Converse and three ring socks combination (1974)

THIS is how a baller rolls!

Wilt Chamberlain for Spalding (1974)

Ad copy reads:
"Full color posters of Rick Barry, Pistol Pete or Wilt himself. To get yours, buy a Spalding Autograph basketball, clip the Spalding name off the box and mail it to the address below with $2. (Each poster is a $5 value!) Every Autograph ball has Spalding's durable rubber cover for a longer lasting bounce and a more natural tacky feel than any vinyl basketball made. That's what Rick, Pete and Wilt think. Or they wouldn't put their names on them."

Grabbed not only for the classic Golden State Warriors uniform complete with matching wristbands, but also the incredible deshiki looking shirt and sansa belt slacks wilt is rocking. It almost looked like he was giving Rick Barry the finger rather than pointing at hist armpit.

KangaROOS Rippers advertisement (1984)

Ah yes, KangaROOS! My all time favorite athlete, Walter Payton, represented ROOS back in the day, so I had to get white ROOS cleats for baseball and football. What's up with that ad copy? "For men, women, kids of all kinds. For fun." Not mentioned in the copy is that back in the day, the ROOS velcro pockets were rumored to be the ideal storage spot for cocaine and it was an urban legend that wearing ROOS was an indicator to the rest of the world that you were 'holding". Such was not the case at my Catholic school's 4th grade class.

They should remake these- the hipsters of the world would eat these Rippers up!

Here's Hockey! (1953)

Ahhhh, there's a slight nip in the air here in Phoenix (we've dropped below 90 degrees a few times lately) and a young man's thoughts turn to hockey- despite the fact that the Coyotes have their bags packed for points unknown. You absolutely must drop everything and watch this short film! Great vintage hockey sweaters throughout!

thanks to Uniwatch for the heads up!
Bookmark the addictive NFB site for more fun!

vintage t-shirt tags

image from Bundlelovers

I'm a vintage t-shirt fanatic so this is like pornography to me. You would be surprised how little there is on the internet or anywhere for that matter about the history of t-shirts. Yes, there are some books out there, but they are more like coffee table books rather than what i'm looking for- a hardcore guide book for the hardcore vintage freak. My bud Jimmy at Defunk'd has put together one of the most useful guides out there.

Most of the companies that produced vintage t-shirts are long gone or have been purchased by much larger companies. Even the heavy hitters like Fruit of the Loom and Hanes have next to no records of when particular tags were used or when particular model numbers were produced. The raving vintage lunatic is left to stitch together the pieces of vintage t-shirt history through old catalogs, magazines, movies, and by sharing tips with fellow travellers. This kind of stuff really appeals to the historical archivist in me, so I've been working on putting together a cohesive history for the past year or so. Wish me luck!

Southwest Airlines uniforms (1981)

Loving you is what we do! The lovely ladies above can love me all they want. I love latently sexist single entendre of ads from this era. The tag line might as well be "you'll probably get laid your flight." I'm definitely digging the short shorts, go-go boots and string ties on these ladies! Beats the heck out of their plain jane "uniforms" now- or is that Plane Jane? Get it?! I'm brilliant.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for Lee jeans brand floppy denim hats (1975)

From Sports Illustrated 1975. This back when Kareem played for the Milwaukee Bucks. This was considered a cool look only by soon-to-be bald giants and the cast of What's Happenin'. This fresh and ultra 70s Kareem in action shot accompanied the article. The Bucks really should bring back this colorway and script print. They can hold off on the religion-revealing short shorts.

midcentury Levi's silkscreened banner (1950s)

yo yo yo, caught this on the Antiques Roadshow, by far my guiltiest pleasure on television. This silkscreened on denim banner came out of a general store in Camp Verde, Arizona and was valued at $1800-2000. I guess that episode was a rerun from 2006, so I would expect to go for slightly less now, but holy shit, I would LOVE to own that thing! This bad larry is 10 feet long and from the 1950s.

Kirk Cameron rocks a Growing Pains shirt

This photo just struck me as the penultimate of self referential tomfoolery. We know you're on Growing Pains, dude. We know you're a fan.

This is a bit like Metallica wearing their own band shirts on stage, which they constantly did. Oh, you like YOUR OWN BAND THAT IS PLAYING RIGHT NOW THAT I PAID MONEY TO SEE? I had no idea.

By the way, I'm on a mission to find that shirt now.

Bear down!

This is just a random found image, but this is exactly what everyone in Chicago looked like in 1986.

Bears looked good last night, but even though I am from Chicago, I'm a lot more cautiously optimistic than average. Their secondary looked like tissue paper as Denver's lesser tier receivers and Kyle friggin' Orton had no problem carving them up last night.

early 80s fashions, elderly Cajun style (and some Yankees)

Ken Burns' documentary "Huey Long" seems like an unlikely place to find great American vintage style (though Long was a dapper gentleman himself), but Burns' 1985 documentary captures a time and place that has since disappeared- and not just the Kingfish. The folks that he interviewed had a unique style that took me back to my own childhood in Louisiana- a unique and particular style that has since vanished. The landed Southern aristocrats he interviewed looked the part, as did they journalists, historians, and Cajuns.

I haven't been back to Louisiana much in the past years, but I suspect that the Wal-Martificiation of America has also not left Sportsman's Paradise unscathed. The folks have long past as has a unique part of America and American history.

Dorothy Stratten and Hugh Hefner

from A Man out of Time

These two seem to keep finding me lately. Something about a girl in striped kneehighs, man.