Because it was wonderfully crisp and cool out all weekend, I decided to fully embrace my favorite look, poofy shirts paired with overalls, during both days. And that’s probably a big reason why it was a really good weekend indeed. When you’re at maximum comfort, both in terms of just physical comfort but also just plain looking the way you want to look, it’s hard to have a bad day. And I had two pretty good days: trips to the farmer’s market and our favorite bakery and a different library branch where I checked out too many books (in terms of “will I get through them before they’re due”, because really, that’s the only actual context in which “too many books” is a concept that makes any sense at all). Then the next morning it was off to the Outer Harbor for some photography, and then it was off to Knox Farm for a little more photography (and some video footage shooting) because it was just too darn cold at the Outer Harbor! When those winds come off the lake on a cool fall morning, it can be downright chilly.
Let’s see, what else…there was cheese for dinner Saturday, and pork chops with corn on the cob last night. Yeah, not a bad weekend at all. I mean, sure, the weekend ended with the Buffalo Bills getting clobbered at home by the Baltimore Ravens. Bummer, but it happens. I went to bed when the score was 40-25, and, well, sometimes you don’t win…[listens to voice in earpiece]…OK, I have some new information here.
Anyway, here are the weekend’s outfits! Yes, this is two different poofy white shirts. Saturday’s overalls were dark blue Levi’s. Sunday’s overalls were vintage Lee Hickory-striped.
There’s something to be said for how life improves when you finally figure out what your real “look” actually is….
I saw, a while back, a content creator I follow on social media wearing this shirt in one of her videos:
I saw that shirt and immediately thought, “I want one of those shirts!” Of course, I quickly surmised that I wouldn’t be able to get that shirt, exactly. For one thing, it’s a woman’s shirt. Is that necessarily a deal-breaker for me? You know, maybe not. I’ve always wondered why it is that women-wearing-stuff-made-for-men was a thing while the other direction is generally not. But the other problem with that isn’t so much the potential weirdness, perceived or real, about me wearing a women’s shirt; the problem is that the shirt is honestly unlikely to be cut in such a way to really work on my body. Oh well. (And for another thing? I found the shirt online and it’s $150, roughly. Yeah, nope. Not at this point in my life, anyway.)
(Oh, I’m not naming that creator because I don’t want to make things weird.)
But I still really liked the way that shirt looks! The color and pattern are terrific. Men’s shirts are, for the most part, really boring to look at. I really don’t know why this is, but to the extent that interesting patterns exist in men’s tops, you usually see them on golf shirts, which I really dislike wearing. Most men’s shirts are just boring patterns–simple stripes, if there’s any pattern at all, really–and visual flair in men’s clothes tends to come from accessories and things like ties. Since I refuse to wear ties, that’s out. When I was a kid, paisley shirts were a big thing, but I also can’t wear paisley. At least not in The Wife’s presence. A while back I saw some dude wearing a really neat paisley shirt and I pointed it out to her and her cocked eyebrow and disdainful “Really?” made me shelve that idea pretty quick. (And no, it doesn’t bother me to not wear something she hates…or let’s say I haven’t found anything to wear in which I am sufficiently invested to tempt fate in that way.) Point is, I have a ton of solid-colored shirts in my wardrobe, so a pattern here and there–something other than plaid!–would be nice to have as an option on occasion, is all I’m sayin’.
So I set up an eBay search under “Yellow Linen Shirt” (I’m also really loving linen, but we’ll discuss that another time), and checked the results every few days. Now, I have some things–specific brands or patterns of vintage overalls, mostly–that I’ve searched out for years. So it was to my high surprise and great pleasure that this turned up in my search results after just a few weeks:
Note to self: Look up how to hold up a shirt to display it.
Obviously I knew that I was unlikely to get super-close to the exact pattern of the women’s shirt modeled above, but I was hoping to get at least in the neighborhood–and this one is honestly a lot closer than I even expected to get! Into my shopping cart it went, and lo, it was mine.
After a wash and dry, it was time to wear it. I actually want to wear it with darker blue overalls, but once I had this shirt in hand it was getting quite hot in The 716, so I thus far have only paired it with a lighter pair that’s cooler to wear. I really loved the feel of the fabric (again, linen is a thing that is increasingly making me happy on a regular basis) and the worn, rumpled, and patterned look.
Yeah, I’m pretty happy with this one. Now, if we could get the temps to drop just a little, this shirt will get some serious use! We’re in a hot-and-humid stretch of the kind we haven’t had in what feels like several years, unfortunately. My relationship with heat and humidity has softened as I’ve aged, but I’m not on board with upper-80s and heat indices in the 90s, though. Even with a miracle fabric like linen!
like the blue-and-white striped overalls paired with it
(Apologies to William Carlos Williams)
There used to be a store in the malls, back in the 1990s, called Britches Great Outdoors. I didn’t shop there often, which I kind of regret because the two things I own from that store, I like a great deal. One is a pair of overalls that is among my favorite pairs of overalls ever, and I periodically look on eBay to see if any are hitting the market (no dice so far, ever). The other is this red cableknit sweater.
