overalls Archives - Page 3 of 16

July 31, 2022July 31, 2022

“Then you may take me to the Faire….”, 2022 edition

Last weekend we attended the Sterling Renaissance Festival for the first time since 1999! Huzzah!!!

Obviously the Festival didn’t happen in 2020, and I’m honestly not sure if it tried to happen last year, but in any event we did not attend if it did. This year, though, we finally returned. Sadly, The Wife has to wait until next year to go back! She was unable to go this year due to recent foot surgery (everything’s fine, just a tendonitis issue that needed fixing). The Renfest does the best it can, but the nature of its location–it’s literally built onto a hillside–makes it very difficult for folks with mobility issues. We just didn’t want to go through all that struggle, unfortunately.

So this year it was just The Daughter and I. Still, we had a great time. There were occasional moments when The Wife’s absence was felt, none moreso than, of all things, the roaming pickle vendor. He’s a fellow who roams around with a wagon loaded with giant, juicy pickles, which are one of The Wife’s favorite treats. Usually at some point we see the Pickle Guy and The Wife says, “You should go buy me a pickle.” And I do. Alas, ’twas not to be this time!

(In an amusing moment, at the late-afternoon joust, the pickle vendor finally sold out, so he shouted “FREE PICKLE…JUICE!” And a couple of people actually took empty water bottles to take him up on the offer. I do not always understand my fellow humans.)

This year, I finally was able to partly dress for attendance at the Faire!

Note my pendant watch…I’m representing Renaissance dress, steampunk, AND modern workwear here. Were I a knight, I would be Sir Eclectic!

Yes, I know that this outfit is anachronistic to a Faire set in a faux-Elizabethan village. The shirt is a Renfest-style shirt, though, so I was only half a walking anachronism.

(I dressed like this as an experiment, too, regarding how to dress in high heat. I’ll save those thoughts for another post. Yes, I was hot…but I don’t think shorts-and-a-tee-shirt would have made me feel any cooler.)

The drive from home to the Faire is a long one, roughly two-and-a-half hours. The first two-thirds of the drive is a boring hundred miles down the New York State Thruway, but after that, it’s a lovely drive through the hill country north of the Finger Lakes and into the Lake Ontario watershed.

I love this house and I look forward to seeing it every year as we drive by. It looks like it’s been there since the War of 1812. I don’t know a thing about this house’s history.

A trombone in a Renaissance group? Yes! While the modern trombone didn’t exist yet, the forerunner instrument, called a sackbut, was quite common.

Acrobatics and such. I didn’t see this whole performance, but just the very end when she did this.

“You can’t tell a day from a knight without a program!”

I scoped out my spot to watch the joust early, 45 minutes early, to be exact. By this time I was glad to sit with a cool beverage and do some people-watching.

“A mighty whack?” “His skull will CRACK!”

In terms of food, we really didn’t eat much at the Faire! Our tradition is the big roasted turkey legs that are dripping in barbecue sauce. And when I say ‘dripping’, I mean, DRIPPING. I was almost successful at getting through it without getting sauce and turkey grease on my white shirt, but…yeah. Almost.

I’ve already got it washed out, thankfully! I know what to do in such events.

Later on, I enjoyed a wine slushie. This was my only alcohol at the Faire. That shit’s expensive, yo!

(On the way home we stopped for dinner, at a fried chicken joint we love in Webster, NY. We had chicken and waffles, which is a killer combo.)

Some candids I snapped:

These two had the best costumes I saw all day. The woman on the right had a stunning femme-fatale pirate thing going on. Magnificent!

The Queen and her Royal Party, taking in the jousting entertainment.

A knight addresses the crowd, encouraging lusty cheers.

I’ve seen Milady at the Faire before. Usually she is on horseback. This time she was not.

Not a great shot. I was trying for the stilt-walker, not the fellow in the hat or what might be his family.

A pirate lass. Fantastic costume work here!

Another fine costume. That puppet on her shoulder articulates! There’s a wire that runs down through your clothes and you can twitch the wire in certain ways to make the puppet lift its wings, turn its head, and the like. I know this because The Daughter bought one.

At day’s end, we were tired and fulfilled and happy…but also sad because the Faire was over for another year. (I mean, we could go back, there are a few weekends left, but we have other happy events coming up as well….) I did my best to look reflective and melancholy at the prospect of returning to real life after a day in an Elizabethan England that wasn’t also a rather violent realm of short lives and many poxes….

