# Clipper Craft?



## nwinn (Jun 2, 2008)

Is anyone familiar with the brand "Clipper Craft"? I recently saw one of their suits at an estate sale.


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## Scoundrel (Oct 30, 2007)

Bump


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## Cottonshirt (Mar 15, 2009)

Clipper Craft Clothing started as Trimount Clothes, a family owned Boston company run by the Shapiros. In 1926 when Arnold Baxt joined them a suit with a spare pair of pants cost $17. By 1972, when the company, since renamed Trimount Clipper Craft Clothing was bought by the Cliftex Corporation, $17 was a lunch tip and Arnold Baxt was senior vice-president.

The company sponsored episodes of the radio series _The New Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes_ on the NBC, Mutual and ABC networks from 28 Sept 1947 to 6 Jun 1949 (season's thirteen and fourteen). On Mutual it went out at 7.00 on Sunday evening for season thirteen but switched to 8.30 on Monday evening for season fourteen. The first episode sponsored by TCCC was _The Dog Who Changed His Mind_, with John Stanley playing Holmes and Alfred Shirley as Dr. Watson. They continued to sponsor broadcasting until at least 1976 when they sponsored a number of episodes of the game show, _Family Feud_, hosted by Richard Dawson.

As for their clothes, I have no personal knowledge of them, but I found a thread in about one of their overcoats, and a Blogger who seemed to like them.

I found an ad' in the Spokane Daily Chronicle of Thursday, November 9 1939, at which time you could see James Stewart and Jean Arthur in _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_ for 25 cents and buy a Clipper Craft suit for $25. Those were the days!










Since the suit cost 100 times more than the cinema, and a trip to my local cinema now costs £7.50, a suit of equivalent quality would probably cost £750. {discuss}

Another ad', this time from the Milwaukee Sentinel of Tuesday September 7 1948, says...










From which it seems they were aiming at college kids and possibly low-end professionals. In the same Milwaukee Sentinel ad' it also said, "Gimbel's and 1,035 other great stores across America buy and sell Clipper Craft in tremendous volume."

On I found an ad' for a Clipper Craft Cashmere blazer dating from 1980 on offer as a "retro" item for $120. When you click on the "details" link it says "1970's unique Clipper Craft 100% cashmere blazer" so it is not exactly clear how old it is, but there are some nice close-up photos to drool over, I mean examine at your leisure.



















An ad' in the {Acrobat Reader required} of April 14 1949 tells us you could have a spare pair of pants with your suit for only $4.95 at Rosenbaums.

You can also find their clothing on sale at The Rusty Zipper and I daresay there's some on eBay but I haven't looked.

It would seem that Clipper Craft are a mass-produced, low-end budget clothing line with stamina and some appeal. I wouldn't build a wardrobe around them, but if you like retro you could possibly do worse. The fact that they are volume produced works in your favour, because it increases your chances of finding one that is in reasonable condition.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.


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## Cary Grant (Sep 11, 2008)

Clipper Craft was a very popular "store" brand in the middle of the century. If you ever listen to old-time radio, there were a couple of shows they sponsored that began and ended with something like "Clipper Craft and it's 1153 stores across the nation..."


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## Scoundrel (Oct 30, 2007)

Whoa, Cotton, thanks for being so informative! I'd like to share a purchase I happened upon in a SoCal upscale thrift store... It's a Clipper overcoat I found this weekend, and the label appears to indicate the garment was custom tailored. The overcoat is a camel tweed and has no pockets:


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## Cottonshirt (Mar 15, 2009)

Sorry to disappoint you, but Emery Bird Thayer was not the person for whom this coat was made. Emery Bird Thayer was a department store in Kansas City, Missouri. They had a lovely building on 11th St but it was pulled down in 1971.










You can find a bit more about them on their Wikipedia page.

Clipper Craft had stuff sold at over a thousand stores right across America, each store would, I suppose, get it's name on the label.

By the way, is that really a 2-button overcoat?


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## Scoundrel (Oct 30, 2007)

Ah! How interesting. I'm actually happier with the news that it is vintage readymade because I'll have a better chance of getting it fitted now. I'm 26, and this is my first overcoat, so I'm pretty excited about it (I'm looking at alpaca scarfs and socks now)! Anyway, it does indeed have a two button closure... Can I assume this garment was tailored in the U.S.A.? 

This picture in Andy's encyclopedia has a resemblance to the one I just purchased:


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## Cottonshirt (Mar 15, 2009)

I do like your coat, and I see the resemblance to the one in the picture you posted, but it seems unlikely that one is a drawing of the other.

The PKZ Group is a Swiss chain of companies approximately equivalent (in market if not in kudos) to the Louis Vuitton group, LVMH.

The picture you posted was drawn in 1927 by Arnold Johann, a commercial artist in the Basel studio of Niklaus Stoecklin. It was printed as a lithograph and entered in a competition run by the PKZ company, and won. Seven years later, Johann's pupil Peter Birkhauser drew a lithograph of a button and entered that in the 1934 edition of the PKZ competition, and won.










Original copies of either of these now sell for many hundreds of Euros.


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## dcjacobson (Jun 25, 2007)

If you look at today's entry at "The Retro Press" (web site w/ vintage magazine ads), you'll see an ad for Clipper-Craft that appeared in Sports Illustrated in 1959. Nice-looking suit, by the way.

https://the-retro-press.tjs-labs.com/

Good luck,
Don


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