Sweaters are always amazing and wonderful, and everyone should own a few, as far as I’m concerned. Sweaters are kind of a “workhorse” article of clothing, in that they serve multiple functions, being both warm and usually looking good. But an old cableknit sweater is a special pleasure. In truth it may not be so warm as it used to be, as the sweater ages and the knit starts to loosen ever-so-slightly, so more air gets through it than before. And maybe there are starting to be a few fraying spots, only really noticeable if you’re the one who has worn the sweater a lot and you know how it used to be. Maybe around the bottom it’s given way a bit and maybe the collar and the cuffs aren’t as tight and neat as they used to be. But that’s OK.
And maybe the sweater itself fits a little bit strangely on you now. Mine certainly does: let’s just say that I filled it out quite a bit more tightly back when I bought in the 1990s. I suppose, by definition, the sweater is “vintage”, and it feels it: there is certainly a lot more room in it, and when I wear it under a pair of overalls, it balloons out from beneath the denim more than it did years ago.
Come to think of it: there’s something to be said for your soft and aged cableknit sweater being a bit too large, too. After all, one of the under-remarked qualities of overalls is that they can give new life, through covering and restraint, to tops that might otherwise not work as well on their own anymore.
If you don’t have a slightly oversized and old cableknit sweater, get one. And if you have a cableknit sweater that you’ve been considering getting rid of because it’s not what it used to be, maybe wait out that instinct a bit. It might just age itself into a new life…especially if you’re inclined to wearing overalls.
(I wanted to take a photo for this post of me holding a poetry book open to William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow”, with the sweater and the bib of my overalls showing beyond, but it turns out that I only own one poetry book with that particular poem in it, and that book splits the poem between two pages. Alas! Betrayed by kerning!)
They call this fabric “duck”. I don’t know why, but they do. Duck is a canvas fabric made out of cotton, and the way it’s made it’s a lot tougher than, say, denim. And it can be a lot tougher. Apparently duck fabric has a grading system, with the lowest number indicating the heaviest and thickest duck cotton out there; that’s what you’d make sales for a yacht out of. At the upper end of the number scale is the lighter duck, for “light clothing”. Somewhere in the middle falls the duck used to make tough workwear like your Carhartt jackets and these Dickies overalls!
I just got these super-cheaply off eBay, and I like them a lot, even though they’re still really raw, which means they’re still really stiff and scratchy. They’re super comfortable, though (of course they are, they’re overalls!), and a new color in the palette is always nice.
Some more detail photos:
I only have three pairs in this shade of brown duck: these Dickies, a pair of Carhartts, and a pair by Berne. I also have a dark brown pair of duck Carhartts and a pair of black duck Carhartts.
Oh, and apparently it’s called “duck” from the original Dutch work doek, which refers to the fabric the Dutch sailors used for their clothes. The more you know!
For the first time in my life, I own a pair of Levi’s.
Overalls, of course.
The fit on these is damned near perfect! I knew these were out there but I always assumed they weren’t my size, until someone on eBay sold a pair with pictures of the measurements, demonstrated with an actual yardstick. At that point I thought, “Hmmm….”
And I love the burgundy color! Men’s overalls are almost exclusively blue, brown, or Hickory stripe these days. Those are all lovely colors, but this will be very welcome once we get to sweater season.
Meanwhile, another eBay seller had a pair of vintage Hickory stripe overalls by Key up for sale. I resisted these, since I already own two…but these had one nifty feature in particular: the elastic shoulder straps. On my other two pairs, the straps are Hickory stripe denim all the way down, so these looked really neat. I put a “watch” on them on eBay, figuring that someone else would beat me to the punch.
They lasted for something like three weeks.
“Fine,” I said. I actually got them about a month ago, and I’ve worn them a couple of times since, but I planned to wear them on our annual trip to Ithaca, NY for the Apple Harvest Festival. Yes, I plan my annual Ithaca outfit weeks, or even months, before the actual trip, because I’m geeky like that. The outfit was a new navy-blue Renaissance Faire shirt with those very vintage Key overalls, and wouldn’t you know it…I got three different compliments on the shirt, the overalls, and the entire outfit yesterday! That made me happy as a clam.
More on our Ithaca trip to come…but for now, I note that I saw more than a dozen people in overalls while we were at the Festival. If that’s not a sign from the heavens telling me that Ithaca is where we need to be, I don’t know what is.
