I just got a nice unstructured navy cotton jacket, patch pockets but no other desirable attributes, collar doesn't sit right, but good length, brown buttons , $aud100 around £70gbp. That the right price according to my non rational internal meter.

Just spied this beauty on eBay. I didn't think they could get any worse...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NWT-J-KEYDGE-ORIGINAL-SLACK-JACKET-IVY-Trad-PATCHWORK-sack-blazer-sportcoat-/350867058083?pt=US_CSA_MC_Blazers_Sport_Coats&hash=item51b14e6da3

If only Hitler could've engaged such keen lateral thinking. Axelist promise never to become a tyrannical dictator.

I like sorbet but not for a hat

He's been to the Jeff Reed Academy for Silly Poses.

It's funny for me to constantly see Land's End listed amongst the better clothiers on this site and others.  I'm American and as a kid we wore Land's End and I thought of them as cheap knock-offs ( I do realize that no one on this site thinks they are a luxury company...).  They were comparable to The Lodge, another store that I knew was as close as my family could afford to the real thing.  As a high school kid, I bought my first monogrammed ocbd's there (with my own money) and then wore them to a hippie arts college looking like a throw back to the Kennedy administration...

Yes, LLBean always seemed like it sold clothing made for characters in a rural Stephen King novel.  However, its authenticity was undisputed; it sold practical clothing for weekend fisherman and gardeners and people who you knew had enough property around their homes to need a variety of waterproof shoe styles.

I wear Bean stuff pretty much most days, but for me LE is in the same catagory as Cotton Traders - cheap, mail order.

Last edited by Leer R. (2013-09-04 10:27:23)

Pre-internet growing up, I used to flip through seasonal Bean and Orvis catalogs with my dad and the quality of clothing and manufacture was so much higher back then. Style was hardly a consideration though. It was more about quality American made practical and comfort wear. We'd regularly send out for mail order flannel shirts, pajamas and even bed sheets, long underwear, cotton turtlenecks, wool socks and shearling slippers. Ocassionally deck shoes and boots or outdoors gear and gadgets. I remember the buzz of sending out for a new Woolrich parka for school and I still have a few Norwegian sweaters that I wear regularly (and lots of knitwear from Orvis which is still a great company!) but I wouldn't touch anything from Bean nowadays as the quality has taken a serious nosedive and everything looks and feels cheaply made to me. It seems the company has been forced to reconsider it's identity and demographic in the mostly internet driven commerce world that it now inhabits, as the days of American handmade goods sold by mail order catalog are a thing of the past and it's doubtful that they could have continued to remain commercially viable in that niche market, so they've been gradually rebranding themselves as another ubiquitous Gap gone rustic style outfitter for the affordable everyman, where nothing is of particularly high craftsmanship or standout design and yet they've abandoned most of their heritage lines for updated and revamped, cheaply manufactured, modern crap. At least with regards to their clothing and accessories.

^
Very nice.  What's the label in that mutha?