overalls Archives - Page 4 of 16

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.

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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!

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October 18, 2021October 17, 2021

Duck Season! Wabbit Season! No, it’s–

It's flannel season! — Apologies to Chuck Jones, et al.

Yes, it appears that our most recent stretch of warm days is finally over, which means temperatures in the forecast that don’t break above 60 degrees, and even cooler nights. It’s been a long time coming, folks…I’m even hearing that in what I’m sure will be surprising to absolutely nobody, this may end up being the warmest October ever, at least in my neck of the woods. On the anniversary this past week of 2006’s “Surprise storm”, in which lake-effect snow pounded Buffalo, wrecking thousands of trees that hadn’t dropped all their leaves yet, we were in shorts because it was 75 out.

But now, it’s finally flannel season! Readers may remember that I wrote last spring about my newfound appreciation for flannel; well, now the time is here. Huzzah!

Flannel and overalls: a classic combination!

Hooray for flannel!

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October 13, 2021October 13, 2021

Recent Adventures in Overalls Nation!!!

Bib tag from Washington Dee Cee overalls

No doubt all of you* have been asking, “Look, dude, all this music writing and book stuff and all is great, but what’s new with your bib overalls collection?!” And I am always one to give the public what it wants**, so here’s something new!

You may remember*** last year, when I acquired a pair of vintage Hickory-striped overalls in the Washington Dee Cee label. I was searching for these for quite a while, because they employ different styling in the bib pocket than most other overalls in my collection.

Well, naturally, if you buy a pair of striped overalls in a new label and style, you’ll be happy…for a while. But then the nagging voice will start whispering in your ear, late at night, when you’re trying to decide which overalls-and-shirt pairing you’re going to wear tomorrow****:

“Sure, the striped pair is great, but you know, you really really REALLY need a pair of the same overalls in the classic blue denim. You NEED them. It’s science!”*****

So, off to eBay I went, whereupon I created a new Saved Search for Washington Dee Cee overalls. There are almost always a few pairs available, because Dee Cee was a popular and common brand back in the “glory days” of bib overalls, but as they are always vintage by definition, they tend to be expensive. But…persistence pays off! I finally scored a pair for a price that wasn’t enough to make you look at me like I’m insane.******

I actually acquired these in July, which is the time of year when I don’t wear overalls much at all, because it’s just too warm. Aside from trying them on when they arrived, I have really only worn them one day, and that was on our annual Ithaca trip a couple of weeks ago. I paired them with another new acquisition, a “Renfest” style shirt. I realize that wearing a shirt like this may put me a bit too close to “Jerry Seinfeld in the pirate shirt” territory, but I figure that now that I’m fifty, I’ve long since reached the point of being able to wear what the hell I want and give zero f*cks about it.

Washington Dee Cee overalls, with blue “renfest” shirt

Same, just...sitting down — Same, just…sitting down

I have to admit, I genuinely like this look. It’s my version of the “cottagecore” thing that’s been popular of late. There’s something, well, me about a Renfest shirt worn under a pair of nicely-worn vintage denim overalls, isn’t there?

Anyway, if it ever gets reliably and seasonably cool around here (as I write this we’re entering a several-day stretch of possible record highs for mid-October, which is not ideal), I look forward to pairing these overalls with some of the new flannel shirts I have around…and I can’t rule out ordering another of these Renfest shirts, maybe in white this time.

And of course, the highest praise has already come. Carla approves of these overalls!

* None of you have been asking this.

** Yeah, this is just a lie.

*** You do not remember this. I do not hold this against you. (OK, I do. A little.)

**** Not kidding! I really do put thought into this. I don’t just roll out of bed, grab a shirt and some overalls, and go about my day. Come on, folks. I’m weird, but I’m not some heathen.

***** Why am I dragging poor science into this? Science has nothing to do with overalls. Sheesh!

****** “Har har, we already look at you like–” Yeah, yeah, I know. You don’t have to say it.

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May 24, 2021October 3, 2021

The Flannel Conversion

It’s almost June, so it’s just about time to retire the flannel shirts until maybe late September, but more likely, some time in October.

When I was a kid, in third or fourth grade, my father decided that I needed to wear flannel shirts. At the time I did not understand this. I quite hated collared shirts as a kid, for whatever reason, so I took a rather instantaneous dislike to the flannel shirts that ended up in my closet. As I recall, they were new and stiff and scratchy, and all of that was on top of my already-establish dislike of buttons and collars. (Again, I’ve no idea why I hated those things so much. We all have things about which we are dumbasses in our youth; collared shirts were one if mine.)

Even when I started coming around some years ago on collars and button-ups and such, I was still kind of hesitant about flannel, because while I’ve long since discovered flannel bed sheets and I have a couple of denim shirts that are flannel-lined, I still have that association with stiff, scratchy flannel collars and shirts that fit, well, stiffly and scratchily. Also, there was a bit of fear that flannel–especially plaid flannel–paired with overalls would make me look like something of a cast extra from Hee Haw. (That show was on a lot in our house when I was very young, which may explain where my lifelong love of bib overalls comes from. And since it was a variety show in the 70s, I’m guessing the occasional pie wound up in a face or two….)

