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. 

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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.

Enter the Man Room

Cassie and I bought a house back in June.

Since it's fairly large, I've been 'allowed' a room to myself by the spousal unit.  I've finished this man room and post photos of it here for your enjoyment.  There's not a lot of vintage in it but it still fits in the topic of this website.

There is a mix of original, reproduction, and a tiny number of airsoft items but the large majority of what is shown is original. Some of the pics aren't great, the lighting wasn't the best and shooting items behind glass is tough. 

Enjoy. 

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View upon entry.

Not 100% historically accurate but provides a good idea of how a GI would have been outfitted in Normandy in July, 1944. The helmet is postwar I stripped and repainted and the bandoleer is postwar.  His pants and shirt are repros that were used in the filming of "Saving Private Ryan".

Top is a 'last ditch' Japanese bayonet, middle is a '43 dated German bayonet, and the bottom is a battle damaged WW1 German sawback bayonet that is unit marked. 

The Great White Fleet.

The 'coffee table'.

My great-grandfather's WW1 helmet.

An original USAAF photo. Here's the story on this photo: the front bomber was hit by flak and the mortally wounded bombardier prematurely released his bombs.

Airsoft.

U.S. Marine, circa 1945.

Three official USAAF photos from a set of five: P-38 making low passes. All marked "not for publication" on the back. 

Signed by the bombardier and navigator of the 'Enola Gay' as well as a WW2 war correspondent.

The helmet cover is a reproduction that was used in the filming of "Saving Private Ryan". 

Hope you enjoyed the quick look at my mini-museum.  If you have any questions or comments about it, please leave them in the comment section of this post.

Cheers,
Will

The Houndstooth Kid is on Facebook!

Finally, we've joined the cool kids and created ourselves a Facebook page!

This page is meant to act as your "doorway" to all of the Houndstooth Kid pages: a simple one-stop place where you have all of the Houndstooth Kid info and listings at your fingertips as well as where you can reach out and communicate with other Houndstooth Kid readers and buyers.  Whether you're a connoisseur of fine vintage clothing, a confused newbie, or just intrigued with the history of vintage clothing, the HTK Facebook page is your gateway to an incredible world.

Be sure to 'Like' the HTK Facebook page to keep up-to-date with everything going on, see new listings right when they're posted, and stay in touch with everyone involved.

Cheers,
~Will

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...

Shiny

These are a blast from the 1960s.  I'm not usually a big fan of patent leather; it usually looks like plastic (modern equivalents usually are), creases very easily, and doesn't look right with everything but formal kits.

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That said, I love these shoes.  The mix of patent leather and leather stamped to look like crocodile skin is perfect.  The sleek styling and elegantly rounded toes are also perfect.  This is a pair of shoes meant to be worn out on the town with your best getup and your woman on your arm.

Amazing shoes you just don't see very often.

A Story of Two Helmets

Returning to my roots in a way, I picked up two Second World War M-1 helmets a week apart from each other.  I hadn't found a decent WW2 era M-1 in the wild for a couple years, so this was a good break in the drought.

The M-1 helmet is famous.  Adopted into service by the U.S. armed forces in 1941, the M-1 served for four decades with the U.S. military in multiple forms until it was replaced by the ballistic kevlar helmet in the 1980s.  It had served its wearers well, often protecting against artillery and grenade shrapnel and, rarely, it would even stop the occasional stray bullet.



Below are the two M-1 helmets I found, both from antique shops for roughly $70 each.

This first one is an early to mid-war helmet.  It has a front seam (the seam in the brim edging of the shell is at the front; it was switched to the back by late war), fixed bails (early to mid-war chinstrap bails were solid but often broke and were replaced mid- to late war by swivel bails), Olive Drab #3 chinstraps (changed to the greener OD #7 later in the war), brass chinstrap hardware (late-war variants had steel hardware), and a stainless steel brim edge (changed to non-stainless metal as stainless tended to lose its paint).  It also has a matching mid-war Westinghouse liner in nice condition.

There's some scuffing around the front of the shell, paint speckles on the side, and the liner chinstrap is dry and broken, but this is a nice example of an early M-1 helmet.  The cork texture is excellent on this one.

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The shell and liner chinstraps have matching laundry numbers, showing these two pieces have been together since the beginning.  Looking up the number and name, I found this helmet belonged to a soldier from Pennsylvania who was a widower and joined the U.S. Army in 1939.

Like the helmet above the U.S. Marine Corps helmet below is early to mid-war: front seam, fixed bail, OD #3 chinstraps, brass chinstrap hardware, and stainless rim.  It too has a mid-war Westinghouse liner with a dry and broken chinstrap.  Unlike the helmet above, this helmet has a well-used third pattern USMC cover.

This is a salty helmet and has that 'been there' look to it.  The helmet and cover look like they've been together forever.  Who knows what this helmet has been through and to whom it was issued, but one thing is for sure: it is a veteran WW2 USMC helmet.

Helmets like this USMC helmet are getting more difficult to find in the wild but as this one has shown, they are still out there.  These two helmets will be staying in my collection and thus far the USMC helmet is the centerpiece.

Below is the USMC helmet with another one of my M-1 helmets, a mid- to late WW2 shell with a miss-matched Korean War-era CAPAC liner.

These old helmets are quite intriguing, are great 'monuments' to the brave men and women who wore them, and are fun to collect but like everything else, they can be quite expensive and fakes abound.  If you wish to begin collecting M-1 helmets enjoy the history behind them but beware, fakers are getting very good at what they do and it is easy to sink a lot of dough into a single shell.  Be patient and informed.

Remember our veterans.

A Suit to Die For or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Enjoy

About a month ago I found a wonderful suit.

Double breasted, a rich brown color, with elegant chalk-striping.  Dating from the late 1930s to early 1940s, it was in very good condition for its age.  A small hole here, some wear on the the lining there.  Nothing major, all of it easily repairable.  The peaked lapels had a nice shape and generous belly to them, giving them an attractive appearance.

And it was a decent price, so I purchased it for myself.

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The only problem: after I brought it home I found that it didn't fit me right.  Just a tad too big around.  The trousers and jacket arms were long enough (a rarity for me) but the waist of both the jacket and trousers were too big around.  Alas, I didn't notice it when I tried it on at the shop.  Maybe I was delusional with awe of having found such a cool suit, who knows.

No big (monetary) loss, I just threw it on my Etsy shop and resold it to a very happy buyer.  But historically and maybe even emotionally it was a big loss.  Rarely do you find a suit like this in condition like this at a price for which this one was available; it hits you hard, brings you down from your high when (perhaps) the find of they year doesn't fit you.

And that brings us to the lesson of the night: don't form an emotional attachment to these physical things, no matter how cool they are, because sometime or another they will go away.  They are just things.  Enjoy them while they last, but don't make them your life.

So while this suit slipped through my fingers, I enjoyed it while it was in my possession and passed it along to someone else who is currently enjoying it even more than I ever could.

That's what it's all about: whether it be a physical item or knowledge, pass it along for others to enjoy.  And that's the main reason this blog exists, to pass along knowledge and experience.