Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Vintage finds





The other day, while picking up some recent orders from my shirtmaker (some of which make the background for the piece I want to tell you about in these photos), I discovered an old shirt which was never picked up by the client. The shirt was made in 1968 when the store was still named after the two original founders. It is a simple sport shirt with button-down (also called "polo") collar and single button barrel cuffs. The shirt has some features which make it recognizable as a late sixties to early seventies piece of clothing such as a relatively high collar band and a very slim cut (without using back darts by the way). But apart from these minor details, the shirt could have been made today. From the way the cuffs and collar are attached to the cut of the sleeve to the special single needle stitching starting wide at the upper shoulder and narrowing towards the armpit and side seam the construction hasn't changed a bit — even the supplier of the thick and durable oxford cloth for this shirt is the same as today! In times of time saving and thus cost cutting measures in fashion production, this is truly good news to me. This personal satisfaction aside, I am always thrilled when I get the chance to have an in-depth look at vintage pieces of clothing, be it an old tie, shirt, suit or a pair of shoes.
Since I have not had a sport collar made by this shirtmaker, I had one modeled after the old shirt's collar for my next order. We will see how it turns out soon.

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