1920s-30s Shirt Fabric Sample Book

[herringbonekid]

need some vintage shirt fabric samples to copy ? got a spare $700 ?

here's your reference library:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-20S...679?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4844b1babf

 

[Mario]

Looks like a wondeful sample book but $700? Ouch!

 

[Paul Roerich]

Looks like the fabric used in all of Ralph Lauren's RRL dress shirts.

 

[Paul Roerich]

The good ol' days, when you could find off-the-rack dress shirts made of such fabrics as pongee silk, viyella, and even solid colored madras.

 

[herringbonekid]

i sometimes feel bad being so dismissive about modern shirt fabrics, but have a look at these samples; there is nothing today which comes close (apart from direct copies of these such as those by RRL or Mister Freedom).

 

[Paul Roerich]

That is true.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/250-NWT-DOU...?pt=US_Men_s_Dress_Shirts&hash=item45f8d12f52

http://www.misterfreedom.com/?p=1696

 

[Two Types]

Sold for $699.99. That is a lot of money. One would guess that it was a company purchase, rather than an individual.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

Drowning in drool. Just imagine all the beautiful shirts....:drama:

 

[herringbonekid]

bibs at the ready. the same seller has two more sample books, both late teens. this one is more dressy, verging on the gaudy:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTIQUE-VIN...198?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4846426716

this one is more varied:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTIQUE-VIN...520?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cc9113b80

this blue fabric jumped out at me straight away as just being drop dead gorgeous:

http://www.mybfc.com/clothes/20120422_15_12_28_dsc05825_eb.jpg

 

[Rudie]

Some crazy stuff. Today's shirtings are quite dull and bland when compared to these.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

So boardwalk empire was still and understatement... and still many people believe everything was black and white :eusa_doh:

 

[herringbonekid]

yeah, those lavender striped with shiny decorative stitched patterns on top are seriously dandified.

 

[Tomasso]

Today's shirtings are quite dull and bland when compared to these.

For RTW, yes, but you can find some wild stuff in some of the bespoke shirtmaker's books. Charvet in particular have some shirtings (some vintage) that rival the stuff in these books.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

Bump for the shirting-fans ... because the pics in the auctions are still there but they won't stay forever.

 

[Dostioffsky]

^ Thanks! These are from before my time. Very nice!

 

[mactire]

For RTW, yes, but you can find some wild stuff in some of the bespoke shirtmaker's books. Charvet in particular have some shirtings (some vintage) that rival the stuff in these books.

It depends, you can check scans of most of the books online from Alibini, Cancini, Monti etc. but there's a lot of patterns in that book I've never seen before like the multicoloured hairline stripes, the on again off again herringbones. Acorn Fabric's site http://www.acornfabrics.com/ gives a good idea of what the standard mills books are like but to get stuff like that I'd say you'd only find it after going through every cloth jobber between London and Leeds.

 

[Two Types]

Thanks for posting the link to Acorn. I rather like this cloth:

 

[mactire]

Thanks for posting the link to Acorn. I rather like this cloth:

If you're based in London mate you're sorted! Tons of jobbers around even these days, if you want pdf swtaches of the books of the makers there's a guy on styleforum who has them on dropbox u/badsha. Bonfanti has nice stuff too but dear http://www.bonfantitessuti.it/page_7.html its all narrow width so you need 3m to get a shirt made and those prices are ex-VAT.