I wear them again now but I didn't for a long time. They soon became a kid's jacket and then a hooligan's especially in black.
The first Harringtons came into the Ivy shop around late 1967 and were not all by Baracuta. There were various makes mainly UK produced. The Harrington as a new smart style really only lasted for months if that, they were copied into the ground and people very quickly moved on.
The Ivy shop was always very expensive, you had to really save up for shoes and shirts from there. Very few bought Harringtons there when you could even get them in local markets as soon as the fashion hit. You shopped there for the shoes more than anything and then the shirts.
The pub opposite Windsor Castle had a bloke called Barry who sold stolen Ivy shop shirts and soon got nicked. It was all a very big fashion once.
The way to wear the Harrington was to zip it up and pull it up to your belt so it belled out and folded over in a blouson way. They were a wider cut than modern Baracutas too. They came in all colours and having a little seen colour would make you stand out. Tonic ones were especially prized, I don't think Baracuta ever made those.
It was a baggy up top look with the full cut American shirts and jackets which then paired with slim trousers and heavy American shoes. Those were the proportions.
I hope this is all of interest!
Last edited by Hard Bop Hank (2012-07-11 09:23:44)
That's exactly how we dressed for a while.
The harrington has gone the same way as the pea coat in the fact that every Tom, Dick and Harry is wearing them.
Splits opinion on here. I like them but haven't worn one for a while.
Last edited by Richard Bergman (2012-07-11 08:55:55)
I had a black one from Millets having initially bought a blue green one that was a bit too baggy.
Don't wear a black one now though
Thanks for this and what wonderful pictures. The same was true for me in the early 1980s, up in Nottingham with no internet and copying older blokes from the 1970s we had never heard of Baracuta.
I now wear a Gant windcheater blouson or Farah weekender blouson jacket with collars instead of a harrington now which is much less obvious and avoids people thinking you are a Mod/scooter boy/skinhead/miscellaneous street urchin (delete as appropriate). They look smart with a polo or shirt without being 'scene' related.
BTW - Ian looks very Steve McQueen in that photo.
Last edited by MarkCoyle (2012-07-11 09:23:39)
In my upper fifties I wear a Harrington in the hope of being mistaken for a Mod/scooter boy/skinhead/miscellaneous street urchin (delete as appropriate)
Seriously, Navy Blue and Stone are versatile colours and don't seem to have the roughneck association that black has.
P.S. I have a lovely Golden Bear (Jack Nicklaus) drizzler type jacket in a lovely shade of orange if anyone's interested.
I thought you'd be getting full use out of that at the mo Woof!
JS have got green Grenfell Harringtons.
Lovely ones!
And some G4 type jackets!
Last edited by heikki k (2012-07-11 13:38:19)
I like them, have a few and wear them when I feel like wearing one.
WOW !
Welcome.
I left this forum this morning in such gloom as well !
Much to discuss -
Best,
Jimmy
The Squire shop was close by a strip club, whereas the Ivy Shop was in well-heeled Richmond. Depends what you mean by smarter.
I started in the Squire Shop which was all skinhead at the weekends.
By 1969 the Ivy shop was Skinhead every day of the week!
The Squire shop was smarter in clothes terms and customers at that point, which is odd as it was as you say in seedy Soho. Not that I have a problem with Skinheads, they just weren't us. The Squire shop became known as the place the better dressers went to so you started in the right place! The Ivy shop had been very smart & would be again but there was a period when it was just swamped with stupid little local kids. "Bollocks" was our name for them as they were usually in pairs and had heads like a pair of fuzzy little nuts!
JFM - Yes is the short answer, I'll reply in more detail after. Time I turned off the computer!
After the Skinhead craze had died down the Ivy shop became respectable again and the smarter dressers returned. Some of the Skinheads grew up and became better dressed too, many just moved on to the next fashion of long scruffy hair.
At this point the Squire shop moved to selling the new long-haired fashions too and some people dropped the shop. Later came the Village Gate which was even worse. You could still find some nice things though but the styling of much of it was really off. There were a load of shops with this new look in them then and it was all really common. Everybody dressed the same in flares. My wedding photos of the time show my side all in conservative suits and my wife's side all in flares. That was the divide you would see then and the flared side won out for a while. It wasn't until the 1980s that a return to conservatism happened and the Ivy shop really had a second boom under its new name of John Simons in Covent Garden.
The Covent Garden shop was then the place to go. I was working in London so it was then easier for me to get to than Richmond oddly enough. The quality of the goods there was second to none eclipsing even the Ivy shop at its peak in the pre-Skinhead 1960s. I also started to visit America at that time too.
Then for about 30 years until the new shop opened and Covent Garden closed the style was very constant. You could get all you wanted there. The same clothes were cheaper in America but not when you added on the air fare! Covent Garden was a one-stop Ivy shop.
Which almost brings us up to date with the new shop on Chiltern Street and a bit of a new direction for John Simons. Getting good Ivy clothes is harder than ever now with the decline in standards in America since about the mid 1990s. The second hand market (call it "vintage" and add on another tenner!) has grown as a result, something I never thought I'd wear but now do. The internet has made things easier too but the hard thing is to get the old quality these days.
And that is just about it for my story!