I have heard the old adage that a Shetland sweater is a trad’s sweatshirt. While I get where they were going with this I disagree. IMHO nothing beats a good sweatshirt. Especially a nice heavyweight reverse weave version. Plus you will look a little foolish in the gym sporting your Shetland sweater. In honor of the old college sweatshirt I have included some archival pictures of various vintage Champion sportswear products from my Lightning Archives Vintage Champion book. If you are wondering where I got this book checkout my post on ordering from Amazon Japan (see here).
Pretty what 100% certain that I have the green Dartmouth fullhood in a bag somewhere.. along with sweats from Harvard, Cornell, Yale, Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt….I used to wear them in the house but this winter has been too warm!…This post was awesome btw…nice to have you back… for now…..mmmmmn varsity sweats…..
Important for people to see that ‘trad’ and more so ‘ivy’ is applicable to sportswear just as much as it is to tailoring.
Does anybody know the “official name” of the shirts with the detail on the collar in images 14,15,16 (Princeton, Maryland, Cornell)? I know it’s related to rowing, or crew. They are not Henleys, as such, since there are no buttons, but it is certainly evocative of the rowing style, and 60’s collegiate look. I’ve seen them in 60s/70s prep school yearbooks, etc. The closest I’ve come is a company called The Guideboat Company that had a shirt with that collar. Thanks.
Greg – Not sure what they are called but the collar detail is what I would call a decorative placket. However using the term placket in your search doesn’t seem to help. These tees were pretty common in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Often the placket is done in the school’s colors. I was just looking at 1964 tennis team pic where these shirts were part of the uniform. I have had a few of these shirts from RL throughout my life. You see them around every now and then. I will let you know.
Here, it’s described as a buttonless style Henley:
https://www.tenniswarehouse-europe.com/Wilson_Boys_Summer_Henley_Crew/descpageWILSON-WBSHC-EN.html
Given this rolled to the top of your blog, I thought maybe you were asking Santa for a some vintage inspired Champion (aka Todd Snyder sweatshirts w/ the old logos). Unfortunately, these are now responsibly made in Vietnam…..for the everyday low price of $100.
Nice. I just bought a pair of heavyweight sweats yesterday. First time wearing sweatpants since junior year of highschool. They’re going to be relegated to house lounging clothing. I’ve been checking for a long time now to find a nice heather grey hoodie with a vintage length (ends at slightly past waistband yet not too slim or short sleeves) but the only one I can find that pretty much fits the bill is Real McCoys which is – and I have the tab pulled up right now – $335.00 USD after shipping… I’m not even sure I’d feel comfortable wearing it outside the house anyway, I think it looks cool with jeans or fatigues though. Is it that hard for a clothing company to just make their hoodies a few inches shorter? Anyway, cool post I’d love to see more shots from Japanese magazines.