# Anyone want to talk about Trad in the 1990s?



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

Tried once before but the thread derailed, so I thought I'd try again, now that it's been 25 years since the 90s started.

Who were the taste makers?

What new items entered the look?

A few thoughts:


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

At the very early 90s, Hilfiger was still not a total joke. He had bold his boldly striped OCBD with the flapped chest pockets. Cargo pants entered at the end of the decade.
Everything was oversized. This was the era of relaxed fit jeans and "The Big Shirt." The seminal outerwear would be the little nylon-shell, fleece-line ski jacket by Lands' End, CB or whoever in some bright primary color.
The only footwear of not was the weird "comfort" oxford as made by Rockport. A sneaker disguised as a wingtip. Those braided leather belts were a thing, with the friggin end tucked around and hanging down in front.


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## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

I don't think of the 90s as a particular highwater mark in men's trad or preppy style.


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## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

I don't consider any of the items pictured above to be remotely "Trad."

Looking back, it seems the early 1990s was a sort of hangover period from the bad 1980s.


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## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

The 90s was basically about grunge style, bad suits, and mom-and-dad Eddie Bauer clothes.


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## Fading Fast (Aug 22, 2012)

It seemed to me that in the '90s, the problem with trad was, as Tempest said, everything was oversized. So, while today, many of the trad purveyors have trimmed their fits / cuts down too far as they bend to the skinny fashion of the moment, in the '90s, all of them were expanding their fits / cuts to hew to the "big" fashion of the day. 

I've had to give away most of my '90s clothes as - even though there were all trad in style and from the names we all know (BB, LE, LLBean, J.Crew, etc.), most of those clothes are just too big and it isn't even about having a tailor tweak them as every part of them is too big - the armholes, the chest, the sleeve or trousers widths, etc.


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## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

I'm not sure. Most of my items from those names from the 90s actually fit quite well. Then again, they're staple items, nothing to fashion-forward from the time.



Fading Fast said:


> It seemed to me that in the '90s, the problem with trad was, as Tempest said, everything was oversized. So, while today, many of the trad purveyors have trimmed their fits / cuts down too far as they bend to the skinny fashion of the moment, in the '90s, all of them were expanding their fits / cuts to hew to the "big" fashion of the day.
> 
> I've had to give away most of my '90s clothes as - even though there were all trad in style and from the names we all know (BB, LE, LLBean, J.Crew, etc.), most of those clothes are just too big and it isn't even about having a tailor tweak them as every part of them is too big - the armholes, the chest, the sleeve or trousers widths, etc.


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## drlivingston (Jun 21, 2012)

Back in the late 80's and early 90's, I still wore Izod Lacoste and PRL. Of course, Izod and Lacoste separated in 1993. In May of the same year (1993) Ralph Lauren introduced the RRL line and, since I worked for the company, received many items for free. So, I started wearing kind of an upscale country look. I had the PRL leather bomber and waxed cotton jackets. With a price tag of $495 back in 1992, I felt like a millionaire when I wore the leather jacket. lol I still regularly wear some of my old PRL shirts from that era and they are virtually indistinguishable from shirts that I have recently purchased.


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## Fading Fast (Aug 22, 2012)

Duvel said:


> I'm not sure. Most of my items from those names from the 90s actually fit quite well. Then again, they're staple items, nothing to fashion-forward from the time.


Re-reading what I wrote, I think I unintentionally exaggerated as I do have some sweaters, sport coats, overcoats and shirts from that period that fit fine, but I absolutely did have to get rid of a meaningful amount of items that were to big (and from companies like Polo in addition to some of the ones listed above). At the time, I would have told you I was buying the same classic look I always wore, but I didn't realize until the 2000s how much the "big" size snuck in.

Just as we've seen BB, Bill's Khakis and others slim their fits / cuts down, I bet if we move back out to normal sizing in several years, some of the things we think of as classic purchases today will prove to be too slim. That said, (and proving that I can talk out of both sides of my mouth), because of this forum, I am being much more careful not to let too much of that happen to me now as it did in the '90s.


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## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

Duvel said:


> The 90s was basically about grunge style, bad suits, and mom-and-dad Eddie Bauer clothes.


