Levi's Vintage Clothing have remade 3 early 20th Century workshirts for SS09. There is a 1907 Sunset workshirt with a shrunken left chest pocket and pullover/henley 1/2 button through front. There's also a 1902 Sunset striped shirt - the original was found in a mine in the West. Made in a soft, striped brushed cotton fabric, with a hidden button down collar. It also has the small left chest pocket that was used by several brands at that time. Finally a reproduction of a Levi's Make, 1910 Chambray shirt. Repeattofade says the original was found in a bunkhouse in Sierra Nevada. It had started out black, now it was worn, faded and torn. It has a hidden button-down collar and is kept in style by a Levi's arcuate on the back yoke. The original vintage shirt picture is from e-workers, as are the detail shots of the chambray shirt, which suggest that the original shirt that LVC have recreated had authentic wash scratching on the elbows, fraying at the seams, and some printing on the back.
They all have the strange mini pocket on the left chest, and the pattern image, from Unsung Sewing Patterns, is from the 1920's, so the mini pocket was clearly quite the thing for the dashing scout-about-town. I particularly love the collar stand with the button across fastening on the Levi's shirts. And of course the box! It's a piece that looks definitively vintage, harder to wear than a western denim shirt I would think, as it's slightly smock-like.
Posts
I've just had a brain-wave about the little pocket. I'm about to make up a shirt from a ca. 1899 pattern, which came with two pockets, regular size, for the left front, and small, for the right front. I think the little pocket is a watch pocket. These outing or work shirts aren't meant to be worn with waistcoats, so no waistcoat watch pockets. If you are riding or driving (a horse) it's somewhere between inconvenient to impossible to extract your pocket watch from your trousers watch pocket. Hence, the shirt watch pocket. If you're right-handed, this allows you to hold the reins with your right hand and easily pull out your watch with the left.
ReplyDelete