The thread over on The Wardrobe is arse. Can we begin to shed some light upon this mysterious article (as name-checked by John Simons somewhere-or-other)?
An item of clothing for the younger or very fit man. I think you might need a stomach like any ironing board to carry a popover off well.
Hunted down this old Gant seersucker last spring, been wearing it a lot lately. Couldn't have done so two summers ago, before the bicycle routine.
is the shoe named after the fruit pastry, or vice-a versa?
I covet the seersucker po. The Hawaiian brand Reyn Spooner had one that looked nice but is not offered now. Billowy and forgiving.
What I bought on Ebay a few months ago was described by the seller as a polo shirt. Examining it, it's much more like a popover, lacking as it does that tell-tale polo shirt collar (you know, the one that can go all floppy and misshapen after a few washings). It also has a flap pocket that can be buttoned.
It's a USA-made L.L.Bean. The seller had his thumb over the label so all I could see was the A. Could it be, I asked myself, China? I offered them a couple of quid and they took it. The spin of a coin - USA I keep it, China it goes to the local charity shop.
Wore it out yesterday - but beneath a Russell Athletic sweatshirt. Never worn a popover without something over it.
There was a pullover/popover wrangle over on The Wardrobe all those years ago, with JFM (it was he, wasn't it?) preferring the name/term 'pullover'. Now, to the snotty schoolboys of my generation, a pullover was some bobbling, pilling piece of crap your Mam made you wear in the colder weather, often mustard or brick red (I am going back the better part of sixty years). 'Popover was, I think, very much a John Simons term. I'd see a 'pullover' as knitwear really - and rather unattractive knitwear at that - but the 'popover' as a cotton, lightweight item: maybe sea island at its very best?
They were getting a fine old dissing on here recently. I can't say I'd rush to buy another.
A pullover was often charcoal and part of school uniform.
Shetland was often ‘some bobbling, pilling piece of crap’ from British Home Stores and cheaper than lambswool.
Interesting that the Shetland crew neck has assumed more or less cult status in Ivy League inner circles while the more humble lambswool is probably regarded as a ho-hum option. And yet good quality lambswool - UK-made M&S for instance - is not to be sneezed at. Our East Coast American friends might well agree. And before Kingy begins telling me that English and Scottish products need no endorsement from Johnny Yank I'm only echoing something of what Horace (now absent) said some years ago. To my eyes (weakening daily) the Boom Years offerings from Cable Car/Kirk look a bit M&S-ish.
I believe the distinction between popover and pullover to be :
-Popover has no more than 3 buttons and the placket extents no more than a third of the way down the front of the shirt.
-Pullover is the original form of the shirt over the head, from which the popover, a fashionable style in late 50s/early 60s USA, is derived. The pullover can have up to 4 or 5 buttons and the placket extends more than halfway down the shirt front. Mercer sell, or certainly used to sell, a version of the Ivy pullover shirt if you asked them to make it for you, which I did a couple of times back in the day. It was very baggy and did indeed have something of what that wag Frosty Mellor once called the 'Wee Willy Winkie' nightshirt look about it. I imagine Brooks Brothers must, in their earlier days, have been making these very large, very traditional and rather frumpy shirt styles long before the mid-century codification of The Ivy Look.
I've got a blue brooks pullover shirt which buttons almost all the way through. Bit of a weird shirt, and when tucked in basically a normal shirt. Must have been a bespoke shirt, as it has a sort of half pleat. Slightly bizarre but I quite like the quirkiness of it, nonetheless
On a separate note, I really like the navy cord John Simon's popover shirt, even if the second button is a shade high. The 'ivy' shirt range are excellent.
Shetland was often ‘some bobbling, pilling piece of crap’ from British Home Stores and cheaper than lambs wool.
Harrington in Guildford and I think possibly The Ivy Shop Windsor didn't stock Shetland sweaters back in the early 80's. All of their knitwear was either English made Alan Paine and various Scottish knitwear made in Hawick was lambs wool. The first piece of Shetland I bought was from Russell St. All of my knitwear in the 80's was lambs wool.
Saying that both shops sold Irish Aran.
I’m a massive fan of both pop over and pull over shirts.
They feel so American and different from conventional UK shirts.
On the rare occasion it’s warm enough to just wear a shirt but a polo shirt is too boring I often wear one.
There is a great picture in the Jim Marshall Jazz Festivals book of a guy wearing what looks like a chambray pull over shirt and seersucker jacket.
Like the sound of that ^^^ - though I suspect the shirt would be heavier than the jacket!
I like them, because they are a lot cooler to wear in very hot weather than a traditional mesh cotton polo shirt. I also think they look cooler than a short sleeve button front shirt. You do need them a bit baggier not only for taking on and off, but because the extra space allows for more air in between the shirt and skin making them cooler to wear. It gets hot where I live in the summer. I wore one yesterday from Ralph Lauren's defunct Rugby line which has no logo and a great madras pattern.
Browsing The New Yorker's fantastic online archive, as I often do to while away the time and enter the psychic vortex of a frozen and fascinating past, I came across new evidence concerning the pull/popover nomenclature in the 12th September 1959 edition. An advert for Gant Of New Haven features a charming sketch of a handsome crew-cutted Ivy Leaguer in what is described as a 'Hopsack Oxford Pullover'. The shirt features a three button placket which comes half-way down the shirt front, completely contradicting my previous assertations which are, of course, complete nonsense. One must conclude that pullover-popover were different words for the same thing. It's a great ad which I would love to post up here, were that possible, which it isn't. Beneath the Gant ad is a nice simple one for Bass Weejuns - a pair of penny loafers with the tag line 'Traditional Choice....timeless in taste'. Trad!! What would Jimbo have said..?
Let's face it, Jimbo was a bit up his own bottom on this score.
One has drooled over such adverts.