Lands End was at the top of their mom-and-dad Eddie Bauer clothes game, though, even if the Sears buy-out was looming. 

As described by AA alum, jamgood:


jamgood said:


> From LE's 'Beyond Buttondowns' Holiday Catalog 1998
> 
> (probably www.williamlockie.com and the same shawl would have been $1000 or more at a speciality store)
> 
> ...


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## Tom Buchanan (Nov 7, 2005)

gamma68 said:


> I don't consider any of the items pictured above to be remotely "Trad."


I agree with this. I do not see how fleece or painters paints are trad.

The great thing about trad, and why this forum is interesting, is that the style does not change much.

As shown by some of the more senior contributors like Billax and Roycru, ivy style clothing is timeless and always looks good. That held true for the 90s as much as the 80s, 70s (well, the 70s might have been a bit odd), 60s, etc. I wore khakis, oxfords, tweed and loafers in the 90s like I do now.

Certain things might come and go from style, and the cut might change, but the look stays pretty uniform. Boat shoes were pretty out in the 90s, and clothes fit a bit baggy, but otherwise no real change for me.


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## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

Tom Buchanan said:


> I agree with this. I do not see how fleece or painters paints are trad.


I can understand that. I suppose it seemed to me like the 90s were when brown ducks finally had the chance to join white ducks at the table after 60 years apart (white ducks being adopted as part of the Princeton "beer suits" in the 1930s), mostly through "Funky Chic" as Tom Wolfe called it. Disaffected Prep wrote about his experience with it in the late 90s. He called it "Crunchy Prep", while others helpfully suggested "Trust-fund Hippie". 



Disaffected Prep said:


> I once posted a comment on Michael Williams' A Continuous Lean on the subject of Carhartt workwear clothing, as I've had my Carhartt duck jacket since prep school. While praising the jacket, I noted the company's popularity at Bowdoin and without much thought, labeled the look:* crunchy prep.*
> 
> Needless to say, I was quite surprised with the vitriol I inspired when a Brooklyn Graphic Designer responded to my comment with&#8230; "'Crunchy Prep' is about the shallowest term I've heard slung around this year."
> 
> ...


My impression of it is as an extension of the "Rugged Ivy" of the 70s, much like the 80s look was an extension of the look of the 50s and early 60s. Maybe that's a false correlation to make?


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## FLMike (Sep 17, 2008)

I can we why your original thread derailed. It's a thread looking for a topic.


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## SammyH (Jan 29, 2014)

Is this a joke? Those pics in the first post stab at thine eyes.

These....



> Who were the taste makers?
> 
> What new items entered the look?


...almost sound like trolling? LOL?


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

This was the Gap era. Boxy rib-knot v-necks with chest stripes. I recall the pegged pant cuff being big too.


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

I remember the Gap invasion.

Victims were said to be suffering from "Gap-osis!!" 

I simply clung to Bean and Bauer.


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## Dr. D (Nov 19, 2010)

The best trad aspect of the 90s was that was the last time Brooks was still making their OCBDs the right way: with unlined collars and in a variety of colors of unistripes. Just before Marks and Spencer took over and everything went to hell in a hurry. I am still hanging on for dear life to my 90's unistripes - I think I am down to 6 now.


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## fred johnson (Jul 22, 2009)

In the 90"s I wore exactly what I wear now except most of it was PRL. I have, over the years replaced most of the PRL OCBD shirts with those from BB & Press in the same colors.


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## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

As with probably any decade, you just had to be discriminating about where you shopped. Again, though, I don't see how it's much of a decade to talk about in regard to trad/Ivy style. Were there any remarkable achievements for such then? Usually we look back to the 60s and 50s, and rightly so, and, for better or worse, I don't think another decade since offers much.


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## 127.72 MHz (Feb 16, 2007)

Perhaps I've modified the way I dress since the 90's but I've always preferred traditional U.S.A. men's clothing. Obviously I was younger,...At that time people often said I dressed "Preppy." It's always been basically the same in my opinion.


