I came across these genuine clothing advertisements in a 1965 copy of the Daily Mail which reported the funeral of Winston Churchill.
In 1965 I wouldn’t have been wearing a U.S. army gabardine combination coat because that would have been nearly a quarter of dad’s weekly wage and at only eleven year’s old I would have looked rather silly in it anyway. I like the way the man is unashamedly smoking a pipe and wearing a hat which are details that you certainly wouldn’t see nearly fifty years later.
Although I might have been unlikely to wear a gabardine raincoat I can remember having my first anorak. Traditional anoraks were heavy, hip-length coats with a wide hood that protected the face from the wind. The Inuit peoples of the Arctic invented the anorak as wind chill protection to wear when hunting and the hood and body section of these traditional anoraks were made from animal skins lined with real fur to add extra warmth. Fish oil was used on the outside to create a water-resistant finish but I expect this made them rather unsuitable and anti-social for High Street shopping in the UK but by the 1960s they were being made from man-made quilted nylon and suddenly everyone was wearing them.
This advertisement was for the traditional zip-up anorak with bloated sleeves that swished against the body as you walked and sounded like someone sweeping the pavement. I notice that it claims that they were used by famous winter sports skiers but it carefully doesn’t give any details because this would certainly not have been true. Another detail in the advert is quite shocking now with a truly inappropriate option in the mid 1960s colour range. I seem to remember that my sister had a blue one like this but I stuck out for an olive green pull over the head variety with patch pockets at the side and across the chest.
Why did your dad save these adverts?!
I thought you meant referring to the ‘ladies’ size by bust was the shocking detail until I got to nigger!
He didn’t keep the adverts – he wasn’t that sad! He kept newspaper pages and these just happen to be on the reverse. These were from newspapers reporting on the death and funeral of Winston Churchill!
Well how can you see them if they are on the other side? Surely they would be stuck down?
That’a good observation – he didn’t stick everything in!
For someone who writes a lot (me) I can be amazingly visual at times! I had a picture in my head of you carefully peeling off the article to look and see what was on the back. Which I have to say, I thought was a bit OTT just for a blog post!
Anoraks, hmm, just hated the look on those quilted things of the late 60s and early 70s, thankfully I was never made to wear one. My father sold anoraks in the shop when they first started to become fashionable in the early 1960s, he sold Bukta, the boy’s version of which you pulled over your head like a pullover and had a short zip on the upper front, the adult ones were full length zipped. Later the parka style with the fur-trimmed hood became more popular and he sold them as well.