[katch]

Just took a look at the J. Press website and they've increased the price of their shirts (I was specifically looking at OCBDs) and now have a 3/$329 sale bundle which brings the price to it's previous price of $110.

The bright side is that more shirtmakers are going back to the original OCBD specs (collars) and at these prices I might as well check out MTM options.

 

[paul winston]

Part of growing older is remembering prices from the past. When I started working in1960 Gant OCBDs were $5.50.
Paul Winston
www.chippneckwear.com

 

[katch]

Mr. Winston, I hope you are doing well!

 

[fred johnson]

Part of growing older is remembering prices from the past. When I started working in1960 Gant OCBDs were $5.50.
Paul Winston
www.chippneckwear.com

When I started working in downtown New Haven in 1966 they were about $9.00, I believe.

 

[Vecchio Vespa]

When I started working in downtown New Haven in 1966 they were about $9.00, I believe.

Which was a lot!

 

[fishertw]

As my father used to say " I can remember when Cokes were only a nickel, but if you didn't have a nickel........."

 

[Semper Jeep]

As my father used to say " I can remember when Cokes were only a nickel, but if you didn't have a nickel........."

Yeah but Pepsi Cola was a nickle and you got 12 full ounces... that's a lot! Twice as much for a nickle too...

 

[Fading Fast]

As my father used to say " I can remember when Cokes were only a nickel, but if you didn't have a nickel........."

Grew up in the late '60s / '70s with an older Depression-Era dad (he was 40 when I was born) and spent my entire childhood hearing him lament that a candy bar didn't cost a nickel anymore. Also, Every. Single. Thing. was "too expensive," or "overpriced" in his opinion as he did not really adjust his assessment up with inflation which made it easier for him to say no to anything I asked for (which I learned pretty early to not even do unless absolutely necessary).

 

[fred johnson]

Which was a lot!

It was, I was only making $50/wk at the time.. took me almost a year to buy that $17 Shaggy Dog.

 

[Vecchio Vespa]

My job during high school was about enough to buy a Gant shirt and a Reis tie for a weekend’s work or a pair of Weejuns for two weeks or a blazer for a month. Fortunately I was in a boys school taking way too much academically, working out too often, and had zero social life!

 

[Vecchio Vespa]

As my father used to say " I can remember when Cokes were only a nickel, but if you didn't have a nickel........."

It reminds me of school. Our lower floor was dirt. We had one of those drink machines that dropped a flimsy paper cup and squirted in syrup and soda. It was a nickel. About ten percent of the time the cup would land crooked, and often instead of your being able to right it in time syrup got squirted all over the tray and onto the dirt. So every time you bought your nickel drink you had to stand on a form of slightly muddy syrup infused dreck. Yuck. Bad value even at a nickel!

 

[Billax]

Mr. Winston,
I, too, laid out my $5.50 in 1960 for Gant OCBDs. My appetite for Gant shirts was so large that I went to work (part time) for my Campus Men's Ivy Clothing store to fund my desire! Thanks for refreshing my memories!

TKi67, Reis of New Haven ties were the only ties my Ivy Store carried! Half a buck was exactly right in 1960!

Thanks for the memories, Gents!

 

[gr8w8er]

1975, Christmas season and my girlfriend's dad brings us into Brooks Brothers in Manhattan. I had never been in men's store of that sort and was the typical college freshman - starving and poor.

He saw me staring with an open mouth at a strawberry pink, cable sweater - a stunning price of $150 for a kid wearing $6 Wrangler's. Behind my back he bought it and presented it to me outside as the snow was starting to come down. Quintessential NY Holiday scene ... Woody Allen must have been filming somewhere.

"I don't have anything to wear with it!".
"Son, when somebody gives you gift like that, you thank them. Then build your wardrobe around it."

Over the next 20 years, I wore that that sweater to death ... finally retiring it when the elbows gave out. Best. Christmas. Gift. Ever.

 

[TimF]

1975, Christmas season and my girlfriend's dad brings us into Brooks Brothers in Manhattan. I had never been in men's store of that sort and was the typical college freshman - starving and poor.

He saw me staring with an open mouth at a strawberry pink, cable sweater - a stunning price of $150 for a kid wearing $6 Wrangler's. Behind my back he bought it and presented it to me outside as the snow was starting to come down. Quintessential NY Holiday scene ... Woody Allen must have been filming somewhere.

"I don't have anything to wear with it!".
"Son, when somebody gives you gift like that, you thank them. Then build your wardrobe around it."

Over the next 20 years, I wore that that sweater to death ... finally retiring it when the elbows gave out. Best. Christmas. Gift. Ever.

Have the sweater rejoin the workforce by patching the elbows.

 

[FLMike]

1975, Christmas season and my girlfriend's dad brings us into Brooks Brothers in Manhattan. I had never been in men's store of that sort and was the typical college freshman - starving and poor.

He saw me staring with an open mouth at a strawberry pink, cable sweater - a stunning price of $150 for a kid wearing $6 Wrangler's. Behind my back he bought it and presented it to me outside as the snow was starting to come down. Quintessential NY Holiday scene ... Woody Allen must have been filming somewhere.

"I don't have anything to wear with it!".
"Son, when somebody gives you gift like that, you thank them. Then build your wardrobe around it."

Over the next 20 years, I wore that that sweater to death ... finally retiring it when the elbows gave out. Best. Christmas. Gift. Ever.

It's a nice story, but I think you'd be hard pressed to spend $150 on a BB suit in 1975. How in the world could a sweater coat that much?!

