# A trip through Chamois Cloth Shirts, and some questions...



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

An L.L. Bean classic.

Introduced in 1927 as the "Leatherette Shirt", a wind-resistant lightweight alternative to buckskin, renamed "Chamois Cloth" for the Spring 1933 catalog, in, I imagine, the original color, Tan.









(1960)

By 1960, another color had crept in - Bright Red.









(1964)

Status quo maintained. Also, an explanation for the red (given the inertia involved in catalog copy at the time, quite possibly the exact wording from when Bright Red was new): "The scarlet is a good fishing shirt as red repels black flies. Also safe for dragging in deer without coat."









(1971)

By 1971, another color - Forest Green. The elder Bean had died in 1967. Ambitious grandson Leon Gorman now running the show.









(1975)

By 1975, we've added Navy to the mix. The backpacking boom was in full swing. I suspect that chamois cloth shirts sold vigorously. 









(1978)

And another color, Slate Blue, now in two sleeve lengths.









(1982)

Now in six colors! (How long did Ivory last?)









(1987)

Still U.S.-made. (of U.S. flannel, or had they switched to Portuguese flannel by now?) Still sized by neck. No "sage" yet, but wait a few years... :icon_smile_big:

Current options:

The four colors from 1975

"Deep Blue" and "Pale Green", which I suppose are the current approximations for Slate Blue and Sage Green

And now Burgundy for those who like the idea of Red more than the color itself, and "Charcoal Grey Heather", the only one of the Heather colors to have escaped the Clearance section

Where one can find Loden Heather, Light Grey heather, Indigo Heather

"Dusty Olive" and "Bayside Blue" all made in S-M-L sizing of 7.5oz Portuguese flannel (why did they increase it, I wonder? Was it at 7.5 oz some time prior to the Eighties?) manufactured in a place of indeterminate origin. 
































And in slim-fit, (but otherwise the same?) "Adobe Red", "Black Slate", "Deepest Green", and "Barley" through L.L. Bean Signature.

So is anyone still offering U.S.-made chamois cloth shirts? What about chamois cloth shirts with neck sizing? (Anyone doing both?)


----------



## dmac (Jun 30, 2006)

Katon: I've found that Bills Khakis shirts are the best approximation of old LL Bean quality. Their offerings vary from season to season, but they they do tend to offer rugged shirts in heavy flannels.


----------



## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

Reviving this thread to show an image of LLB's "Leatherette shirt" from the Fall 1927 LLB catalog.

I'm not sure if that shirt is the true predecessor of the chamois shirt. The collar and chest pockets are different, although its description is similar to the chamois shirt listed in the Fall 1942 catalog.

Interesting that the shirt price was $4 in 1927, and $2.60 in 1942.

*^ Fall 1927*

*^ Fall 1942*


----------



## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

Not sure either, gamma. Looks like it could be the predecessor.


----------



## Tempest (Aug 16, 2012)

Can anyone explain why they slant the bottom of the pocket flaps?


----------



## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

It started as a fishing shirt for Mr. Bean. He might have had a functional reason, e.g., "I want more material at one end of the flap so that I can hook my extra flies there." More likely, a creative designer sketched something on paper that would give the shirt a distinctive appearance, i.e., one would know immediately that it was a Bean shirt. In the business, this is sometimes referred to as "inherent branding" or "characteristic branding," where the brand is apparent in the thing itself, in how it appears.



Tempest said:


> Can anyone explain why they slant the bottom of the pocket flaps?


----------



## ROI (Aug 1, 2004)

Interesting history. Thanks for your effort.

When I was in high school (1969-73) and college for the next four years, two of the prevalent modes of dress were, of course, the hippie, with t-shirts and bell-bottom blues, and what might be considered a variant on ivy league trad, the Bean woodsman. Bear in mind that I went to a large public high school in a Chicago suburb and a small college (about a third the population of my high school) in the New England outback. My class was notable in several ways. We were the largest class in the college's history, 308 men, an excess yield of eight that strained the dorm capacity. We tragically lost a member during freshman orientation week. And we were the first class to have more public school than private school graduates. My high school had a small contingent of what we would now regard as trads, mostly scions of trad parents, who wore khakis, cords, and straight-leg Levis, Gant or Brooks BDs, penny loafers or Clark desert boots, Canterbury harness strap or surcingle belts, and the rest of the costume. Just to the left of the trads was a much larger contingent that I (unscientifically) associate with the Big Ten. They, too, wore straight-leg Levis (though more conspicuously 501s rather than 505s). Above the waist, however, they distinctively wore tartan plaid flannel shirts, Pendleton wool shirts, or chamois shirts over ski turtlenecks, often with the collar bunched rather than folded. Down vests in red, khaki, tartan green, or navy under anoraks alternated with solid color down jackets in the same colors. Hiking boots were a common affectation as were six-inch vertical splits at the jeans' bottoms signaling that they wore them for skiing. The telltale of skiing suggested trips from Chicago to Colorado. 