There was still some beauty to be had, though. One of my quirks regarding road trips–and there’s a very good chance that I inherited this from my father–is that on any out-and-back-again trip, I don’t like coming home the same way I went out. In this case, that means that instead of driving south from the Faire to the Thruway, I take Route 104 along the Lake Ontario shore back to Rochester, and then I-490 back to the Thruway for the last 35 miles or so. This is a lovely road that goes over Irondequoit Bay…

…and through downtown Rochester.

Alas, there comes a time when our revelries are now ended. So, we shall see you again next year, people of Warwickshire!

Oh, and the title of this post comes from, naturally enough, Camelot:

Share This Post

July 17, 2022July 17, 2022

Now we need brands called “Equality!” and “Fraternity!”

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.

Share This Post

June 26, 2022June 25, 2022

The algorithms are scaring me now

By now I’m sure we’ve all had the weirdly unsettling experience that goes something like this:

I was talking to a friend about how to best slice tomatoes, and nobody else was in the room, and then the next day my Facebook feed kept showing me ads for mandolin slicers and tomato-slicing gadgets and kitchen cutlery! It’s SCARY, man!

I’ve kind of gotten used to this, to be honest. I find advertising an irritant and nothing more; I generally pay no attention to it. What’s a little frustrating is how often I’ll see a whole bunch of ads for a thing or a category of things–after I’ve already bought the one example of such a thing that I needed! Buy a new vacuum cleaner? Why then, here are a bunch of ads for vacuum cleaners! But…I don’t need another one, so why am I seeing all these ads?

But then these algorithms can get a bit too granular in their serving up content to satisfy very particular tastes. My mother has been out of town, so I’ve been hanging out at night with my father, and I’ve already noted that there’s been a lot of prime-time The Price is Right on lately, so I’ve seen more TPIR in the last couple weeks than I had probably in the last ten years.

Yesterday I visited YouTube just to kill time by checking out some videos, and YouTube suggested several TPIR clips, probably because I searched for a couple on the post from a few days ago. Leading the pack was this clip, likely from the early 80s, in which a young woman who looks a lot like actress Elisabeth Shue from The Karate Kid (if you were a straight dude in the 80s you crushed on her in that movie, it’s just a thing you did, like playing Pac-Man) plays for a car. And she’s wearing purple overalls.

Yeah, sometimes these algorithms get it right to an eerie degree.

I wonder if Konnie is still out there somewhere…she’d probably be in her early 60s by now, if I’ve timed this right.

(BTW, I noted that I spent a bit of Friday morning taking The Wife to a local hospital for an in-and-out procedure. When I picked her up I had to wait in the surgical waiting room for fifteen minutes or so. I walked in and plunked myself down in the nearest seat that wasn’t clustered by other people, and then I noticed that everyone else was looking in my direction. Weird…until I realized that they weren’t looking at me at all, they were watching the teevee that was hanging above my head. And on the teevee at that point? You guessed it. The Price is Right.)

Share This Post

June 13, 2022

Filtration

For lack of a better idea for a post, here’s a selfie from last week, followed by the results of applying several filters through an app called Prisma.

Here’s the original:

This was taken at Knox Farm State Park in East Aurora. You can see the leash in my left hand: I was walking Cane that day. This was taken by a really big and particularly beautiful maple tree that’s one of my favorite spots in that park–oh fine, here’s the tree.

I think of this as “Bilbo’s Party Tree”, if you’ve read The Lord of the Rings.

Here are some of the filtered versions of the photo above:

It’s cool how each filter preserved the Hickory-stripe pattern on my overalls. I’m hard pressed to pick a favorite here!

Share This Post

June 1, 2022

“My thoughts, I confess, verge on dirty….”

Dexys Midnight Runners. I cannot decide if they helped or hurt the cause of overalls.

Earlier I saw, somewhere online, a note that the song “Come On Eileen”, by Dexys Midnight Runners, was released 40 years ago this week. That’s…wow, that’s really something. I honestly don’t recall when I first heard the song, as I didn’t really start paying attention to pop music until several years after that, and even at that point I wasn’t much of a radio listener: albums and MTV were my avenue towards music, and even at that point, while MTV was still showing music videos, the older stuff–songs that had been off the charts for a while–were simply gone from their rotations, only popping up on “retro” days like MTV’s anniversary and that sort of thing.

“Come On Eileen” is often cited as a “one hit wonder” phenomenon, which like in many cases is only true if you consider US success. The band had more success in the UK, and stuck around for a little while; they produced enough albums and had enough body of work to produce a Greatest Hits album. I remember seeing that CD in the bins at Media Play once, in the early 90s, and it struck me as weird that they had a Greatest HitS album, which is when I learned that you can be a very successful band and not be big in the US. (See also: a-ha.)

