How do you DATE a vintage suit 30s/40s/50s?

[Barry]

curious about my suit

I'm taking this in for alterations tomorrow. Thought I'd ask some questions about it beforehand. Maybe someone can help me get some additional information. I think I posted about this once before...



On the label:

"Botany 500 by Daroff"
"TONES"
"Tacoma, Wash" (Has anyone heard of this store?)

Someone removed a tag from the inner pocket and replaced it with a blank piece of cloth.

There are no pocket flaps or vents. It has a tiny "Conmar" zipper and dropped belt loops. The fabric is very heavy. The jacket is a 42 and the trousers are a 32.

It would be nice if this happened to be the suit. The ad is from 1946 or 1947, I forget which:



In my searches for information I found a number of articles in Time Magazine that discuss the menswear industry in the 1950's. They go into a lot of details about Daroff and Botany.

Barry

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Hi Martina, good luck with the roof. What a freaky weather year our especially your areas of the state have had.
Ashley

 

[Baron Kurtz]

It certainly looks like a mid-late 40s suit.

bk

 

[Hammelby]

Hm intresting tips on spotting vintage clothes from the 30´s!
(is there an old thread describing "how to spot" 30´s pants, suits ect?)

Btw. could someone post a pic of a Talon Zipper. I dont know what that english term means.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Btw. could someone post a pic of a Talon Zipper. I dont know what that english term means.

"Talon" is not a type of zipper; it's the name of a brand of zipper. Talon was the first zipper brand to make headway in the American market (back in the '30s).


Throughout that decade, Talon conducted a huge, aggressive marketing campaign in major magazines (Time, Life, Esquire, etc.). It promoted that fact that button flies tend to "ripple outward" when a man sits down, whereas zipper flies stay smooth and flat.


Talon had the lion's share of the American zipper market for several decades. Today, the world's biggest provider of zippers is "YKK", a Japanese company.

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[Barry]

It certainly looks like a mid-late 40s suit.

bk

I took it in to the tailor and he thought the same. He's probably one of the best tailors in DC. He was wearing some great fairly high waisted trousers with side adjusters that he tailored (They start around $600). There was quite a bit of room to let out in the trousers but not much room to let out in the jacket. I forget what he called the shoulders - he said that they were a style that his father, a former Saville Row tailor, favored.

I'm anxious to see how the suit will look and fit after the alterations.

Barry

 

[Marc Chevalier]

One way to tell that it's from the '40s: the jacket's bottom two buttons (in the front) are about an inch below the openings of the pockets. From the mid-'40s to the early-'50s, most double-breasted suits had this detail.


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[Baron Kurtz]

that (bottom buttons) is how i dated it ...

bk

p.s. Talon were obsessed with NOT calling their product a zipper. their advertisements from the 30s state "It's called the Talon Slide Fastener". Confusing, no?