The London Lounge

Dear friends,

In a recent hunt through my grandparents' old house, I found a number of interesting trinkets, among which is some antique shirting fabric which according to them dates back to at least the 1930s, possibly even older, and was the property of my great-grandparents. This makes them circa 80 years old. The stuff appears to be meant for pyjamas, and I haven't decided if I will be having them made up yet, and which maker would be worthy.

The fabric had been pristinely stored in its original brown wrapper, with the address of a fabric merchant that still exists here. Note the "cable address" on the wrapper and a five-digit phone number (present day ones are eight-digit).

I invite members to take an educated stab at the quality, whatever may be gleaned anyway from these pictures.

Enjoy,

B

Pictures of antique furniture, handstitched luggage and cigar boxes (Henri Winterman's from the 1920s!) to come...

Dear Monsieur Xu

- what a treasure you found here! I vote for pyjamas, and in case you have too much cloth, PM would be most welcome!

cheers, David

I must say I love the definition of the stripes, particularily in the top example. Have you visited the fabric shop on the packagaing, perhaps they have more old fabric?

Many thanks all for the nice words.

Indeed the brown fabric would have seemed to me to be brand new had it not been encased in the brown wrapper. The stripes and colours are as vibrant (I imagine) as they were all those decades ago.

The blue cloth on the other hand seems to have taken on a bit of a patina.

Unfortunately I doubt they have anything quite so old left. The market here simply does not support such "nostalgia". Only the bulldozing of the old and beautiful, for the new and plastic.

I wonder who made the fabric - anyone with knowledge of shirting mills that existed then? Thomas Mason, Acorn et al?

More photos...

"Lightweight Luggage"

In some pics from the 20's and 30's I've seen shirts with dots on them.

You don't see that too much.

I can think of two films where I saw people wearing them Robert Shaw in The Sting, and Daniel Craig in Road to Perdition.

Best Regards,

Cufflink79

from here it looks like silk pyjama fabric.