As for “Come On Eileen” itself, it’s a strange kind of song, to be sure! It starts with a brief violin solo before the beat kicks in, and then the lyrics kick in. Singer Kevin Rowland sings with a lovely British baritone in a way that combines infectious exuberance with unintelligibility. I mean, really: I defy anyone to understand the words to this song the first time through. It’s one of those classic songs that makes me thankful for living in an era when I can Google the words. And then there’s the way the song blends several different styles in one, starting with a kind of retro folk-rock before breaking into the chorus, which is markedly different stylistically; it has an entirely different beat and nothing in the verses tells us anything about the Eileen of the title. I mean, we have the singer referring to Johnnie Ray and how popular he was, but now we’re hearing about Eileen and how she makes the singer all horny and stuff. This should not work, and yet, as both sections are cheery and upbeat, somehow this stuck-together-with-scotch-tape song works.

And then there’s the song’s video, which does the same thing! A black-and-white section at the beginning, set in the 50s–using footage of singer Johnnie Ray disembarking a plane while fans go crazy–contrasts with our mid-section, in which the band is performing on some London streetcorner. It’s all really weird, and honestly, this song and video shouldn’t really work, except for the fact that the constituent parts within work perfectly–so perfectly that the song has endured for forty years.

Of course, anyone familiar with the video will see a particular significance to me. I don’t know why this is the Official 80s Anthem Of Overalls; lots of bands can be seen rocking overalls in their videos from the era! And yet–maybe it’s because this is the only Dexys Midnight Runners song to endure in American consciousness–this is the one. Mention it and someone will usually say something like “Hey, that’s the band in the too-big overalls!” And yes, it is. I’ll be honest here: from the way they’re styled in this video, “Come On Eileen” does not exactly make the best case for overalls as a sartorial choice.

But anyway, I will admit to liking “Come On Eileen” a great deal. If we who rock overalls have to have an 80s New Wave rock anthem, we could do a lot worse!

See the official video here. (The video is not able to be embedded.) Meanwhile, you can listen to the song right here!

Damn…forty years of “Come On Eileen”. That’s wild!

Share This Post

February 4, 2022February 4, 2022

An Addendum to the Matter of the Poofy Shirt.

So I referenced the other day my adoption of the Poofy Shirt as part of my ongoing aesthetic. I in fact first mentioned this back in the fall, though, when I noted that I might be approaching too swiftly the look of “Jerry Seinfeld in the pirate shirt”.

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….

Hey, wait a minute….

Share This Post

February 2, 2022January 30, 2022

Continuing Adventures in Overalls Nation: Vintage Lee Overalls from the 90s

I’ve mentioned before that though I love many different brands and styles of overalls, my personal “Platonic ideal” of overalls is the classic ones that used to be made by Lee Jeans. They’re the ones that look like this:

(If you’re curious about the Poofy Shirt, I briefed on this last November!)

Or, in their Hickory-striped version:

Mention “overalls” to me and this is almost certainly what I will visualize. Lee has not made overalls like these in decades, sadly–at least not in the United States; from what I’ve seen, these styles are still made by Lee in Japan. To find Lee overalls like these, one has to delve into the wonderful world of vintage dealers, which can be a bit…pricey.

Lee Jeans did get back into the overalls game in the 1990s, though, when overalls suddenly became significantly more popular than they had already been. Many people think that overalls came out of nowhere to prominence in the 1990s as part of the whole “grunge” movement and the concurrent nostalgia for the 1970s, but in truth, overalls were common in the 70s and 80s, though they were never as ubiquitous in those decades as they were in the 1990s. Then a backlash happened in the 2000s as clothing became all about tight fits that displayed every single curve of the body. But I digress….

The overalls that Lee made in the 1990s were neat garments indeed, but they took their inspiration not from the classic Lee overalls of most of the 1900s, but from makers like Washington Dee Cee. Gone was the two-compartment bib pocket with snap enclosures; in its place was a single pocket with a single snap-down flap enclosure, and also gone were the old buckling hardware with the classic Lee logo. None of this should be interpreted as a complaint, though! The Lee overalls of the 1990s are neat looking all on their own, and a while back I finally found a pair that fits nicely.

I like these a lot! They’re made of thick and solid denim, and the stonewashing is not overdone to the point of giving the overalls too much fade. The hardware is solid brass, which isn’t always a standard–some overalls of the 1990s have hardware of aluminum or some other softer metal, which means that it’s not unheard of for clasps to break completely. I am keeping my eye out for more of these; I’d love to know if Lee made these in a hickory stripe or even in other colors. (One problem is that Lee also made virtually identical overalls for women, and a lot of eBay sellers don’t know the difference. Not only do womens’ overalls fit completely differently, they’re sized differently and they don’t have a functioning fly. I fell victim to this years ago, when I thought I was getting a neat pair of white Lee overalls. The Wife ended up getting them….)