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## FLMike (Sep 17, 2008)

Despite my snarky comment earlier, I will say one thing about the clothes I bought and wore in the 90's. They were all either a size too big, or were cut to look that way. Everyone wore their clothes a lot baggier and looser fitting in the 90's. I am a definite "medium", and yet I have several large-sized items (e.g. sweaters) in my closet that I bought in the 90's. Occasionally I'll go to wear one and I get incredulous that I would have bought something that fit me so poorly. As in, man this is huge! I really just need to get rid of that stuff.


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## Snow Hill Pond (Aug 10, 2011)

Duvel said:


> I don't think of the 90s as a particular highwater mark in men's trad or preppy style.


Judging by the OP's choice of photos, I would have to agree.


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## Youthful Repp-robate (Sep 26, 2011)

katon said:


> My impression of it is as an extension of the "Rugged Ivy" of the 70s, much like the 80s look was an extension of the look of the 50s and early 60s. Maybe that's a false correlation to make?


This, I get.

But I dunno if the Merrel/Carhartt/Patagonia look fits aesthetically into trad or preppy, but this is because _most_ of the people I know who dress like that are full-bore hippies.

Also it's how my Dad dresses.

But I still _kinda_ want a real eye-bleeder of a snap-T.


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## vwguy (Jul 23, 2004)

Ah, the most Tradliest of brands Carhartt, they make one helluva 3/2 blazer.

Brian


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## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

Yes. J. Press may have them beat with the hook vent, but Carhart comes in strong with the riveted pocket.



vwguy said:


> Ah, the most Tradliest of brands Carhartt, they make one helluva 3/2 blazer.
> 
> Brian


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## Cowtown (Aug 10, 2006)

While it was probably purchased in the 80s, I remember wearing a Hilfiger university stripe OCBD with a pocket flap I loved. I also remember purchasing the OCBDs and khakis from Abercrombie & Fitch which were of good quality probably in 92 or 93.


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## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

The answer to the question heading the original post is: *NO*

Trad probably has more in common with the 1890s than the 1990s.

If there was anything "Trad" issued in the 1990s, it was carried over from the 1950s to mid-1960s.

I can't believe this thread has gone this far.


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## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

vwguy said:


> Ah, the most Tradliest of brands Carhartt, they make one helluva 3/2 blazer. Brian


 Not sure about the roll, but they did get the shoulder right.


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## Trad-ish (Feb 19, 2011)

Banana Republic, before they went slap nuts, had the best Gurkha shorts.


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## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

Duvel said:


> Were there any remarkable achievements for such then?


 Maybe not full of achievement, but the 90s were full of choices.

For instance, it's when the various Trad companies finally started choosing sides when it came to the outsourcing issue, after Ralph Lauren started the ball rolling with his Hong Kong copies back in the 80s.










Lands End was putting out ads about the absurdity of Brooklyn-made "Shetland" sweaters (the 90s were also the last gasp for those lush David Ogilvy-style wall of text advertisements, I think), while J. Crew was getting sucked into legal battles over their "Made in USA" clothes from sweatshops in Saipan.










The catalog boom of the 80s had made Mainstreet Ivy for everyone a real possibility again, mostly through the efforts of "mom-and-dad Eddie Bauer clothes" purveyors like Lands End chasing the old L.L. Bean market into new households, preserving the traditional look while making it their own, while genuine old-line Ivy companies like Norman Hilton and Brooks Brothers were going bankrupt or being bought out and changed.


























Grunge brought Dad's Funky Chic 70s Maine Guide shirts back out of the closet while Patagonia made an argument for purple as a GTH color (They wrote a manifesto on why they wanted to do everything in these colors in one of their late 80s catalogs, quoting Flaubert, etc. Wish I could find a copy.) and the environmental virtues of synthetics.

I guess that's just a lot to sort out all at once, but I thought maybe 25 years in, there's been a bit of time to digest it all.


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## Fading Fast (Aug 22, 2012)

FLCracka said:


> Despite my snarky comment earlier, I will say one thing about the clothes I bought and wore in the 90's. They were all either a size too big, or were cut to look that way. Everyone wore their clothes a lot baggier and looser fitting in the 90's. I am a definite "medium", and yet I have several large-sized items (e.g. sweaters) in my closet that I bought in the 90's. Occasionally I'll go to wear one and I get incredulous that I would have bought something that fit me so poorly. As in, man this is huge! I really just need to get rid of that stuff.


