I tried to keep my editorial comments out of the post, wondering if there was a connection to the-poster-who-shall-not-be-named.
Where's the lavender stripe o.c. farrago?
The madras swatches aren't really doing it for me to be honest, but I'm really tempted by the new Chichester Charcoal Royal Oxford. It's a tough decision between that and the Charcoal Chambray Pima, but I'm leaning towards the royal oxford!
I'm gonna have to start avoiding these threads; they're dangerous!
cool, I didn't notice the broadcloth banker stripes. I'm updating my Mercer master file!
Some of those new plaids are very tempting however.
I think the name the Mercers give that "lavender" stripe is actually "heather." They included it in some swatch samples they mailed out earlier in the year, and I have had one of these shirts for several months. However, they only recently put it up on their website, I believe.
They also added a couple of new colors to their line of "Bulletproof" OCBDs, including green and lavender. (They do call it "lavender" this time.) I just got one of the lavender OCBDs last week.
I've been buying Mercer shirts exclusively in recent years.
I received the lavender oxford swatch as well, but couldn't see it as a full shirt. Would you mind posting pictures of yours, out of curiosity?
I too have been buying and wearing Mercer exclusively for the past two years now. I'm about 20 cloths deep at this point. If I could just convince David to add on-seam gussets and stamped sizing in lieu of paper collar tags, it'd be the closest thing to time travel in the otherwise bleak world of modern American men's fashion.
^I'd be glad to oblige you with a photo, but I fear I am "so old school they tore down my school to build the Old School" (as the saying goes). Thus I do not have a digital camera nor even a portable telephone and do not know how to post pix online.
P.S. Those little tabs with the sizing on them used by Mercer are fabric, not paper.
Last edited by captainpreppy (2016-06-03 18:45:10)
You're the archetypal Mercer customer, haha.
Thanks for the links. I couldn't make it through the entire posts. It did pique my interests though: where *are* a lot of the good oxford cloths being made now? I know Brooks was using Supima raw material for a while -- but I don't know where they were weaving and finishing it? USA, Italy? Or is a lot of (even the good) oxford cloth coming from China now? Just curious. Anyone know? I thought some of the Acorn oxford cloth was nice. There were a few really good oxford cloth makes in UK at one time, including DJ Anderson. Troy Shirtmakers used a lot of their stuff.
Apparently the gent who supplies the Mercers with madras is based in (or certainly operating out of ) India and not the one I referred to above, who was dragging the Mercers' name through the mud a while ago.
Who makes Oxford cloth nowadays? I have no idea. Every time I consider buying a new shirt I end up finding a vintage Brooks Makers, and my funds and wardrobe space become used up. In fact it has been several years since I last bought a new shirt (but when I was buying new it was strictly Mercer). Of course plenty of vintage shirts are in terrible condition, but others turn out to be unworn, so it's hard to resist. The old Makers were superior to Mercers imo, but the obvious advantage of the latter is being able to choose a fabric that perfectly suits me and reflects the (metaphorical) gaps in my wardrobe. However as I'm such a rare customer I have never investigated the provenance of their cloth.
Brooks' oxford cloth is American grown fiber woven in Japan.
http://magazine.brooksbrothers.com/american-icon-returns/
Last edited by Oliver (2016-08-25 09:35:01)
I wonder if it just needs to be beat up a bit to desaturize the color and tone the pastel shade down to a muddier green... I can't decide what to do with it.
Last edited by Oliver (2016-08-25 09:37:03)
I wonder if I should experiment by soaking with a little bit of color-safe bleach or washing soda in an iodized salt water solution for a few hours or until I get desired results, then stuffing it into a hot wash cycle?
Last edited by Oliver (2016-08-25 10:18:44)