In college I found that the LL Bean look from high school was worn by many legitimate New England preps. As it turned out, my fraternity's pledge class was rife with three and four-man suites of guys who were friends at the Phillipses and others of the hardcore New England boarding schools. Their uniform, in rather more disheveled condition than my fresh-pressed high school counterparts', was the Bean woodsman or Bean mariner. One difference was that the bona fide preps added layers of shirts. A grey gym T-shirt under a polo shirt under an oxford or tartan flannel under a chamois under a navy and white Norwegian fisherman sweater under a down vest. I saw preps wear jeans under baggy khakis, a downscale version of Oxford bags. Topsiders mended with duct or surgical tape were ubiquitous. For a while I was on the same morning shower schedule as a guy from Exeter who did not dry himself after his shower. He simply started layering on clothes.


----------



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

Great find, gamma!

The 1927 date is from L.L. Bean, but the leatherette shirt does look quite different... Interesting to see that the original color was olive drab; perhaps it started out as military surplus?

The range in 1989, courtesy of Heavy Tweed Jacket:


----------



## zzdocxx (Sep 26, 2011)

Nice thread.

And thanks for the interesting recollections, ROI.


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

I think we'd be remiss if we didn't pull out the handy inflation calculator, which shows that the price in 1927 equates to more than $78 today.


----------



## xcubbies (Jul 31, 2005)

32rollandrock said:


> I think we'd be remiss if we didn't pull out the handy inflation calculator, which shows that the price in 1927 equates to more than $78 today.


How do you figure that? Using the CPI inflation calculator I got a $4 shirt in 1927 comes out to $53 today, a little bit above the current retail price.


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

xcubbies said:


> How do you figure that? Using the CPI inflation calculator I got a $4 shirt in 1927 comes out to $53 today, a little bit above the current retail price.


Good catch. I mis-read. I went with $5.85, the price in the first picture, but that's not 1927, which is my mistake. If I'm reading it correctly, that was the price in 1933, which is more than $105 in today's dollars. I'm using the inflation calculator on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

FWIW, the calculator shows $72.13 in today's dollars for the shirt that sold for $12.50 in 1971.


----------



## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

The ironic thing about this thread is that I received a new chamois shirt today by mail from LLB in exchange for another one I had that was made in El Salvador.

The fabric on the El Salvador shirt felt stiff and crappy compared to an older USA-made one I just received off the Thrift Exchange. Then, I noticed the fabric on the El Salvador's elbows had lost a significant amount of "nap" for want of a better word. The elbows were pretty much worn down to the base level. And I hadn't worn it too many times, either. Less than a dozen. And it's a shirt that's supposed to "get better with age."

So, I called LLB and exchanged it for a new one. I thought the new ones were made in Portugal. The one that came back was made in El Salvador, but the hand is much better than the one I sent back.

For those of you who bought a chamois shirt this year, what is the country of origin? Are you pleased so far with the quality?


----------



## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

More from old LLB catalogs:

*^ Fall 1950. *The price was $4.65 and it was only available in "medium tan."

*^ Fall 1967.* Then priced at $6.45, with TWO colors: tan and bright red.


----------



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

Very nice!

Another reference point, the Spring 1933 version, supposedly the first time it was listed under the "Chamois Cloth" name, courtesy of Lesli Larson over at Archival Clothing:










(Not sure if the design changes happened at the same time, or if they happened while the shirt was still called the "Leatherette Shirt".)


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

Wait a minute.

This post, allegedly from the 1933 catalogue, differs dramatically from the OP's post that is also, allegedly, from the 1933 catalogue. Which is correct? The difference between $5.85 and $1.75 is big even now, and even moreso way back when. I must be mis-reading stuff, again.



katon said:


> Very nice!
> 
> Another reference point, the Spring 1933 version, supposedly the first time it was listed under the "Chamois Cloth" name, courtesy of Lesli Larson over at Archival Clothing:
> 
> ...


----------



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

32rollandrock said:


> Wait a minute.
> 
> This post, allegedly from the 1933 catalogue, differs dramatically from the OP's post that is also, allegedly, from the 1933 catalogue. Which is correct? The difference between $5.85 and $1.75 is big even now, and even moreso way back when. I must be mis-reading stuff, again.


In the original post, the first picture is to illustrate the introduction of Bright Red to the line-up, sometime in the late 50s or early 60s:



katon said:


> (1960)
> 
> By 1960, another color had crept in - Bright Red.


