Thick as Thieves now open for business... late '50s/early '60s style

[Jovan]

Just thought I'd give you guys who are into "mod" or Ivy League style that my friend from the Style Forum just opened his own suiting business called Thick as Thieves. (He is the shorter guy in the Showroom section of the website.)

The jackets are available in one button peaked lapel (with two sleeve buttons) and three button notched lapel (with four). The jackets feature narrow lapels, ticket pockets, and dual vents. Trousers feature frog mouth pockets, no pleats, and one back pocket. Hand made, floating canvas, English fabrics. Sizes 36-42 even.

He has a pretty modest price since it's a small business, $450 per suit. The sleeves and inseam are also unfinished to 26" and 38" respectively ready for alterations, but they can be done to fit you and with working buttonholes on the sleeves for an extra $50.

Check it out! Be sure to contact him should you have any questions. www.thickasthievesla.com

 

[adamgottschalk]

As someone with an affinity for the late-50s/early-60s style exclusively, I must say, the site shows a great deal of promise. Thanks for the lead

 

[Senator Jack]

For the last twenty years I keep asking, 'why doesn't someone just make cool 60s suits?' and everyone who tries it has to tinker. Merc makes a good mod suit, only the material is godawful and they're cut for 37lb epicene rockers. Thomas Browne...well we won't go there again. And yeah, the suits have potential here, but what's with the buttfreezer jacket? (And the overlapping ticket pocket?)

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[ENfield3-8303]

If they were to offer the suits in larger sizes I'll certainly be interested.

 

[The Wingnut]

Jack, I've got the same gripe with nearly every 'mainstream' reproduction...no matter how 'faithful' to the original something claims to be, it seems somwhere along the design / production process someone says, "Well, now, this is just dumb the way they did it in the past, new methods / styles / fashion / materials / design philosophies should be integrated, after all, we don't want to do a perfect reprodution, we've got to make it our own!"

Argh. If you're going to reproduce something, reproduce it, don't make a knockoff!

There are a good number of exceptions to the rule, such as military reproduction companies, but authenticity is such a critical issue in their case that they HAVE to make right or it'll affect sales...

The site posted above doesn't offer any detail photos that I can find, just a few modeling shots. What I do see looks decent, but I'm not expert when it comes to the '50s and '60s.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

If they were to offer the suits in larger sizes I'll certainly be interested.

Exactly...two styles in only four sizes...reminds me of Bogie in Big Sleep at Gieger's Bookstore. "You do sell books, don't you?"

 

[Jovan]

The "bumfreezer" jackets are just his aesthetic, and the fashion back in the day. Most of the details here are according to his own tastes. I personally am not a fan of the trousers, but I'd pick up a jacket alone.

There's going to be shirts, knitwear, etc. sometime this year as well. As for the sizes, I agree he should offer larger sizes, that's been the big criticism on Style Forum as well. Maybe he'll get to it sometime this year.

 

[reetpleat]

This stuff is great. Definitely not my style, but I love it. I know a lot of ex mods who used to sport the cool mod vintage.

I do agree. If yo uwant to make money in vintage repro, make big sizes. Smaller sizes can be found in vintage, but the big guys will pay mad money for a suit that fits them.

I do love this stuff. Does he do a bond style? with the three piece two button.

 

[Salv]

For the last twenty years I keep asking, 'why doesn't someone just make cool 60s suits?' and everyone who tries it has to tinker. Merc makes a good mod suit, only the material is godawful and they're cut for 37lb epicene rockers. Thomas Browne...well we won't go there again. And yeah, the suits have potential here, but what's with the buttfreezer jacket? (And the overlapping ticket pocket?)

Regards,

Senator Jack

Merc really are shoddy, as are the other Mod clothiers around Carnaby Street. There's a tailor in Portobello Green in Notting Hill, west London, with a shop just called called Adam that I think has been making suits since the '60s, and whose work seems to be much better quality. There's an example of one of his jackets in this .pdf file

If you open it in a browser window you should be able to zoom in on it to see it in better detail http://www.westway.org/about_us/wha...atureDec06Jan07058-059_Adv1_Porto_red__3_.pdf

 

[Jovan]

This stuff is great. Definitely not my style, but I love it. I know a lot of ex mods who used to sport the cool mod vintage.

I do agree. If yo uwant to make money in vintage repro, make big sizes. Smaller sizes can be found in vintage, but the big guys will pay mad money for a suit that fits them.

I do love this stuff. Does he do a bond style? with the three piece two button.

As I said, ask HIM the questions! I have no idea if he plans to do anything like that. I will show him this thread though.

 

[Jovan]

Just got a reply back to him after showing the responses here.

my one button cut is made for thin guys, on a larger size it just won't look right. I've had PMs asking if I can make a size 46+ but I'm straight with them and say that at that proportion, my design isn't the best one for them. I suppose the 3 button could work on a larger scale, but one needs to work with their actual physical type rather than a mental romantic notion of what he'd like to look like.

but the sack I'm trying to work on will definitely accomodate large guys too.

The sack suits I'm definitely interested in as well, to see if it's possible for a fitted one to work.

Thanks for the thread....one thing guys need to 'get' is that I'm not trying to repro or knockoff anything. These are the suits that *I* want to wear based on years of being into clothes and finding that when I saw something that really appealed to me, it's usually in the very high price range. and many of the posters are correct, that Merc used to be the 'go to' mod suit but they are complete garbage, and cost the same as mine. They were actually a huge inspiration for this project, by offering such [expletive deleted].

Heh.

 

[cookie]

50-60s suits

Interesting how much the tonic suits are bringing on eBay recently.

The US is doing sharkskin and I got a nice one (cheap) on sale at paulfrederick.com which was well made and a flash material. Wish I had bought the navy one.

And now back to... Seventy Seven Sunset Strip!