Shopping from 2001/2002: Hebden Cord

Shopping from 1999: David Morgan Catalog

Same plain brown cover in 2009

No longer available: Dale walking trousers

Early source for Bills Khakis

Hickory shirts and logger buttons

Brilliant belt selection

Filson (i.d. the discontinued items)

Akurbra hats (someone should wear them)

No longer available: Nova Scotia woolens

David Morgan is one of the few remaining mail order companies that still sends out a print catalog. As far as I can tell, the catalog has not changed in appearance since I first started receiving copies in the early 90s (requested during my first search for a filson wool cruiser). While a David Morgan 1999 catalog may look like a 2009 catalog (same typeface, same layout, same grayscale photography, same brown cover) much has changed in the last ten years. The Bosca coin purse is now made in China and costs 43.00 (it used to be a 24.00 staple). Nova Scotia textiles and Alpendale are now out of business. Filson no longer offers Oregon-made wool whipcord or moleskin trousers and some of the original Filson styles have disappeared.

Nevertheless, the catalog continues to offer many worthy archival garments and accessories.

Here are three of my favorite items from the 2009 catalog:

Pecard Leather Dressing

Bosca leather coin purse

Braided cinch belt

Addendum: check out the David Morgan sale section which frequently features discontinued items and sale priced Filson (plus oddball sizes of Bills Khakis and hardship woolens).

Shopping for Barbour from 1998/1999

Internationals

Oilskins and black waxed cotton

Long and short cuts

Moleskin

Synthetics

90s knitwear

New Barbour gent

In case you missed it, here are some product offerings from the Winter 1998/Spring 1999 Barbour catalog. In the day, these catalogs were the best means of tracking new Barbour releases (beyond the stock range of Bedales, Beauforts and Borders). Many of the more exotic items--moleskin and Bushman jackets--never made it to (my corner of the) US. So, it was always fun to see non-stock Barbour items in cameo catalog form.

Barbour's newfound focus on youthful/urban/non-country clothing gave rise to a few unfortunate (though brief) additions to their product range:

Vintage in ten years?

Shopping from the Past: Hebden Cord 2001/2002

Buying Corduroy Abroad: John Ashfield

Via internet I’ve been tracking on some international Filsonesque brands which look promising but probably measure up to be Euro equivalents of Abercrombie and Fitch or Forever 21. This type of garment stalking lends itself to austerity since mail order from Italy is pretty much out of the question (submit credit card info at your peril)(I should add that the “add to shopping cart” function on most of these sites never seems to operate).

I’m now mainly collecting stock footage from these sites for inclusion in my own forthcoming fictional mail order Archival Clothing catalogue. In the case of Ashfield, I’m intrigued by the vibrant corduroy and unique pocket configuration of the gentleman's "Maremmana" game jacket.

http://www.johnashfield.com/