The first few sentences were just introduction. In hindsight, it was not a very well laid-out post; sorry for the confusion!

One interesting thing I'm noticing, however, is that they used the exact same catalog photograph in 1960 that they used in 1933... I wonder if that means there were no design changes during that time? The source of the 1960 image is the July 1960 issue of Popular Science:


----------



## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

^^
No worries. Thanks.


----------



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

katon said:


> The 1927 date is from L.L. Bean, but the leatherette shirt does look quite different... Interesting to see that the original color was olive drab; perhaps it started out as military surplus?












For reference, here's the type of flannel shirt that was used by the Marines right after WWI. According to the Marine Corps Museum, they released a new version of the shirt in 1927; I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Bean had bought out a supply of leftovers. 










On the other hand, WWI vets seemed to prefer "military style" shirts the same way WWII Vets did, so it could have just been an original knockoff.


----------



## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

^ Great information, Katon. I appreciate the historial perspective.


----------



## Duvel (Mar 16, 2014)

gamma, I'll take a look at my new red one later today. I'm curious about the country of origin, etc., now that you've brought it up. Quality seems fine to me, although I have not owned one of these for years, so I don't have a good basis for comparison. Also, I haven't worn or laundered mine yet.


----------



## orange fury (Dec 8, 2013)

Just checked, my chamois shirt is from El Salvador. Fwiw, I also noticed that all my regular flannel shirts from LLB are El Salvador as well.

ive only worn and washed mine once, so I don't have a long term perspective, but I haven't noticed any quality issues


----------



## Brio1 (May 13, 2010)

Ms. Aldrich on the LL Bean Chamois Shirt : https://www.saltwaternewengland.com/2013/11/ll-bean-chamois-shirts-and-scotch-plaid.html


----------



## WesleyBentz111 (Mar 13, 2015)

I picked up some chamois cloth shirts not to long ago they seem to be of good Quality and Heavy i did not know they were around back in the late 20's wow.


----------



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

Brio1 said:


> Ms. Aldrich on the LL Bean Chamois Shirt : https://www.saltwaternewengland.com/2013/11/ll-bean-chamois-shirts-and-scotch-plaid.html


Thanks for the link! One of the folks in the comments put up some pages from Spring 1964:


----------



## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

Love those old catalog posts, Katon. Any idea when LLB stopped issuing chamois shirts with neck sizes (as opposed to S, M, L, XL)?

Also, when did LLB cease making the shirt in the USA?


----------



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

They moved to Portugal in late 2000 or early 2001.

Courtesy of the Internet Archive:

March 2000 -- https://web.archive.org/web/2000030...&cgmenbr=1&parentCategory=3502&shop_method=pp

January 2001 -- https://web.archive.org/web/2001012...=1&parentCategory=3502&shop_method=pp&feat=dp

Not sure about the alpha sizing.


----------



## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

katon said:


> They moved to Portugal in late 2000 or early 2001.


Interesting. It seems to me I read somewhere that LLB decided to move production of the chamois shirt from El Salvador back to Protugal. I think the issue was shirt durability. The current LLB website says the shirt is made in Portugal, but the one I just received was made in El Salvador.

So, I'm left wondering what the "El Salvador" years were for the chamois shirt? And if what I recall about the shift in production due to quality control is accurate.


----------



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

katon said:


> For reference, here's the type of flannel shirt that was used by the Marines right after WWI. According to the Marine Corps Museum, they released a new version of the shirt in 1927; I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Bean had bought out a supply of leftovers.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A Leatherette Shirt from the L.L. Bean archives, courtesy of BackwoodsPlaid:


----------



## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

^ That's a very cool find. Thanks for posting. But I'm not sure how that shirt morphed into LLB's chamois shirt, despite the company's claim. The two have little in common.


----------



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

gamma68 said:


> ^ That's a very cool find. Thanks for posting. But I'm not sure how that shirt morphed into LLB's chamois shirt, despite the company's claim. The two have little in common.


My guess is the fabric is the same. One reason I'm curious if there is any military connection -- maybe the story of Chamois Cloth is like that of the Ripple Sole; initially developed with the military in mind, but not meeting some requirement, so taken and commercialized instead of abandoned entirely.


----------



## katon (Dec 25, 2006)

katon said:


> They moved to Portugal in late 2000 or early 2001.
> 
> Courtesy of the Internet Archive:
> 
> ...


Slight correction -- shirt manufacture was moved to Portugal in late 2000 or early 2001, but it looks like they started moving the fabric in the mid-80s:









(Christmas 1985, courtesy of Heavy Tweed Jacket)


----------

