What shirt brand(s) did business people use in the 50's and 60's?

[luftvier]

Originally Posted by Reevolving

Would you say that Hathaway picture has underarms that should be tapered?

Underarms look ok to me.

 

[radicaldog]

Originally Posted by Millerp

LOL

Note what was considered a well-fitting shirt. High-rise trousers look good with baggy shirts. Not that either of these things looks particularly good in and of itself, but nowadays we err on the other side, as I see it.

 

[Dakota rube]

Originally Posted by Millerp

Courtesy David Ogilvy.

 

[pitboss12]

Hathaway shirt + Dos Equis = The most interesting man in the world.

 

[Aaron]

Originally Posted by Tarmac

modern "branding" was literally invented in the Mad Men era (P&G, soap operas, etc). Prior to that it was far more likely for a person to buy from a variety of sources without a huge concern for what brand it was. They probably wouldn't even really understand the question "what are your favorite brands of clothing?"
Brands were very popular throughout the late 19 and 20th century. They were a way for consumer goods companies to differentiate themselves when selling commodity-like goods (like soap). Companies also realized that by developing a brand they could sell more because people trusted their product at a time when a lot of consumer goods were shoddily made or harmful. And as they do today, they helped define class. Think of car brands like Duesenburg and Ford and Wedgewood bone china.

The agency depicted in Mad Men was kind of the swan song to the era described above. Sterling Cooper are dinosaurs and there was a huge cultural shift going on that they're just becoming aware of (i.e. hiring the young, gay Russian in the onesie, talking about DDB's "Think Small" VW Bug campaign).

Anyways, back to the shirts...

 

[comrade]

Originally Posted by Patrician

Sure, but did the middle class really spend money on high end dress shirts? I have a feeling they all went to brooks brothers and bought ten white shirts and that was it.

Brooks Brothers was a relatively elite and regional store with a few branches outside of New York.
The Ivy look which Brooks epitomized had not become the corporate/ upper middle class uniform
until later. It was confined to the Northeast with regional hubs in Chicago, DC, SanFrancisco, etc
and largely confined to elite Ivy-educated practitioners of Law, Investments, Academics. Typically,
the successful executive in Detroit or Pittsburgh, for example did not dress Ivy, but his NY- based
lawyer might have.

 

[I. Gentantithesis]

Brooks Brothers, GANT (CT.), Sero (CT.), Hathaway (ME.), Troy Shirtmakers Guild (NY) for Press & Chipp, Enro, Wings, Ashland Shirt Company (Gitman) (PA), Eagle (PA), Creighton (NC), There were subcontractors in PA and the Carolinas who made for the previous brands as well as private-label shirts for speciality stores and better department stores. I'm not sure when Ike Behar started but he made the Polo RL shirts in the '70s in an NYC suburb. Brooks Brothers current NC shirt-making facility started as an Enro factory.

GANT, Sero & Eagle were major suppliers of collegiate OCBD shirts to better shops. Slicker adv. men of the era might have worn something more upscale (rent: The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit (Gregory Peck) movie). Wall Street didn't.

Gonna have to beg to differ with Comrade to a degree. Can't specifically address Detroit or Pittsburgh, but by the late '50s or early '60s what had been "Ivy" became generically "collegiate" and the styles could be had by a more diverse patronage in a wider geographic area. That's where the haberdashery of GANT, ect. comes into play. Brooks Brothers also had traveling salesmen who'd display their samples in the better hotels of mid to larger cities. Richmond, Kansas City, Houston, etc. legal, financial and other professional types wearing NE inspired clothing were not that rare. And don't forget, Ivies were aping Brits.

 

[Patrician]

^ very interesting!

But what did a dress shirt generally (in todays exc. rate) cost in the 50's and 60's?

 

[Shirtmaven]

I gent well done.
there were also numerous non-branded contrators as well.
quality also ranged from lower end to high end.

today there are less then 15 shirt factories with over 25 employees turning out better quality shirts in the US.