Over the last couple of years a few flannel shirts have made their way into my wardrobe, though, via thrift stores and eBay, and I’m happy to report that I am finally embracing that particular fabric…and even in the plaid. Hey, there’s a reason why plaid flannel and overalls is a classic combination, right? And yes, it’s a classic combination!

Cold? Why do you ask? #brrr #coffee #yum #layersFTW #overalls #dungarees #biboveralls #vintage #lee #leeoveralls #denim #bluedenim #denimoveralls #rawdenim #vintageoveralls #overallsarelife #flannel</center></span></span></p><p dir=

I started with a couple of flannel shirts that I picked up at the local thrift stores, and while I like these, they’re a bit more broken in than I would like. I have since found more intact ones (new, with tags) on eBay, including a black-and-white checked shirt…

…and a blue one…

and, most recently, this cool multi-colored one.

I remain in the market for a flannel shirt that is predominantly red, but I haven’t found one I really like yet. As with just about all of my button-up shirts, I prefer button-down collars or, as in this one that I found in a stroke of luck, a banded collar:

Anyway, roughly 32 years or so after my father first tried getting me to like flannel, I’m finally on board. What can I say…I’m not the fastest study in the world. Of course, now it’s warm out and I’m having days where I don’t wear overalls at all (shorts and a t-shirt as I’m writing this, go figure), so it’ll be a while before I’m wearing flannel shirts again. But fall will be here before we know it! (And not soon enough, if the 90s in May we’ve had already are any indication of what’s in store for summer.)

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March 31, 2021October 3, 2021

My Icelandic roots!

One of my requests last Christmas was a new sweater or two, in a lighter color to counteract the general dark tone of my existing sweater collection (some of which are also getting a bit old). The Wife gave me a wonderful light-blue sweater with a neat pattern around the top, and a cowl neck that zips up. It’s similar to an Icelandic Lopapeysa sweater, but it’s not made of wool. This has quickly become one of my very favorite sweaters, and as a bonus, it seems to go really well with overalls!

I'm really digging this sweater. #ootd #overalls #dungarees #biboveralls #vintage #dickiesworkwear #dickiesoveralls #denimoveralls #overallsarelife #vintageoveralls #sweatersandoveralls #scarf #crochet

New sweater! New overalls! Yay! #ootd #overalls #dungarees #biboveralls #BerneOveralls #hickorystripe #denimoveralls #overallsarelife #sweater #sweatersandoveralls

The collar on this sweater really does not want to lay flat, so I'm just going with it.... #ootd #overalls #dungarees #biboveralls #vintage #lee #leeoveralls #hickorystripe #denimoveralls #overallsarelife #vintageoveralls #sweatersandoveralls

Here’s a suitably dramatic pose, taken in an alley in Hamburg, NY. The Dee-oh-gee and I were killing time outside while The Wife went into our favorite local bakery to buy stuff. I like the color contrasts here, between the sweater, the overalls, the scarf, the doggo, and the wall behind us:

I'm not even sure how to describe this one.... #Cane #dogsofinstagram #greyhound #greyhoundsofinstagram #HamburgNY #alley #overalls #dungarees #biboveralls #vintage #dickiesworkwear #dickiesoveralls #denimoveralls #overallsarelife #vintageoveralls #sweate

The color and pattern (apparently called a yoke design) go well with either solid blue overalls or with hickory stripes. I assume it will go well with the herringbone overalls as well, but I haven’t worn the sweater with those yet.

From the back #overalls #dungarees #biboveralls #BerneOveralls #hickorystripe #denimoveralls #overallsarelife #sweater #sweatersandoveralls

As always, I make few (if any) apologies for the fact that my main criteria for judging whether or not I want to add a top to my wardrobe is, “Do I think this will look good under a pair of overalls?” I mean, it’s my thing, y’know?

Oh, and the title of this post constitutes a little joke. I have no Icelandic roots at all.

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February 16, 2021October 3, 2021

An Exercise in Geek Fashion

There’s a vintage advertisement for the fantasy role playing game Dungeons and Dragons that makes the rounds once in a while, so this time I decided to play a game of “Who Wore It Better”. I think I did it pretty well!

I’m happiest that I was able to be accurate down to the brand of overalls the kid is wearing. Score!

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February 5, 2021October 3, 2021

The history….

It’s February (sorry about the lack of posting, there’s some stuff going on that’s not horrible but occupying lots of brain cycles), and with it comes, as always, Black History Month. Here is a thread I saw on Twitter yesterday, from a user going as “LEFT Ph. D”, describing in brief the part that something near and dear to me plays in Black history in America: overalls!

I tried embedding the individual tweets, but for some reason the code to do so was kind of wonky, so I’m reproducing the text and images below, in sequence as they appeared. WARNING: One of the images is a difficult one, a stark reminder of the casual way we used to show our devaluing of Black lives.

The SNCC referred to in LEFT Ph.D’s commentary is the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a student-led movement that was one of the main methods for students in the United States to engage with and support the growing Civil Rights movement. More on them here.

(One of these images is difficult.)

Our clothes come with a politic.

