Patch pocket Polos

[Lance]

Well, for me, Polo coat and camelhair cloth go hand in hand; like love and marriage, horse and carriage, Bush and disaster… oops, where did that come from? I know that somewhere between finding a camel, hitting it over the head with a club, burying the hide in the back yard for a few months, digging it up and taking it to A&S and buying an anemic, washed out version from BB, there is an authentic camelhair cloth we can find that will do justice to our project and offer us years of enjoyable wear. And, now that I am charged up and rolling, Michael Alden, I know we will find it. By the way, the coat in your most recent post shows exactly the drape (the only word I can think of to express my meaning) that I will try to convey in my Polo; it’s perfect. My criteria may not be as stringent as yours, but I don’t consider a slightly less than perfect choice a compromise at all.

Lance

[alden]

Lance

If you dig deep enough you may find the much talked about dromedaries of mass destruction.



Get your shears ready!



The Prince is wearing a Camelhair DB 6x2 overcoat (not a Polo) in the darker brownish color.





I have a reputable weaver working on the project and with any luck we can get something done. If not we will have to go with the distributor’s (bad) choices or do a Donegal.

Cheers

Michael

[luk-cha]

Alden, how about these 2 for the kind of color you are looking for!

[alden]

Those two examples are made from panno di Casentinoi fabric made near Florence. It is a very attractive cloth and we have discussed it fully on the site. They are too dark a color brown.

Cheers

M Alden

[luk-cha]

Those two examples are made from panno di Casentinoi fabric made near Florence. It is a very attractive cloth and we have discussed it fully on the site. They are too dark a color brown.

Cheers

M Alden

i was not sure - as my work monitor's color is quite poor and it sort of came through as a burnt cinamon color!

[shredder]

I believe that I have seen the rich, cinnamon coloured camel from time to time in the form of a woman's camel hair overcoat from Hermès. (I think the dromedary shown above gives a good representation of the colour in question.) I agree about commonly seen, sickly shade being rather less enticing...

On another note, I was flipping through one of Tailor and Cutter's Pocket Guides, c1930, and saw an entry for a "DB Tennis Wrap" which looks very similar to a patch pocket polo coat. Are they in fact the same?

[dopey]

. . .
On another note, I was flipping through one of Tailor and Cutter's Pocket Guides, c1930, and saw an entry for a "DB Tennis Wrap" which looks very similar to a patch pocket polo coat. Are they in fact the same?

This very likely is the prototype for the Polo. Please post scans or photos if you can. I would very much like to see what the early version looked like to get an idea of how it evolved.

[shredder]

This very likely is the prototype for the Polo. Please post scans or photos if you can. I would very much like to see what the early version looked like to get an idea of how it evolved.

As requested. It is taken from the 12th edition of the Pocket Edition of the Cutters' Practical Guide (part 1) by the Editor and Staff of the Tailor & Cutter. The book's original owner's signature is dated 1930, but there is no other date stamp in the book.
I hope this is of some interest.

[dopey]

Thank you very much. It is of great interest, though I am not one to be able to make anything of the instructions. What I do note is the layout of the buttons (8 x 4), that the pockets are patch but not framed (I think that was an American adoption, though a SR tailor I spoke with was quite familiar with it for a polo as one of the ways of doing it), the lack of a belt and the conventional collar rather than an Ulster or storm style.

And also the loose fit. It seems that this began as a looser fitting adaptation of the Chester and as it became popular as a sport wrap, it evolved along its own lines.

[shredder]

Dopey, you are welcome. I too cannot make anything out of the instructions; I just look at the illustrations. The accompanying text starts by explaining that the coat is loose-fitting and made of blanket cloth. The bit about being loose-fitting makes sense as a wrap, whether in the tennis context or the original polo context.

I suppose that what you are trying to resolve is whether the definitive polo coat exists and in what form. I would not have really cared about it until I read this thread, but now I am curious. In fact, curious enough that I might try to find out where Hermès source their cinnamon coloured camel coating...

[dopey]

Please let us know. I looked at samples from Harrison's and someone else the other day. Neither was the cinnamon color. I am not sure, though, that cinnamon is what I want. For the moment, I am thinking about a neutral beige with pearl buttons. If anything, I would want to edge from the neutral towards a golden rather than reddish shade. But that is right now.
I am nothing if not inconsistent.
I spent most of my time looking at cloths to replace my tweed coat.

[shredder]

I shall report back if I do find out albeit I must warn you that my dear friend, who has a rather busy life, has a tendency to ignore my frivolous questions most of the time. A question about fabric source may just be considered frivolous...

[Costi]

The "natural" colour is a beige with a slightly pinkish shade, like red gold. At any rate, that is the one I like best.

[shredder]

The "natural" colour is a beige with a slightly pinkish shade, like red gold.

I am having some difficulty in reconciling this notion of a singular "natural" shade with what I have observed about dromedaries. I have not been around enough camels to form an educated opinion but have been on and around dozens of dromedaries on several occasions. Once I got over the fact that they are revolting beasts and came to terms with the fact that they are perhaps the only friends us humans had in the given environment, I started to notice that their fur came in all shades of blond. Almost white to ruddy brown, and everything inbetween. Therefore, I am not sure whether there is THE natural shade.

Just to illustrate the point using another beast simply for the convenience of having some photos at hand, please examine the images below.




It shows a herringbone pattern cashmere (pashmina) scarf / shawl hand spun and hand woven in deep Himalaya. As you probably know, the wool for these shawls are harvested only from the goats' throat area, so the colour variance that may be seen in different parts of the goat's body is not a factor.

You will notice that one surface of the shawl has a distinctly different shade from the other surface. The yarns used on both sides are natural colours, that is, undyed and unbleached.

Admittedly, camels and dormedaries are not goats...

[radicaldog]

Just a small, probably obvious point about the function of framed patch pockets: with traditional overcoating cloth (800g or more) regular flap-over patch pockets might well look too bulky, as the flaps will probably kick out, having to sit on the stitched edges of the pocket. But with a framed pocket that problem is avoided, as the edges of the pocket are all around rather than underneath the flap.