I have to share this:
A friend and I were discussing clothing the other day. An idea came up (not a good one) for a short sleeved suit. The first thought was "Yea, I've never seen that" then almost immediately the second thought is "Wow- that would be horrible". Mental images followed and the conversation ended.
Today while looking up the history of Chipp for a vintage Norfolk Suit I am selling, I ran across the following excerpt...
"The Shacket "
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Back in the days when “family businesses” were owned by the family that created them, Haspel was owned by the Haspel family- and they made their clothing in New Orleans. My father was very friendly with the Haspels. Chipp was one of the first companies to offer Haspel suits through the mail. As a pup I remember my father bringing home boxes of swatches that we stuffed into glasine envelopes and mailed to the Chipp mailing list. The suits - poplins, seersukers, hairlines, and seercords- sold at retail for $32. In the early 50’s my father and Josh Tonkel ( Mr. Tonkel was president of Haspel. I remember his drawl being thick enough to cut with a knife.) came up with an idea they thought would impact the summer washable suit market- “The Shacket”. “The Shacket” was a naturel poplin suit . The jacket of the suit had short sleeves. It was intended to have a quarter of an inch of one’s shortsleeve shirt extend beyond the end of the jacket sleeve. In far better risk management than was exibited by AIG and the banking industry in our current economic crisis, enough matching cloth was set aside so that a correction - replacement of the short sleeves by standard long sleeves- could be implemented if the experiment did not fly. And crash it did ! Very few were sold. The following season the “shackets” had their short sleeves replaced by standard sleeves and were no longer “shackets”. Even Joe DiMaggio struck out once in a while.
A friend and I were discussing clothing the other day. An idea came up (not a good one) for a short sleeved suit. The first thought was "Yea, I've never seen that" then almost immediately the second thought is "Wow- that would be horrible". Mental images followed and the conversation ended.
Today while looking up the history of Chipp for a vintage Norfolk Suit I am selling, I ran across the following excerpt...
"The Shacket "
________________
Back in the days when “family businesses” were owned by the family that created them, Haspel was owned by the Haspel family- and they made their clothing in New Orleans. My father was very friendly with the Haspels. Chipp was one of the first companies to offer Haspel suits through the mail. As a pup I remember my father bringing home boxes of swatches that we stuffed into glasine envelopes and mailed to the Chipp mailing list. The suits - poplins, seersukers, hairlines, and seercords- sold at retail for $32. In the early 50’s my father and Josh Tonkel ( Mr. Tonkel was president of Haspel. I remember his drawl being thick enough to cut with a knife.) came up with an idea they thought would impact the summer washable suit market- “The Shacket”. “The Shacket” was a naturel poplin suit . The jacket of the suit had short sleeves. It was intended to have a quarter of an inch of one’s shortsleeve shirt extend beyond the end of the jacket sleeve. In far better risk management than was exibited by AIG and the banking industry in our current economic crisis, enough matching cloth was set aside so that a correction - replacement of the short sleeves by standard long sleeves- could be implemented if the experiment did not fly. And crash it did ! Very few were sold. The following season the “shackets” had their short sleeves replaced by standard sleeves and were no longer “shackets”. Even Joe DiMaggio struck out once in a while.