SNCC used denim overalls as a counterbalance between women and men. They used overalls as a symbol of solidarity with sharecroppers in the rural South during Jim Crow. They used overalls to combat politics of responsibility.

Yesterday, my 5-year-old asked me why I always wear overalls. He was curious about the buttons that I wear on my clothes. I didn’t give him a history lesson on denim/workwear and Black folks, but I did show him pictures. I did tell him that those pictures were of our ancestors.

When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, he was wearing denim workwear. He wasn’t wearing his “Sunday best.”

He was aware of the politics of denim.

It was this MLK that wrote ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’.

When Joyce Ladner, Kwame Ture (then (Stokely Carmichael) and other members within SNCC purposely rocked denim overalls, as a uniform, it was a conscious effort to build with Black folks that were most terrorized by violence of Jim Crow America.

I found this all pretty fascinating. Obviously for me, overalls are a thing of comfort and a bit of statement of personal weirdness and quirk. But there’s history behind them, a dark and important history that hasn’t even played out completely yet.

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August 7, 2020October 3, 2021

Notes of an Overall Collector: Washington Dee Cee

There are a number of favorite subjects of mine that I haven’t used this blog to geek out about in a long time, so let’s go ahead and do some of that right now, OK? Time to talk about bib overalls!

Dee Cee overalls (for use in a blog post)

I think it’s long past time to admit that my acquisition of overalls has come to a point where there’s really only one way to describe it without making myself seem like a weirdo (or, maybe at least a little less of a weirdo), and that’s to assert that I am a collector of overalls. That doesn’t seem weird at all, right? When you’re an avowed collector of a thing, owning lots of it and being willing to go to odd lengths to procure it aren’t nearly as weird as if you’re just some goof who owns a whole lot of a particular thing.

Well, that’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.

Which brings me to one recent acquisition for my overalls collection: a pair of Hickory-striped overalls by the Washington Dee Cee company. I haven’t been able to find much information out there about the Dee Cee company, but they were based in Nashville and they made a lot of denim Western-wear and workwear back in the day.

What makes their overalls distinctive is the styling of the large pocket on the bib. Instead of a dual-compartment pocket with two snap enclosures, which tends to be the norm (see Dickies or, my eternal favorite, Lee overalls for examples), the pocket is mainly one large enclosure with a snap in the middle over which a narrow flap fastens. It’s a neat look that’s a nice change from the usual style. Washington Dee Cee overalls were notably modeled by actress Michelle Meyrink in the wonderful 80s nerd-comedy Real Genius…

…and by Mr. T on The A-Team!

I’ve kept an eye out on eBay and other places for a pair of Dee Cee overalls, but usually they were either not in my size, or not in my price range. I did occasionally see this interesting variation, though–and never in my price range. It seems that the Washington Dee Cee people made versions of their overalls but to be branded for another great Tennessee institution:

Well, anyway, luck finally turned my way and I got my hands on a pair of Hickory-striped Washington Dee Cee overalls! I’ve really taken a keen liking to Hickory stripes over the years (commonly thought of as “engineer stripes”, because they’re commonly seen on railroad worker clothing). Here are my new ones!

Some neat bib details here: While the Hickory-stripe pattern is always vertical on overalls, the Washington Dee Cee ones break with this in one place: the flap enclosure on the bib pocket. That makes for a neat visual contrast. At the far left of the bib pocket (the wearer’s left, on the right as you look at them), there is a pencil-slot, and though it can’t really be seen here, there is the traditional pocket-watch pocket that tucks into the seam just above the center tag. (For years I didn’t know that this is what the “button hole” present on most pairs of “traditional” overalls, somewhere across the top of the bib, is for: the fob of a watch chain. It’s one of those details that has held on for tradition’s sake, even though most people who wear overalls aren’t also carrying pocket watches.)

Close-up of the center snap. Back in the day, manufacturers engraved their names on the snaps and buckles.

Center tag. I love tags on overalls. Some people cut them off their overalls! I don’t understand that. But, whatever. [shrugs]

I like them a lot, even if they are just ever so slightly too small, but they’re definitely wearable and I like the way they look. So, huzzah!

More new arrivals to the collection to come!

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April 6, 2020October 3, 2021

Poetical Excursion: A poem about overalls!

So, something cheerful…I’m going to try to post more of that sort of thing over the next few weeks, I think. The world has darkness a-plenty and I’ll be occasionally writing about that, too. But here’s a poem I found by an author named Tony Johnston. She is a prolific writer of books for children who lives in California. This is from a book called Once in the Country: Poems of a Farm, written in 1996.

My Overalls

The best thing is their color,
old-night or early-dawn.

No, the best thing is their limpness
when I hoist them on.

No, the best thing is their looseness
like the soft skin of a pup

No, the best thing is their buckles
like a suitcase snapping shut.

No, the best thing is their perfume
of cows and hay and dung.

No, the best thing is their many holes
to let in all the sun.

Obviously I don’t own any overalls that are redolent of “cows and hay and dung”, but I do have a couple of old pairs–vintage!–that aren’t quite holey yet, but may get there sooner rather than later.

More poems to come!