 

[mlongano]

Originally Posted by Patrician

^ very interesting! But what did a dress shirt generally (in todays exc. rate) cost in the 50's and 60's?
+1 on Arrow and Van Heusen. In 1967 I worked at Richman Brothers, a well known men's store. Dress shirts were about $6-7.00. Ten of these shirts lasted me through four years of high school and still looked good after I started college. Richman Brothers suits (well made in Cleveland) ranged from $49.00 to $119.00. Richman's suits were primarily 100% wool, sometimes with five to ten percent silk. To put those prices in perspective, I was sixteen at the time and made $1.60 per hour. The average adult professional made about $8,000.00 to $10,000.00 per year, or about $4-5.00 per hour. So, for about one to two hours of pay you could purchase a very good shirt. Permanent Pressed (non-iron) was just coming into vogue at the time, but the majority of shirts were still 100% cotton. In the fifties and sixties 95% of clothes were made in the USA. Today it's just the opposite. There were many good manufacturers of clothes back in those days, and one did not have to shop too hard to find quality.

 

[EBugatti]

To get an idea about pricing in the sixties vs today, divide today's prices by 10. So something that costs $100 today would run comparably $10 in the sixties. This is the effect of inflation. things were not cheaper back then--the purchasing power of $10 (1960s) = $100 in 2010 dollars.

Hence, next time the government wants to tax you on your long term capital gains...ask yourself why you should be paying for gains that are strictly due to inflation...

 

[Patrician]

Originally Posted by EBugatti

To get an idea about pricing in the sixties vs today, divide today's prices by 10. So something that costs $100 today would run comparably $10 in the sixties. This is the effect of inflation. things were not cheaper back then--the purchasing power of $10 (1960s) = $100 in 2010 dollars.

Hence, next time the government wants to tax you on your long term capital gains...ask yourself why you should be paying for gains that are strictly due to inflation...
Uhh, $150 dollars today is worth $20.40 in 1960. There is no way they paid $20 for shirts in the 60's, right?

 

[EBugatti]

Originally Posted by Patrician

Uhh, $150 dollars today is worth $20.40 in 1960. There is no way they paid $20 for shirts in the 60's, right?

Not to be pedantic, while you are technically correct, 7.35x and not 10x like I said, I was just trying to make it easier to do the math. Also, the 7.35x is for a basket of goods that includes a wide variety of products (durables, retail, etc.). Hence it doesn't apply individually to specific types of products as those could have individual market forces at work. For example, computers in the 1960s were priced at $10 (in 2010 dollars)/transistor, and were thus prohibitively expensive and only institution-owned. Today's laptop with billions on transistors on a chip would be priced in the $ billions today if no market/innovative forces operated between 1960 and today. Instead, a laptop is a mere $1,000 (depending on configuration of course) today. Your 7.35x does not account for better manufacturing, better marketing/branding, etc. that is pervasive in the clothing business today. The improved manufacturing would tend to lower real prices and the better marketing/branding etc. would raise prices. As luxury goods have enjoyed quite a mark-up in the last 10 years or so, you could argue a larger multiplier would be in order for high-end menswear.

 

[AlanC]

Originally Posted by Shirtmaven

today there are less then 15 shirt factories with over 25 employees turning out better quality shirts in the US.

Curious, what are they?

Brooks Bros Garland factory
Gitman
Hamilton
Gant (?)
Individualized
Behar (any US production left?)
Kenneth Gordon

 

[Dakota rube]

Originally Posted by EBugatti

...Hence it doesn't apply individually to specific types of products as those could have individual market forces at work....Today's laptop with billions on transistors on a chip would be priced in the $ billions today if no market/innovative forces operated between 1960 and today. ...The improved manufacturing would tend to lower real prices and the better marketing/branding etc. would raise prices...

If you would've worked a "cut taxes to stimulate investment" in there I would've guessed you were AF or Pio's sock puppet.