Two Christmases in a row, I petitioned The Wife for a white cable-knit sweater rather like the one Chris Evans wore in Knives Out. I didn’t petition her for this sweater because Chris Evans wore one in Knives Out, but I won’t say that his wearing one in Knives Out had nothing to do with me petitioning her for just such a sweater. I mean, come on:
That’s some iconic sweater wearing, is all I’m saying. And you know what? There’s nothing at all wrong with seeing a look in a movie and thinking, “Huh, I kinda like that.”
I asked too late in the game last year for one of these, but this year, The Wife came through! Of course, unlike Mr. Evans, I am most likely to pair the sweater with a pair of overalls. This is an outfit for cozy winter days…a hot beverage and a good book, while the elements do their icy thing outside.
Note the coffee mug! That was a gift from The Daughter.
Dogs remain the best fashion accessories.
Detail. This is the only scenario when I do the one-strap-undone thing.
Morning coffee and a book. Simple pleasures!
The sweater is by Land’s End. We’ve had a lot of success with that brand over the years; everything they make is of high enough quality that the clothes last, and they just make good, solid staples, like sweaters. This sweater is soft and pleasant, and if there’s one thing my life can always use in greater supply, it’s “soft and pleasant”!
The way I see it, if I’m going to take advantage of the fact that we’re allowed to wear team shirt on gamedays, my shirt should reflect my tastes at least a little. So:
As my personal fashion style continues to develop, I continue to find appreciate not just for new styles of garments, but new fabrics as well. Denim, obviously…and more recently, flannel. But I’ve also been finding linen to my liking.
I thrifted these two shirts a few years ago. Both are made of linen, and I like both enormously:
More recently, I’ve purchased a couple new linen shirts from Etsy dealers. One is still in transit (there were some shipping snafus and errors, of which I am being forgiving since the seller is from Ukraine!), but I got the other a few weeks back. It’s the shirt I wore to the County Fair week before last, and I loved it. (I honestly thought I’d see more people in overalls that day, but alas! Just one or two. Though I did overhear a woman behind me saying to her date, “I used to have a train engineer hat just like that guy’s overalls!” I’m perfectly happy to provoke your nostalgia, y’all.)
Anyway, back to the linen shirt, which I (obviously) paired with a pair of vintage Lee hickory-striped overalls, which I chose because besides looking cool, hickory-striped denim tends to be lighter in weight than regular blue denim.
This material is super comfortable. I just loved this shirt! I stayed cool the entire day–the material is light and of an open-enough weave to allow good airflow through it. I found wearing this shirt on a nice summer day (albeit a cool and low-humidity one) very comfortable. I suspect I was more comfortable in my loose, air-flow encouraging outfit of long-sleeved linen shirt under a pair of overalls than a lot of other guys were in belted shorts and t-shirts. I know that we want to avoid cultural appropriation and all of that, but surely we could listen to what other cultures have to tell us–such as the idea that hot weather doesn’t mean tight cotton clothes and bare skin. (Here’s more on linen as a summer fabric.)
Anyway….
(Same pic as immediately above, detail)
(No idea what that facial expression is about)
I like how “lived-in” linen looks. A nice crisp cotton shirt is lovely, but so is soft and worn-in linen.
(Detail and enhancement of last photo above.)
To sum up: Wear more linen, folks! You’ll be happy you did. Here endeth the lesson!
I haven’t written about The World’s Greatest Overalls Collection* lately, so…let’s talk overalls. Specifically, the Liberty brand.
Liberty is a common brand that’s been around forever, but I’ve never owned a pair, until now. I have to admit that I’ve avoided the brand, because of their association with a teevee show.
Billy Carter appeared on Hee Haw, for some reason.
Imagine doing the whole 80s-poof thing with your hair and then having to put on a straw hat to stand and tell bad jokes in a fake indoor cornfield!
I have nothing against Hee Haw, as corny a show as it was–and let’s be honest, in the annals of corny earnest teevee, Hee Haw is way up there. There’s so much corn in that show that it could be squeezed for oil. Imagine The Waltons or Little House at their corniest, double the corn, and you’ve got Hee Haw.
Put simply, I’m acutely aware that at times I run the risk of looking like a backlot cast extra from Hee Haw, and I didn’t want to underline that by wearing the literal brand of overalls most associated with the show!
More recently, though, I’ve concluded that maybe I’m overthinking it a bit. I mean, how much cultural cachet does Hee Haw even have, at this point? No new episodes have been made in almost 30 years (it was finally canceled in 1993), and today it exists on cable channels and you can find episodes on YouTube. And heck, it’s not as if people would have really been paying attention even in the show’s peak of popularity as to the brand of overalls being rocked by the cast!
(Though I may be wrong on that particular point, because these things exist out there in the world:
That’s…a bit too on-point for me. The 70s were apparently a time for occasional overalls in various novelty prints….)
