Handkerchiefs and Pocket Squares

[Jack Scorpion]

Handkerchiefs

Q:

Where can I find a good men's handkerchief for daily use?

 

[Nathan Flowers]

Penneys. I like the Stafford brand.

 

[Matt Deckard]

Yes these are good.

 

[Wild Root]

Those are good! I have some and they are very nice. I also have a pile of vintage ones as well. Plaids, art deco designs and more! You can find some really swell ones at thrift shops or Estate sells. Yes, these are used but, clean. Me, all I use them for is to put in my upper outer suit coat pocket for that well groomed vintage look

Root.

 

[schwammy]

Naw, he said 'good' handkerchiefs. The ones at Penney's are all cotton. A GOOD handkerchief, in theory, should be linen. I have yet to come across anyone who still makes linen handkerchiefs, however.

 

[Matt Deckard]

The ones I put in my jacket pockets are 100% linen and come from Brooks Brothers.
I usually have to call their catalog and special request them because they do not list them in the catalog.

They are big like a napkin yet thin like a hanky.

You have to ask for the ones that are not pre folded and they cost an arm and a leg for I think 4.

You must iron them once in a while.

I have cotten ones on the ready if I know I am going to use it, I keep the linen in the visable pocket. If I need it I use it too.

 

[schwammy]

Thanks for the tip, Matt. God bless the Bros. Brooks.

 

[The Wingnut]

There's an easy way to keep your handkerchiefs ironed: Use them as a buffer between your iron and your pants as you press them. This works two ways - obviously, it irons your handkerchief, but it also protects your pants from getting 'iron polish', especially if it's a gabardine or other sort of heavy fabric. If you're the adventurous sort, you can press your jackets using this method, as well...keep the heat a touch higher than you normally would to penetrate the handkerchief, and use a lot of steam. It's great for getting a quick press on a suit just out of a suitcase or between wearings when there's just not enough wear to justify going to the cleaners.

Here are a couple of quick links off of google:

http://www.lartisana.com/category.cfm?TopCategoryID=121

http://www.franslinens.com/handkerchiefs2.html?referrer=google

 

[Canadave]

I gotta ask...

Not for the squeamish...

Tell me fellas, do you actually use them? Know what I mean? OK, I guess I could see wiping my nose if it was dripping a bit, but when I have a cold or allergies, I really need to blow! And there's some volume in there. I REALLY couldn't imagine putting that back in my pocket.

You?

David

 

[The Wingnut]

I need them. I have unusually small nasal passages, and like you, I seem to generate a lot of mucous. I don't use a good linen one, obviously...the suit pocket handkerchiefs don't see use, but the cheap cotton ones almost always are somewhere on me, especially in cold weather.

 

[Matt Deckard]

I use them as a last resort if I haven't a tissue around.

The time I really break it out is when I am dancing and breaking out in a sweat. I know that it's going from my pocket to the wash basket as soon as I get home.

I use mine more to wipe my brow than my nose, though if the need arises I'll stuff it in a way that won't get any on my jacket.

 

[Matt Deckard]

Hey Shwammy,
If you buy the BB ones take some pics.

They are more substantial than most sold today, and look like the bulky white ones you see stars wearing in the 30's.

When they have been in your pocket for a whle they sometimes droop... I like the look.

 

[Brad Bowers]

Brooks Brothers probably doesn't sell them through their outlet stores, then. I'm heading to one tomorrow, so I'll check anyway.

I usually carry two, one in my coat breast pocket for looks and emergencies, and one in my right-hand coat pocket to wipe the sweat away, which is quite frequent on warmer days. I just can't bring myself to use them on my nose instead of tissue. I know my dad did, though.

Brad

 

[Matt Deckard]

If you run into any at the outlet, they are not rolled. They are sold in a flat box folded into squares.
The edge all the way around doubles back about a half inch (overwelt).

I doubt you will find them at the outlet. i think they are mainly sold in the East coast stores to as I could not find any at the stores in LA... I had to have along conversation with the catalog lady on the phone.

 

[Andykev]

Re: I gotta ask...

Originally posted by Canadave
Not for the squeamish...

Tell me fellas, do you actually use them? Know what I mean? OK, I guess I could see wiping my nose if it was dripping a bit, but when I have a cold or allergies, I really need to blow! And there's some volume in there. I REALLY couldn't imagine putting that back in my pocket.

You?

David

Reminds me of the T.V. show Laverne & Shirley: she says (looking at the hanky in a coat pocked of her date) "is that for showin' or for blowin"?

 

[Andykev]

JC is worth every Penny

Again, I vote for the JC Penny's line. Their cotton shorts and t-shirts, and hankies, are really good quality for the price.

I have checked out Nordys (gosh their stuff is nice), but so is the price.

 

[schwammy]

Of course I use a handkerchief for blowing my nose. That is the purpose of a handkerchief, along with cleaning glasses and dealing with life's little emergencies (spot removal, nosebleeds, crying wife, etc.). At a pizza place a few months ago, my four-year-old daughter got hit in the nose with a basketball. Being in shorts and sans hank, I had nothing with which to deal with the nosebleed. Employees tried to help with pitiful paper towels, but it wasn't until a 70-ish gentleman offered his handkerchief that things really got under control.

I'm in a production of "You Can't Take It With You" right now, and there's a scene where the leading lady is crying and the leading man tries to comfort her. Since the leading man is supposed to be an upper-crust young gentleman, I told him he needed to offer her his handkerchief. Of course, being 25, he didn't have one, so I gave him mine, and they have been using it for every performance ever since.

Interestingly, facial tissue was originally designed for removing cold cream. It wasn't until the mid-20th century that it became acceptable for nose blowing purposes.

This quote from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has always been a favorite of mine. Substitute 'handkerchief' for 'towel.'

"A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar/interstate hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

"More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

To be fair, I do remember reading a passage in Ian Fleming's "You Only Live Twice" where James Bond is 'becoming Japanese,' and he is instructed to carry a packet of tissues, as the English habit of carrying a dirty handkerchief is incomprehensible to the ultra-tidy Japanese.

 

[Matt Deckard]

A must read. It should be standard curriculum for all high school students.

 

[Canadave]

Originally posted by schwammy
Of course I use a handkerchief for blowing my nose. That is the purpose of a handkerchief, along with cleaning glasses and dealing with life's little emergencies (spot removal, nosebleeds, crying wife, etc.). ...

After you've blown your nose, is there really anything else you can do with it?

David

 

[Wild Root]

Yeah, you wash it.