I am a medium (15 / 34, 40 inch chest) period, full stop. That is my size in any universe where medium means medium. I had to give away several BB and Polo medium OCBD (not the ones that were sized by neck and sleeve length, the more casual ones that go by S, M, L, XL sizing) from the '90s that were clearly cut dramatically larger than mediums had been cut in the '80s or the 2000s.

It wasn't that I bought size large, it's that mediums were being cut like large sizes in the '90s and I didn't adjust and buy small sizes (although, the sleeves and body length would probably have been too short in the smalls). Also, I didn't have the clothes knowledge I have today (in part because of this forum) to think about all these size / fit facets.

Even the trad brands succumbed to the "large" sizing of its fits and cuts in the '90s, the same way they are to varying extent succumbing to the skinny fits and cuts of today.


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## Taliesin (Sep 24, 2004)

fred johnson said:


> In the 90"s I wore exactly what I wear now except most of it was PRL. I have, over the years replaced most of the PRL OCBD shirts with those from BB & Press in the same colors.


Ditto for me. My PRL stuff in the mid to late 1990s was good - Hickey Freeman-produced suits, excellent OCBDs with nice collars, etc. I also bought my shoes from the Johnston & Murphy Crown Aristocraft line back then. They were made in USA and pretty good. Most of my PRL items are long gone now, but I still have and wear a few of the ties and they look entirely normal.

As to what I wore casually in the 1990s, long gone and best forgotten, except for a denim RRL jacket I still have that's very nice. It's thigh length, not like a jean jacket.

Anyone want to fess up to having worn a J. Crew "Barn Jacket", especially in mustard yellow?


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## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

J. Crew was definitely a preppy-ish go-to label in the '90s. I had the barn jacket as well as a rather oversized brown cord jacket that was some kind of hybrid of overcoat and sport coat. I loved them both but they were definitely of the time and would look terrible today.



Taliesin said:


> Ditto for me. My PRL stuff in the mid to late 1990s was good - Hickey Freeman-produced suits, excellent OCBDs with nice collars, etc. I also bought my shoes from the Johnston & Murphy Crown Aristocraft line back then. They were made in USA and pretty good. Most of my PRL items are long gone now, but I still have and wear a few of the ties and they look entirely normal.
> 
> As to what I wore casually in the 1990s, long gone and best forgotten, except for a denim RRL jacket I still have that's very nice. It's thigh length, not like a jean jacket.
> 
> Anyone want to fess up to having worn a J. Crew "Barn Jacket", especially in mustard yellow?


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

J. Crew did have a great color palate back then. They also made some decent button fly chinos. Actually, they had the 9 to 11" inseam shorts and a de rigeur anorak pullover thing.
I recall the inverted stripe shirts, where the background would be light blue, or sometimes pink, with widely spaced white stripes being popular.
I believe this is the era when the Gap, BR , etc. started selling ties too.


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## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

YES! Even up to as late as about 2009, they were putting some great button-fly chinos on the shelf. I loved their officer chinos, which came with a really decent higher mid-rise, a _full _cut throughout, and a few other decent details. Uncuffed, but the cut was good enough that, in my opinion, they looked fine that way. The material was very heavy too, and kind of rough, so they were a great casual chino that went well with Shetlands and so on. I've written to J. Crew a few times about bringing them back. I had four or five pairs in different colors, and they all gave up the ghost about a year ago.



Tempest said:


> J. Crew did have a great color palate back then. *They also made some decent button fly chinos.* Actually, they had the 9 to 11" inseam shorts and a de rigeur anorak pullover thing.
> I recall the inverted stripe shirts, where the background would be light blue, or sometimes pink, with widely spaced white stripes being popular.
> I believe this is the era when the Gap, BR , etc. started selling ties too.


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## Fading Fast (Aug 22, 2012)

Duvel said:


> YES! Even up to as late as about 2009, they were putting some great button-fly chinos on the shelf. I loved their officer chinos, which came with a really decent higher mid-rise, a _full _cut throughout, and a few other decent details. Uncuffed, but the cut was good enough that, in my opinion, they looked fine that way. The material was very heavy too, and kind of rough, so they were a great casual chino that went well with Shetlands and so on. I've written to J. Crew a few times about bringing them back. I had four or five pairs in different colors, and they all gave up the ghost about a year ago.


