More Vintage OCBDs – Gant ‘The Hugger’

Following on from the recent post about Sero shirts, the postman called early this morning bringing a nice big box from the US of A containing eight more vintage new old stock button down shirts of various pedigrees.

As you can see from the photo above (TIP: Click on Images to Expand Full Size), I now have a stack of shirts that looks like one of the binnacles in J Simons, and all my size. The original packaging of the shirts brings with its own dilemma. Just like finding a rare sealed vinyl copy of something you’ve been dying to hear for years the question is: to unwrap or not unwrap.

Well these were bought for wearing and so shall be ceremoniously opened, unpinned and worn proudly.

The first one was described my secret shirt supplying source as a Sero S/S but actually it’s Gant ‘The Hugger’ and I couldn’t be more pleased as its a slim fit with longer 60s collar points and of course the locker loop, back collar button and sewn in seller’s label. In fact the sewing and label placement just confims to me that the plae blue oxford in the last post is certainly a Gant model.

Legend has it that Sero was started by one of the Gant family after he fell out with his brother, and that makes sense as the two brands were head to head for a long time. Of course Gant is now an international Dad’s fashion emporium run by Swedes.

Wikipedia has this to say about Gant button downs in the 60s:

The 1960s

Gant dress shirts were de rigueur for American male students in the early and mid 1960s. The shirts were worn open-collar and without necktie, with the top button open to reveal the roll of the collar, except when the formality of an occasion demanded otherwise. The front of the shirt buttoned along a double-truck hem, a feature that became absolutely requisite for any brand targeted at adolescents and young men. Other manufacturers offered similar product, but only Sero, another premium-priced line, matched the Gant style, distinguishing its shirts solely by omission of the distinctive Gant loop at the top of the back pleat, and sometimes dispensing with the double pleat down the center back in favor of single pleats on the back shoulders. Sero was considered to be the only truly acceptable alternative to Gant in the youth market. All other brands, for whatever reason, clearly identified themselves as knockoffs by failing to precisely conform to the Gant cut. In 1964, Gant participated in the Madras craze, offering shirts in both the proprietary Gant cut and other styles. The Gant-cut Madras cloth shirts were the most prized.

And the baby opened up:

A few pin stains but nothing like you would expect on a 40 year old shirt.