 

[Fading Fast]

It's a nice story, but I think you'd be hard pressed to spend $150 on a BB suit in 1975. How in the world could a sweater coat that much?!

Neat question and, for the life of me, I couldn't remember what an expensive sweater cost in the early '80s when I first started shopping at BB. To be fair, at that time, I was all about the least-expensive, on-sale items, so $150 sweaters were way off my radar anyway.

So, I tried to find the cost via an old on-line catalog, but the prices weren't in them, at least on the page with each item (which is not how I remember it, so it shows you how your memory plays tricks on you); of course, there might have been a "price index" page, but I don't know as each page of the catalog was loading slowly and it was 300+ pages long, so I didn't go through the entire thing.

Then, I went to an inflation calculator. Inflation calculators work off of a generic "basket of goods," thus, they are a guideline not a precise measure. Here, I took a BB cashmere cable knit price from today (as I am guessing that the sweater in '75 was a cashmere one) - a full price of $498 (on-line) - and that comes out to $102 in 1975.

Hence, recognizing that, as noted, the inflation calculator isn't precise - and I'd say clothes were more expensive relative to other things back then (i.e., they experienced less inflation in the last 40+ years than a generic basket) - $150 doesn't sound crazy. But, to emphasize, that's not based on anything more than an inflation calculator, the real price could have been higher or lower. I'm sure, someone at AAAC will have evidence of the real price.

And all that said, I love the story (and want to know what happened to the girl and her generous father?) and, if by chance, gr8w8er memory is off a bit on the price, my guess is that $100, $150 or whatever was such a crazy big number to him then, that he, over 40 years, might have gotten the exact number confused in his memory.

 

[peterc]

1975, Christmas season and my girlfriend's dad brings us into Brooks Brothers in Manhattan. I had never been in men's store of that sort and was the typical college freshman - starving and poor.

He saw me staring with an open mouth at a strawberry pink, cable sweater - a stunning price of $150 for a kid wearing $6 Wrangler's. Behind my back he bought it and presented it to me outside as the snow was starting to come down. Quintessential NY Holiday scene ... Woody Allen must have been filming somewhere.

"I don't have anything to wear with it!".
"Son, when somebody gives you gift like that, you thank them. Then build your wardrobe around it."

Over the next 20 years, I wore that that sweater to death ... finally retiring it when the elbows gave out. Best. Christmas. Gift. Ever.

Your post is one the best things I have ever read on the internet. MANY Thanks for posting. Best of the Holidays to you.

 

[gr8w8er]

Your post is one the best things I have ever read on the internet. MANY Thanks for posting. Best of the Holidays to you.

Wow. Thanks so much, and all God's grace to you as well.

 

[gr8w8er]

It's a nice story, but I think you'd be hard pressed to spend $150 on a BB suit in 1975. How in the world could a sweater coat that much?!

It was so extravagant - thick, and irish. Could it have been less? Perhaps; but not much. Thanks!

 

[gr8w8er]

Neat question and, for the life of me, I couldn't remember what an expensive sweater cost in the early '80s when I first started shopping at BB. To be fair, at that time, I was all about the least-expensive, on-sale items, so $150 sweaters were way off my radar anyway.

So, I tried to find the cost via an old on-line catalog, but the prices weren't in them, at least on the page with each item (which is not how I remember it, so it shows you how your memory plays tricks on you); of course, there might have been a "price index" page, but I don't know as each page of the catalog was loading slowly and it was 300+ pages long, so I didn't go through the entire thing.

Then, I went to an inflation calculator. Inflation calculators work off of a generic "basket of goods," thus, they are a guideline not a precise measure. Here, I took a BB cashmere cable knit price from today (as I am guessing that the sweater in '75 was a cashmere one) - a full price of $498 (on-line) - and that comes out to $102 in 1975.

Hence, recognizing that, as noted, the inflation calculator isn't precise - and I'd say clothes were more expensive relative to other things back then (i.e., they experienced less inflation in the last 40+ years than a generic basket) - $150 doesn't sound crazy. But, to emphasize, that's not based on anything more than an inflation calculator, the real price could have been higher or lower. I'm sure, someone at AAAC will have evidence of the real price.

And all that said, I love the story (and want to know what happened to the girl and her generous father?) and, if by chance, gr8w8er memory is off a bit on the price, my guess is that $100, $150 or whatever was such a crazy big number to him then, that he, over 40 years, might have gotten the exact number confused in his memory.

Thanks so much for reading ... as above, could it have been less? Well it was a long time ago. It was dear and dear to me. I'm pretty sure it was more than $100.

Since you asked ... here comes TMI.

The girl was the first love of my life; my first partner, the first time we were away from home at college and we had returned to NYC on Christmas break. I stayed as a goyishe invader in her home and their family treated me like I brought a blessing to them.

To that point in life I grew up in a rather ordinary life. Mr. C ... her dad wore a houndstooth jacket and black pants, looked so trim and dashing - there was no one like him in my life. He worked abroad, in South America and came home to his wife in Brighton Beach not far from the L.

Anyway, I've always felt he made that gift knowing that I would break his daughter's heart. There was something about the look in his eye.

I later came to find that Mr. C stayed in Columbia with his beautiful housekeeper and never came back to Brooklyn. I tell myself there was something connective about the whole thing. Maybe it's all a lie I tell myself to make the sadness easier to bear.

Well. I've never shared that part of the story, and now there you have it. It seemed relevant, given this Holiday spirit.

And that is how I discovered that clothing could be so much more.