+1, as a big fan of button fly pants, I am familiar with the pants of which you speak and had several pairs in my closet as well. I was really, really happy that the recent ivory jeans (pictures posted in the January Acquisition thread) - from J.Crew - had a button fly.

I respect your efforts, but J.Crew seems to be driving hard to the skinny, low-rise hoop, so it might be a tough road. That said, they do do some slightly less trendy, more vintage items in their Wallace and Barnes line. I even have my eye on a (hold your breath) single pleat W&B kinda dress pants:

https://www.jcrew.com/mens_category/WallaceBarnes/PRDOVR~B4409/B4409.jsp

Just waiting for a good sale.


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

katon said:


> Tried once before but the thread derailed, so I thought I'd try again, now that it's been 25 years since the 90s started.
> 
> Who were the taste makers?
> 
> ...


What you just posted is actually the uniform of mid-to-late 2000's east coast frat boys rather than a trad 90's get-up.


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## ThePopinjay (Nov 12, 2013)

Tilton said:


> What you just posted is actually the uniform of mid-to-late 2000's east coast frat boys rather than a trad 90's get-up.


Very true. Even in Ohio.


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## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

Tilton said:


> What you just posted is actually the uniform of mid-to-late 2000's east coast frat boys rather than a trad 90's get-up.


Plain fleece rather than patterned, maybe? Just the jackets? Patagonia, at least, was common enough on Ivy League campuses in the 90s that people were comfortable making jokes about it. 









(1992)

L.L. Bean was selling the patterned fleece around then, too:









(1992)

The Carhartts are a little harder to track... Apparently it was by 2000, but the origins are a bit murky. The article pegs it to the same "Carhartt-eco-mug-carabiner" type folks Disaffected Prep mentioned knowing at Bowdoin. So maybe it was more of a 2000s thing? Not entirely out of left field -- again going back to the well, L.L. Bean has sold brown duck coats and duffel bags before, I'm just not sure that the trousers ever "left the woods" before the 90s.


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## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

gamma68 said:


> Trad probably has more in common with the 1890s than the 1990s.


That was actually a very interesting period for Trad. The origins of the look are really around that period, as extinct Trad clothiers like Browning King and Rogers Peet competed with Brooks Brothers to prove to the Gilded Age world that ready-made clothes didn't have to be poor quality, and that industrialized style could turn anyone into an off-the-rack English gentleman.


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

As Birnbach acknowledges, this is when the now ubiquitous fleece pullover came to prominence.


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## FLMike (Sep 17, 2008)

Did someone say Carhartt? Sitting in the woods in a pair of Carhartts at this very moment....


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

I'll ignore my personal opinion and point out that Bill's Khakis were started in 1990


> The idea of starting a company that captured and celebrated the American ideal took on such great philosophical importance to Thomas that he quit his advertising job in Chicago and moved home to Reading, Pennsylvania to start Bills Khakis. The year was 1990.


https://www.billskhakis.com/our_heritage


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## Tourist Trophy Garage (Nov 24, 2011)

Born in 1971, I wore J Crew chinos in the 90s and I knew nothing about clothes except that I liked them plain and simple. J Crew chinos in those days were cut baggy and without pleats and fairly well made. They were available in stone, khaki and olive. The pockets were cut on seam, but not deep enough that I didn't lose a half-dozen pen knives in friends' sofas. I had a few pair with the button fly, but most had zippers.

I didn't know what size shirts to buy then and they were certainly all Large even though I had a 39" chest. I've recently found sport shirts with letter sizing from the same era at the thrift in my size (now a solid L with 42" chest) and the collars are spare and the shoulders dropped. The 90s were well influenced by David Byrne's big suit and it took a long time to recover. The baggy look of that era made it difficult for a fellow to pick clothes if he didn't know what actually fit and only wore off the rack casual stuff from mall stores and mail order houses where there was no supervision.

