I have too many things: wallets, glasses case, telephone, keys and stuff that make extra pockets essential, indeed, a jacket to me is most essential in all but the hottest weather.

Despite some initial trepidation, I was initially concerned with the J.Press flap pocket on JSA shirts and the originals, but not anymore.

Yes. MetroCard receptacle. Sometimes holds a credit card, or cash if I am just going downstairs to get something from the outside. No need to take the whole wallet! I've got a chest pocket! Yes, I am wearing pants, but the iGents have got me scared of placing anything in those pockets. The silhouette I strove so hard to achieve may go down in flames.

Love the flap pocket the most, somebody here called them "dreaded" in one thread or another a while ago, but not only is a chest pocket good but the flap-pocket is in my opinion the king of the species ... not all at once but great for a cell phone, metrocard, sunglasses, tickets, shopping list, card wallet, a key, or pen (watch out here though for a main cause of ruined buttondowns) ... you don't always need it but I swear they've come in handy for me in the past and now I feel a shirt is a little naked without a pocket.  When Press phased out flap pockets on many of their shirts (nearly all of their shirts as long as I'd known the place had flap pockets except for the formal shirts and some of the madras) I felt they had lost something that was distinctively Pressian.  I like the pockets in spite of the fact that shirts might look less streamlined with them, in spite of Brooks Brothers having eschewed them once upon a time.  Right now I as I dress to go out I wish I still had this pink end-on-end Press buttondown shirt with flap pocket bought in September 1981, but I don't, the sleeves having frayed to ribbons in the '80s whereupon it was converted to short sleeves and then finally outgrown by 2012.  I like pockets on all my shirts actually, they don't add much weight, they're good without flap on t-shirts and polos, and with flap on buttondowns, overshirts,, and outdoor shirts, they make a garment more useful and therefore better to me.  I like my cotton dress shirts to have lots of volume and material and roominess so a flap-pocket wouldn't make my shirt less streamlined.  Flap-pocket shirts were J. Press and occasionally others sold them, clearly the shirts could be ordered that way, but Press was steadfast about them until the early 2000s or so, one year back in the mid-2000s everything was cleared out and all the superb old shirts disappeared never to return.  And the flap-pocket appeared on their plain-collar shirts too, including the legendary white with blue pencil-stripe.  Going to look for a flap-pocket now!  But I only like shirts with two chest pockets if they're shirt-jacs or overshirts, which are also made better by slash handpockets.

Last edited by stanshall (2013-07-20 18:54:30)

I like how Stanshall's posts are so succinct. Always leaves me guessing. 😋

I can slam out the words it's true, but that only took me about five minutes to write and I wasn't even on the Cuban coffee.  I type fast. 

But since I have only 375 or so posts since 2006 I don't worry about letting let it fly from time to time, and this was one of those times, because I like the flap-pocket
shirt and I wish J. Press was selling the very same shirts today that I was buying back in the '70s and '80s.  Why did things have to change? 

Crayon, pencil, hairline, banker's, butcher's, candy, Press had all these great stripes at all times, in different weights, mostly in blue and white, all with flap pockets,
and in buttondown and plain collars.  And of course white, pink, blue, yellow, and ecru, occasionally other colors.  What a great store for so many years.
Tonight was one more Saturday night in a Brooks madras shirt from India and a pair of poplin trousers from Press.  My shirt had a pocket but I didn't need it.

Sometimes I overexplain but that's how you know that I'm digging deep and not slinging phoniness.

I now get pockets on all my shirts. Even dress shirts. Its practical. Thats where I usually keep a thin biro and one or two of others business cards and the odd receipt and sometimes a small ticket. Nothing bulky.

I thought the back button was a frippery. But let me tell you - if you are wearing a tie with a floppy unlined collar you do actually need a button - other wise the collar creeps up and rolls over badly at the back in a not nice way.

Aye very true.

The proper floppy collared Brooks Makers could really do with a back button. Which is something I think our Henry noticed and adapted his shirts.

All the flop and roll of a Brooks but you stay buttoned down all the way aroun'.

I did like that short phase where you ended all your posts with "I'm on drugs".

But that might have been a different you.





I'm on drugs.