown is a conservative (read old fashioned) and therefore a somewhat daring (in this day and age) shape to give a hat. So its name 'Optimo' is well deserved, as I consider it the king of summer straws.

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Finding a vintage Optimo straw is difficult: while popular back in the day, the fedora-style Panama hat still took first place in the hearts and on the heads of hat wearers. Seeing an Optimo straw on the head of a man meant he was a little bit of a dandy and that the rest of his attire would not disappoint.



And so, I'd never seen let alone handled a vintage Optimo. Until a couple weeks ago.

That's when I bought this beauty from the 1930s:




It's a Stetson, as are so many fine quality hats from that era. The very finely and tightly woven straw was in perfect condition and still flexible.



No stains on the thin bi-colored ribbon and bow. The ventilated sweatband in beautiful condition. Size 7 3/8.



Pristine. Rare. Not my size.





So, I sold it the same day I got it. Truthfully, it sold within 5 minutes of being offered.
And don't ask the price. Let's just say it was fair for both the seller and buyer and that both are very happy with the deal.


But one thing's for sure: if you ever see me scouring the thrift shops and antique malls, I'll still be looking for that King, the Optimo.

In my size.

It's That Time Again

Even while it's still cold outside and we pray for no more snow, it's that wonderful time of the year when we start thinking of Spring and Summer (Spring does start later this month, after all). And while the cold weather is sure to continue least to the end of the month, retailers are at that transition point when they've brought in new Spring styles while placing the old Winter styles on sale.

The best of both worlds.

This is a great time to scope out the new warm weather styles (everything old is new again), color combos and fabrics while saving a bundle on heavy winter clothing that you can still use for the rest of this Winter or save for when the cold blows in again next year.



Below are a few things that await you on this blog when the warm weather does finally hit, just to give you a small taste, a sneak peek:

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Until then, enjoy the rest of the cold weather. Hopefully we'll be able to discuss overcoats before it becomes too warm to wear them.

Too Popular For Its Own Good

"...He now rose, holding a white object. And at the sight of it, I realized that another of our domestic crises had arrived, another of those unfortunate clashes of will between two strong men, and that Bertram, unless he remembered his fighting ancestors and stood up for his rights, was about to be put upon.

I don’t know if you were at Cannes this summer. If you were, you will recall that anybody with any pretensions to being the life and soul of the party was accustomed to attend binges at the Casino in the ordinary evening-wear trouserings topped to the north by a white mess-jacket with brass buttons. And ever since I had stepped aboard the Blue Train at Cannes station, I had been wondering on and off how mine would go with Jeeves.

In the matter of evening costume, you see, Jeeves is hidebound and reactionary. I had had trouble with him before about soft-bosomed shirts. And while these mess-jackets had, as I say, been all the rage—_tout ce qu’il y a de chic_—on the Cote d’Azur, I had never concealed it from myself, even when treading the measure at the Palm Beach Casino in the one I had hastened to buy, that there might be something of an upheaval about it on my return.

I prepared to be firm.

“Yes, Jeeves?” I said. And though my voice was suave, a close observer in a position to watch my eyes would have noticed a steely glint. Nobody has a greater respect for Jeeves’s intellect than I have, but this disposition of his to dictate to the hand that fed him had got, I felt, to be checked. This mess-jacket was very near to my heart, and I jolly well intended to fight for it with all the vim of grand old Sieur de Wooster at the Battle of Agincourt.

“Yes, Jeeves?” I said. “Something on your mind, Jeeves?”

“I fear that you inadvertently left Cannes in the possession of a coat belonging to some other gentleman, sir.”

I switched on the steely a bit more.

“No, Jeeves,” I said, in a level tone, “the object under advisement is mine. I bought it out there.”

“You wore it, sir?”

“Every night.”

“But surely you are not proposing to wear it in England, sir?”

I saw that we had arrived at the nub.

“Yes, Jeeves.”

“But, sir--“

“You were saying, Jeeves?”

“It is quite unsuitable, sir.”

“I do not agree with you, Jeeves. I anticipate a great popular success for this jacket. It is my intention to spring it on the public tomorrow at Pongo Twistleton’s birthday party, where I confidently expect it to be one long scream from start to finish. No argument, Jeeves. No discussion. Whatever fantastic objection you may have taken to it, I wear this jacket.”

“Very good, sir.”

He went on with his unpacking. I said no more on the subject. I had won the victory, and we Woosters do not triumph over a beaten foe..."

~Right Ho, Jeeves, Ch. 1, J. G. Wodehouse, 1922.

click photos to enlarge

The mess jacket: bathed in honor by the military, bored servitude by waiters and bellhops. No middle ground between the two.

But that was not always so.

I've enjoyed the look of the mess jacket since first seeing it. It's a sleek, dashing article that gives the wearer the appearance of long legs and an athletic figure (it helps to really have an athletic figure). That's why I bought one.

While the mess jacket grew out of military formal tradition and had been around for quite some time, it first became popular with civilians in 1933 for warm weather semi-formal dress occasions. As pictured above, regular high-waisted dinner jacket trousers were to be worn with it along with a cummerbund, bowtie and a semi-bossom shirt. An elegant and sophisticated look with, perhaps, a touch of Eastern influence.

Unfortunately during the mid-1930s the mess jacket became too popular for its own good. Waiters and bellhops eventually adopted the look, thereby relieving the stylish and fashionable of their individualistic outfit. Once the masses got ahold of the mess jacket its time as a viable fancy dress suit was up. By 1936 several influential men's style magazine were mocking the mess jacket and its wearers into sartorial oblivion. It also didn't help that the mess jacket is only flattering on athletic frames. On anyone else who is plumper it becomes fairly outrageous and reveals more than one wishes to see. Unfortunate, that.

Here is the vintage mess jacket I recently picked up. It dates from the late 1950s or early 1960s, is a U.S. Navy jacket and was tailored in the Philippines by 'Yee Fook Tailors' (giggle, snort). Like any good mess jacket it is made of lightweight cotton material for those warm summer evenings and is cream, though mess jackets can also be black or very dark blue. It is meant to be worn open as the Esquire illustration above shows but can be buttoned up if needed.

Being military, mine has a few items that would have to be removed for civilian wear such as the ribbon around the arms, the epaulette straps on the shoulders and the brass U.S. Navy buttons traded for more conventional buttons, brass of otherwise.

An unconventional look that, if done well, could be pulled off in this day and age without looking like a professional waiter. I for one would like to see the mess jacket come back into popular wear for civilians just as it did back in 1933...

WIW: Oddly Warm

I've been absent from posting for a while. My job and an important test kept me away. And sometimes we all need a short break. But now we're back.

What goofy weather we've had. The temperature has been in the 70s this weekend so I busted out the linen and gabardine one last time for the year.

I tried a look that Ive seen in old Apparel Arts and Esquire illustrations and enjoyed immensely but had never tried for myself even though I've possessed the ingredients to create it for some time now. It is the quintessential 1930s American warm weather look.





I didn't wear a hat because it looks sleeker without one.
Other than the sunglasses, there is only one vintage piece in this look. Can you guess what it is?