I had a job around that time that required me to wear a shirt and tie (slinging cocktails) and figured out how to measure my neck and sleeve, so dress shirts actually fit me pretty well, went through a ton of 15.5/34 Stafford tab collar shirts from JC Penney. They had an "athletic fit" that was slim in the waist. I pressed a shirt every day and wore them until the collars were frayed. I was required to wear black trousers for work and the only ones available had pleats. It was impossible to find black pants without pleats then for some reason, and I hated it.

J Crew had straighter-cut chinos with frog mouth pockets by 96 or so, and I had a pair of those, too. (oof!)I can remember wearing them with a white BB OCBD and boiled wool v-neck sweater from Gap on New Year's Eve (must have been 96 or 97)


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## AldenPyle (Oct 8, 2006)

katon said:


> Tried once before but the thread derailed, so I thought I'd try again, now that it's been 25 years since the 90s started.
> 
> What new items entered the look?


Gore-Tex



katon said:


> Who were the tastemakers?


Sam Waterston


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## ricardofrancisco (Jan 1, 2013)

I grew up in the 90's and in my opinion it was a period where it was all about comfort and the "accept me for who I am (because I'm a slob)" attitude hence most of the youth ended up wearing either extremely baggy clothes such as those worn by hip-hoppers or the "just-rolled-out-of-bed" look preferred by grunge rockers. Luckily, my parents taught me not to be too trendy.


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## marinephil (Jun 30, 2013)

How about this guy?


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## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

Ah, good old George. He's definitely trad, and he's definitely 1990s, but his clothes reach back, fortunately, to eras well before the 1990s.


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## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

marinephil said:


> How about this guy?


The J. Peterman influence? 










I think they sold more Himalayan Walking Shoes than white bucks, though. 









(1993, courtesy of Tom Cunniff)


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## WillBarrett (Feb 18, 2012)

Tilton said:


> What you just posted is actually the uniform of mid-to-late 2000's east coast frat boys rather than a trad 90's get-up.


That's been the getup of SEC and ACC frats since the early 90s, at least, and I've seen pictures of Greeks in the late 80s sporting worn out Duck Heads, polos and grey new balances. That look is close to twenty-five years old in this neck of the woods.

And it's a solid look, too, as a casual stepping stone towards something more traditional.


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## WillBarrett (Feb 18, 2012)

Tempest said:


> J. Crew did have a great color palate back then. They also made some decent button fly chinos. Actually, they had the 9 to 11" inseam shorts and a de rigeur anorak pullover thing.
> I recall the inverted stripe shirts, where the background would be light blue, or sometimes pink, with widely spaced white stripes being popular.
> I believe this is the era when the *Gap*, BR , etc. started selling ties too.


I worked at Gap in 2000 for about nine months, and back then we still sold lots of solid basics - good polos, sturdy chinos (and shorts!), heavy denim, sweaters and the Big Oxford. It wasn't perfect, but lots of good stuff to be had. Truth be told, I wish I still had my big oxfords I bought back then.


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## WillBarrett (Feb 18, 2012)

and while we're at it...

J. Crew in fall 2003 was ON FIRE. I still wear some poplin tartan shirts and a rugby I bought that year. Had a nice lambswool rollneck that I finally unloaded on e-bay. Khakis were solid...man the middle ground has just collapsed.


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## Fading Fast (Aug 22, 2012)

WillBarrett said:


> and while we're at it...
> 
> J. Crew in fall 2003 was ON FIRE. I still wear some poplin tartan shirts and a rugby I bought that year. Had a nice lambswool rollneck that I finally unloaded on e-bay. Khakis were solid...man the middle ground has just collapsed.


Agreed, even until probably +/- '08, J.Crew had yet to go full on skinny, so you could still get classics in classic sizes. While I still do well with the brand - I am very skinny so some of the slim stuff fits me like regular clothes fit others - it was, to your point, on fire in the first years of the 2000s.


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## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

I bought some pretty good things around 08/09 at the Crew, but yes, quickly after that they went all skinny-trendy. Their tartan button-downs around 08/09 hit it out of the park, and I still wear a couple of them to this day. It was almost like they'd started eavesdropping on Style Forum streetwear forum and were alarmed that all the hipster kids were liking all the weird San Francisco men's clothing stores.



