Last edited by Russell_Street (2008-05-22 09:31:36)

Last edited by Voltaire's Bastard (2008-05-22 18:05:05)

I only ever went in Austin's once.

We chanced on it and noticed it sold American shirts. We used to go to the Squire Shop in Brewer Street.

Anyway, the deal killer was fabric. Their shirts were cotton and we wanted what was then called 'permanent press'. 'It's no bother. Just get your mum to iron it.' was the shop assistant's response.

Last edited by Kingstonian (2008-05-22 12:17:18)

Austin's closed 17.30 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday. late night shoping Thursday, 18.00 Saturday.

Sorry RS  couldn't resist that one.

I think I pressed my nose against their window 66/67 as a teenager, to expensive for me. But a kid can dream. London went psycedelic then and Austin's fell out of favour. Our loss.

RH

Obit. of Dougie Millings who headed up the tailoring section of Austin's:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/dougie-millings-729513.html

http://www.modculture.co.uk/culture/culture.php?id=43

"John Simons opened The Ivy Shop in 1965 and currently owns J. Simons in Russell Street, Covent Garden. He firmly believes that it was easier to acquire modernist clothing in the 1960s. According to John: 'The shirts we used to sell in the 1960s don’t exist anymore in any form so we can’t sell them. We used to get everything from America, but it’s like a giant Topman over there now. The shops are loaded with drivel. Even brands such as Brooks Brothers are now very faceless. We continue to exist through our depth of information and knowledge. It’s difficult to find people without our contacts. It’s certainly not easier than it was, but it is refreshing when young people come in who are comfortable with our style.' "

An overcoat now in the V&A museum from John Simon's Village Gate shop, 1967:

http://images.vam.ac.uk/indexplus/result.html?_IXFIRST_=2&_IXSS_=_IXFIRST_%3d1%26_IXINITSR_%3dy%26%2524%253dIXID%3d%26_IXACTION_%3dquery%26%2524%253dIXOBJECT%3d%26_IXMAXHITS_%3d15%26%252asform%3dvanda%26%2524%253dIXNAME%3d%26_IXSESSION_%3dV0jKssHQ8VJ%26%2524%253dIXPLACE%3d%26_IXadv_%3d0%26search%3dsearch%26%2524%253dIXMATERIAL%3d%26%2524%253ds%3dvillage%2bgate%26%2524%253dop%3dAND%26_IXFPFX_%3dtemplates%252ft%26%2524%253dsi%3dtext%26%2524%253dIXFROM%3d%26%2524%253dIXTO%3d&_IXACTION_=query&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSR_=ooyd9aPSDEq&_IXSPFX_=templates%2ft&_IXFPFX_=templates%2ft&s=V0jKssHQ8VJ

J.

Edit: That date must be wrong?

Last edited by Russell_Street (2008-05-23 06:31:23)

Does he also wax his Weejuns a la Vaclav?

http://www.baracuta-g9.com/v2/home/news.php?id=22

"The term Ivy League alludes not only to a North American athletic association comprising eight private colleges - such as Yale, Harvard and Cornell - but also refers to the social groups distinctive style of dress.
Enormously rigid, the look comprises heavy wingtip brogues, button down collared shirts, cardigans and flat fronted trousers and is a direct reflection of the Leagues legendary conservatism. But curiously in the late fifties, it was this conformity that made the look as hot as a blacksmiths poker when, a group of quite radical and predominantly bugged out jazz musicians (such as Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Milt Jackson) chose the style to distance themselves from the carnival antics and gregarious fashions of the previous generation of jump and jive jazz entertainers. And as night follows day, the once conservative style, became the epitome of hip on both sides of the Atlantic.

“You had a lot of cool jazz guys such as Jimmy Heath, Art Pepper and Miles Davis wearing the jacket,” continues Simon.“ But the real explosion came when Steve McQueen wore it on the cover of Life Magazine in 1963. He was such a huge modernist and mod icon that anything he wore caught on.”

Mc Queen’s appearance in the jacket pre-empted a wave of classic Americana in the UK as many original Mods, appalled by the antics of their younger more violent counterparts at the Mods and Rocker riots at Brighton over the Whitsun Bank Holiday of 1964, turned back to the less accessible Ivy League style that they had purloined from the US jazz guys in the early sixties and the Baracuta G9 was a vital component.

“We were the first to stock the jacket as a style item in the UK in late 1966,” states Simon. “ At the time the programme Peyton Place was on TV and Ryan O’Neal wore one in the show so I put one in the window of my shop, The Ivy Shop in Richmond with a ticket saying, The Harrington Jacket, and the name stuck .The first to buy the jacket listened to jazz and soul wore really sharp mohair suits and based themselves on McQueen in the film Love with a Proper Stranger.”

“ The Harrington was part of a style that was so subversive because it was so Ivy League and so conservative compared with all the hippy fashions
that were around at the time, ” says Dexy’s Midnight Runners singer Kevin Rowland.“ The hair was like a short back and sides like an American
astronauts, the shoes were these thick soled Gibson’s and the Harrington was the jacket.”

Since the ‘Harrington’ has been prominent feature of almost every British youth movement- a hardy perennial in the annals of UK sartoria “Paul Simonon wore one as a punk with the Clash while Chas Smash wore his in his band Madness,” says Paul Gorman author of, The Look -the universally
acknowledged last word on street fashion, “A jazzer could wear it as well as a rude boy, rockabilly or a Mod and all the Brit Pop guys love it. Of late the Baracuta original has been picked up by a whole new generation of stylish thirty and forty some things that just want to look sharp.”

But why should a simple zip up jacket designed primarily for golfers some seventy year ago still rule the roost? “ Because It’s got street credentials for connoisseurs”’ states Maxim fashion editor Tom Stubbs the “ It’s classic Americana that slots in differently into the British likely lad look as we have our own way of wearing it. It is such a great shape
and one can put your hands in the pockets and posture quite easily. It looks as good with jeans, chino’s or slacks and on everyone from 8 to 80 –
it is an essential.”

“We stock it now because it has now lost its hard edge,” says Eddie Prendergast, the owner of The Duffer of St George, who now sells the full slim line range. “It used to be in mainly black – now you can buy it in all these brighter softer colours and plaids and so it has a little of that tough connotation but more to do with the original American idea of the Ivy League and that is why it is so bang on the money.”

And now that high fashion is commonplace there has never been a better time to turn back to the classics and look as if your not trying too hard.“
The Baracuta Harrington supersedes fashion ,” says tailor and designer Mark Powell. “ It is a purely stylish garment and even when the fashion
fizzles out it will still remain. It is a true icon and probably the world’s most copied zip up jacket.”

In the rush to celebrate Baracuta G9s, people overlook the fact that the Harrington worn by most London teens back in the day was actually a copy made by dear old Millets.

It did not have the knitted collar but it was none the worse for that in my view. It was far more affordable too. Black became the skinheads popular colour - but there were others, including really nice houndstooth and Prince of Wales check versions as the look got established.

Again it was a London thing. I can remember being asked in Portsmouth where I got my jacket - a bog-standard, black, Millets Harrington. Pompey were playing in the old second division then, so I am not sure if the look would have been first spotted there on the terraces.