Last edited by chatsworth osborne jr. (2013-06-20 04:07:02)

An old trick in menswear retail was to take a jacket that was slightly too snug across the shoulders out back and stick your knee in the shoulders and pull hard to loosen the stitching. The jacket was then re-presented to the customer and some tale told about how this one should be better. I'd imagine that ultimately all those jackets must have fallen apart.

I got that story from a guy who'd worked at Austin Reed & Simpson, Piccadilly.

Nothing like that ever went on at The Ivy Shop, although I was fond of doing an inside leg based on whether Sir wore his trousers bellow or above his tummy. It makes a great difference on how the trousers hang. Being an expensive shop in an expensive neighbourhood many of the customers were rather well fed back then, before the fetish for displaying your wealth by looking half-starved.

Trousers with an Ivy rise have to be worn on the natural waist to look their best but these guys didn't have one and so would wear their trou under their gut for comfort as much as anything else. The crotch of the Cords, or whatever, was therefore often hanging a good few inches below where it should have been.

But the customer is always right.

And that other great lie: "They'll ride up with wear."

Talking about clothes is bad enough but now - interior decorating? Ahem!

A classic Fookwit thread.  Amazing he can keep baiting those suckers into meaningless debate.

At least he's managed to find a new mate in Vernon.

Vernon Clark is a winner. But he needs to dog Foo, he's missing the mark there.

You guys are actually reading that thread? Looking at the pictures was enough....wasted 5 minutes of my life that l will never get back.

9 posts since 2010 and one of them is this:

http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/forum/showthread.php?132825-Plaid-Flannel-Lingerie