Share This Post

December 12, 2021

A Bonus Dose of Christmas! (kind of)

YouTube served this up for me: a woman re-enacts the hilarity that ensued when she attended a Christmas party and did not get the memo as to the attire.

Even I probably wouldn’t show up to a Christmas party in overalls, unless I was specifically informed it was super informal or I knew the venue was a place like a local sports-bar watering hole. But I don’t necessarily think that overalls have to be super-casual! You can dress them up and make them a bit classier, if need be. But don’t take my word for it! Here’s a fashion vlogger who shows the way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRpfmo5itBo

Share This Post

November 21, 2021

Gap, with stripes (or, New to the Collection)

Back in the 90s, The Gap (along with everyone else) made some really nice overalls. I still have some from that period, and they are now officially Vintage.

Maybe you wouldn’t have expected it, but Gap’s overalls from that period were actually pretty well made. They used denim of decent thickness and good quality hardware in the buckles (cheap buckles breaking is a thing, unfortunately), and they included standard details like hammer loops and side pockets on the legs. The bib pockets are large and functional, even if I generally don’t tend to keep things in my bib pocket. These are some favorite overalls of mine, so I have a saved search for them on eBay, if I ever spot pairs at decent prices. As time goes by the ones I like, in my size, show up less and less frequently, and the prices are higher and higher, but you never know. So I keep an eye out.

And then a listing caught my eye, and I couldn’t believe it. I had no idea, but back then Gap didn’t just make those overalls in blue denim; they had Hickory-striped pairs too! This I never knew. Hickory stripes have always been the also-ran in the overalls department, but I love the way they look. (Hey, Carhartt! You make Hickory striped overalls for women, so get a men’s version out there!) So I anguished a bit over these when the listing popped up, because the seller wanted a little more than I really wanted to pay, and because they are one size bigger than I really want. (I am not as big as I used to be, and I continue heading in the right direction: just yesterday I had a doctor visit that confirmed I’ve ditched eight pounds since my last visit several months ago. Huzzah!)

Ultimately I concluded that I couldn’t pass these up, so I grabbed them with the thought that I’ll just make sure to wear them under multiple layers. Especially multiple poofy layers. Like, a mock turtleneck and a nice warm sweater.

By the way, it continues to be obvious to me that a greyhound is an outstanding fashion accessory.

Share This Post

November 1, 2021

Sir Cottagecore meets Monsieur Village Cooper: Realizing my New Aesthetic

At some point last year a Facebook ad appeared in my feed for Renaissance-festival style shirts. I saw them, thought, “Wow, I’d like one of those!”, and I bought one.

Renfest shirt, with overalls — Cool shirt! Note the steampunk watch around my neck.

And then I waited…and waited…and waited. Took forever, to the point where I figured I’d been scammed. But no: it just took, well, forever! The shirt came, and I loved it.

Flash forward to this year, when I decided to buy another one, when I saw a different ad. However, this time instead of just pulling the trigger on the spot, I actually threw the question out into FB and the Twitterverse, because I actually know some people who know stuff about Renfest clothing and whatnot. The verdict was pretty unanimous: do not buy the stuff from some random FB ad. There are plenty of reputable dealers of Renfest-style clothing online. After fielding some references, I ordered a shirt from Renstore.com.

In typical fashion, my thinking was to get a white shirt to go with my black (well, charcoal gray) one. In also typical fashion, I ended up ignoring my initial wish for a white shirt and bought a blue one instead. This I ended up wearing on our yearly Ithaca jaunt, and I like the way that shirt looks so much that a couple weeks ago I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the white one.

Is this a bit on the eclectic side? You bet it is…but hey. I think I’m just about at the point in life where the outside world gets zero vote here. If I want to look like a strange blend of cottagecore-meets-Julien-the-local-barrelmaker, well, that’s just what I’m going to do.

This might well be my favorite look now.

By the way: that pair of overalls? That’s the pair I’ve owned the longest. I bought those in 1994 or 1995, not long after I got the job at Pizza Hut that…well, no, it wasn’t a great job and I should have done something else with my time, but I also don’t regret the lessons I learned while working that job. But anyway, even though I have since loaded my collection with a lot of pairs of vintage overalls (some of which are soon to be featured in this space!), there’s something to be said for buying an article of clothing brand new and living with it until it’s vintage. This makes me happy.

Excelsior!