a guide to heritage clothing, canvas bags, steel bicycles, and Japanese web shops
It’s June so naturally I’m shopping for a new down vest. In the past few years, I’ve gotten sidetracked by Rocky Mountain Featherbed and Western Mountaineering. But this summer, I’m checking back in on an old friend, Crescent Down Works. If you recall, Archival did a collaboration with CDW back in the day using Swiss …
The Archival blog started in 2006 as a place to presevere ephemeral print, digitized scans and new digital catalog content. Originally, I posted scans of my own outdoor clothing catalogs from the US and UK. Later, I expanded to include images from Japanese web shops selling Japan-only garb by US and European outdoor labels like …
Ed. Note: Archival Clothing guest contributor Tom B. submits the following report on a formative sartorial handbook, The Golden Book of Camping and Camp Crafts. The Golden Book of Camping and Camp Crafts (1959) offers terrific examples of outdoor apparel. The illustrations are remarkably consistent, suggesting a uniform of jeans (rolled cuff), moccasins or …
The 1941 Montgomery Ward catalog reads like a menswear manifesto from the heyday of heritage clothing. I usually repost images of Ward product offerings. But this time, I’m lingering on the soothing, info dense pages at the back of the catalog. Here, I’m imaginging myself as a skitterish, 1941 shopper, short on cash, scanning the …
Under quarantine, I’m consoled by livestreams of apartment concerts with Ceceile McLorin, free access to Met Opera broadcasts and Blossome Dearie playlists on YouTube. Soundtrack secured, I’m browsing comfort print catalog content and ephemera via Google Books, Flickr Commons and the Library of Congresss Digital archives. Beyond that, I’m turning back the clock to a …
Revisiting Archival posts from the past (published August 10, 2010) In 2010, the Archival team met with Thorogood in Denver, Colorado, to discuss a project to scan some of their historical catalogs. At the time, we were hoping to collaborating on our own Archival boot model, preferably, a Moc Toe Oxford. Here are some of …
Patchwork (and multi panel) garb is hard to find these days. A few cool examples kick out of eBay, Etsy and Japanese web shops. For me, these items live as visual reminders of the endless ways to create variations on a classic design. Lesson learned: don’t bring out a million products, just find ways to …
In the late ’80s and ’90s, field coats ruled the casual heritage market (before heritage had a name). Affordable, stylish, canvas duck options (heavily pocketed and trimmed in fine wale corduroy) could be found through LL Bean, JCrew, and a slew of lesser known, hunting supply catalogs (including Cabela’s, which was much less the sprayfoam …
Browsing the Minnesota Historical Society flickr stream, I found this fantastic denim chore coat from the 1960s. Metadata from the site identifies the jacket as belonging to Selmer Sauglow, a Norwegian farmer. While I’m a little denim jaded these days, I love the patchwork of this chore jacket which was created by Anna Sauglow, Selmer’s sister. Featured on …
On the subject of heritage garb for women, here is what was available from LL Bean in 1982. What I love about this era of LL Bean is how many items are offered in unisex sizes and colors (seriously…when was the last time you saw a contemporary catalog listing the exact same item, in the …