I must admit, too, that Hee Haw‘s status as a teevee staple in my household when I was “but a wee bairn!” is a likely influence in my lifelong sartorial tastes…and that probably wasn’t even its only influence on me:
Johnny Cash and Archie Campbell, both in Liberty overalls. Campbell’s face is obscured by a pie.
Liberty is still going strong as a company, and they maintain a nifty presence on social media. In recent years they’ve added a women’s line of overalls, of which I am jealous because they come in some nifty colors, particularly this “Frosted Sage” color:
Image from Liberty Brand’s Facebook page. I’m not sure what that gizmo is she’s holding…maybe it’s the smoke thing beekeepers use? Hmmmm….
I actually love that color, and if the Liberty folks made those available for men, I might very well snap up a pair.
I ended up not buying a new pair directly; my general taste now in overalls is for vintage, so that’s where I went. Also, I’ve read some reviews of the current manufacture that the new buckles Liberty is using tend to break, I also didn’t want blue denim; Hickory stripe is one of my favorite things, and sticking with my original hang-up, you didn’t see Hickory stripes much on Hee Haw. So, a couple of weeks of lurking around eBay auctions later, I ended up with this nifty pair!
It’s July and WAY too hot for double-denim; these last two were just to see how they look with the denim shirt, since Autumn will be here before we know it!
What differentiates Liberty overalls from others is the styling of the bib pocket. It’s a triple pocket, believe it or not: the main one has a zipper enclosure, and then there’s a second, smaller pocket with a flap enclosure that snaps. There is also the standard hidden pocket watch pocket (the “button” hole on the top of a bib is for a pocket-watch fob), and the slots for pencils. (I never use these, but the stitching adds nice highlights.)
In addition to the buckles being different on the vintage pair, there are also a few key difference in the way the fabric is laid out. On the vintage pair I got, the band across the top of the bib, the top of the bib pocket just below the zipper, and the flap enclosure are cut so the Hickory stripe pattern runs horizontal, which to my eye creates a neat contrast. The newer design has all the Hickory striping set vertical, which is still neat-looking but…not as neat as it used to be.
Image from the Liberty Overalls website. Note the differences in the bib pocket between this new pair and my vintage pair.
A few detail shots here, because Liberty uses green highlights to nifty effect, with the bib label, the fabric setting the zipper, and even the enameled inlay in the button engraving:
Apparently Liberty actually carries a patent for the design of their bib pocket. I suppose that makes sense, but I’d never thought about that before. There are other overalls on the market with a similar, but obviously not identical, set-up with the bib pockets.
As for the fit and comfort? These are terrific, to the point that I’m regretting avoiding Liberty overalls for so long. I really like the way they look and feel when I’m wearing them, and as long as the forecast isn’t absurdly hot, I’m hoping to wear them to the Sterling Renaissance Festival when The Daughter and I attend next weekend. Here’s hoping!
*My overalls collection is now officially The World’s Greatest Overalls Collection. I have dubbed it thus.
Well, flash forward to one day in December while I was out shopping a bit in Waikiki. Wouldn’t you know it, but one store actually had a Funko Pop of Mr. Seinfeld in that exact outfit! Yes, of course I bought it.
Obviously it’s all in the attitude. Jerry didn’t wanna look like a pirate, whereas…well, I don’t necessarily wanna look like a pirate, but as a cottagecore Renfest thing? Yeah, I’m totally on board with that.
But you know, this does raise an interesting question–interesting to me, anyway. I know that fashions change, but why did the “poofy” (for lack of a better term) shirt seem to vanish so decisively from men’s fashions? When did we collectively decide that lean, “athletic” fits are the thing, body types be damned? To see men in any kind of “poofy wear”, one has to go to a Renaissance Faire or watch a movie like a pirate film or a fantasy film or a historical epic. I make no secret that one of my personal fashion models is Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves:
Now, if I want to emulate that look, I find myself turning to women for fashion inspiration (or “inspo” as the kids are calling it). Here is Tasmanian chef and cookbook author Sarah Glover, for instance:
And I never understand why more cooks don’t wear overalls! They’re perfect for cooking! Lots of pockets for stuff like thermometers or whatnot, and if you have a hammer loop you can hang a towel down there for wiping your hands!
Or these two images, from vintage clothing dealers I follow on Instagram:
I don’t really understand the way we’ve decided that entire areas of fashion and clothing are either masculine or feminine and that the twain shall not meet. And it’s not just in the arena of poofy tops with a bit of fringey-lacey stuff on them. It’s also in the colors we endorse. Everyone knows that pink is a “feminine” color…but thing is? Once upon a time, it wasn’t. But just try to find a pink cable-knit sweater for men these days. I’d have an easier time finding a pink poofy shirt….