Fading Fast said:


> Agreed, even until probably +/- '08, J.Crew had yet to go full on skinny, so you could still get classics in classic sizes. While I still do well with the brand - I am very skinny so some of the slim stuff fits me like regular clothes fit others - it was, to your point, on fire in the first years of the 2000s.


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## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

AldenPyle said:


> katon said:
> 
> 
> > Who were the taste makers?
> ...












Maybe Clark Kent?  Lands' End seemed to be a fan, anyway.


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## WesleyBentz111 (Mar 13, 2015)

katon said:


> Tried once before but the thread derailed, so I thought I'd try again, now that it's been 25 years since the 90s started.
> 
> Who were the taste makers?
> 
> ...


What are My Thoughts My Thoughts are that Patagonia is sweet.


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## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

Those J. Crew pullover anoraks.


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## corey (Oct 30, 2005)

The early 90s were not a particularly proud span of years on my clothing timeline. Graduating high school in '94, I owned waaay too many articles from the now-defunct Chess King mall retailer (e.g., Z. Cavarrici’s, B.U.M. Equipment). However, I do miss the mid-atlantic chain, Britches Great Outdoors, along with A&N Stores...


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## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

1990 is now as far away from 2020 as 1960 was from 1990; anything becoming clearer?

What about the preppie-at-a-Phish-concert look?  

I want to say that the 90s was when Lands' End started pushing repro-vintage baseball caps of the sort that the Cooperstown Ballcap Company used to make, which lead to modern companies like Ebbets Field Flannels (although I think Cooperstown is still around in some form as the Ideal Cap Company; little hazy on the connection.)


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## Patrick06790 (Apr 10, 2005)

It was a combination of things that finally brought down Cooperstown Ball Cap. I think legal problems were first and foremost. Licensing etc. Thank you MLB. The New Era caps are awful things with the billboard front that refuses to soften up. I put one through the washing machine three times to see if it made a difference. It didn't.

https://archivalblog.com/archival-l...hree years,U.S, make this decision inevitable.


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## Steve Smith (Jan 12, 2008)

Dr. D said:


> The best trad aspect of the 90s was that was the last time Brooks was still making their OCBDs the right way: with unlined collars and in a variety of colors of unistripes.


The current model made in USA Brooks Brothers OCBD has an unlined collar and was made in at least 7 different colors and 4 fits in University Stripe. They made them for at least a year and many are still available on the BB website and ebay. Interesting side note: they seem to have dropped the classic red university stripe when they changed to the new style OCBD.


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## Vecchio Vespa (Dec 3, 2011)

It was a tough era. The internet was so new that here in Austin shopping at O'Connell's or the like was not on most radars. Press was fine by phone, and a true Trad can easily shop by phone. All the 3/2 suits I could find in Austin that were 3/2 were often darted, and suits all seemed to have pleated pants. Those things may be well and good for some, but I got my suits and shirts then from Press. Ties were going through major changes with Hermes, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Gucci repeating prints abounding. They were beautiful but not Trad. Yet I wore them, sometimes even with solid blue or pink shirts with white collars. I actually liked that look with black Gucci bit loafers. The Trad tie offerings of madder and repp were sad, and challis just flat out disappeared. I still have not recovered from lots of the ties of the 1990s. Jerry Garcia anyone? Fortunately my supply of Alden for Brooks LHS and tassels carried me through that decade, and I always preferred tassels in No. 8 to oxfords with all suits but navy. All in all the Trad wardrobes of the 1990s were just far enough from what a real Trad, especially one forged in the northeast in the 1960s, would want that they made the segue into casual attire more palatable. At least it was still possible then to find flat front khakis, OCBDs, Shetlands, and 3/2 odd jackets, although many beloved offerings from Brooks and Press were already disappearing. I never got into the dressier office casual look which IMO made everyone look as if they had just gone crazy at a JAB sale. People called me preppy, too, but I knew my 1990s outfits would have flunked Birnbach 101.


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## Danny (Mar 24, 2005)

If this was mentioned earlier in the thread I may have missed it, I tried to read through fairly quickly. Anyway, Britches and Britches Great Outdoors could be said to have had their heyday in the early 1990s. There are certain shades of purple and green that made their way into clothing in the 90s that I feel are particular to that era. I still have some Britches rugby shirts from the early 90s.


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