Vintage Summit 11: The industry's leading eccentrics talk about vintage clothing. | feature

Vintage Summit 11: A Vintage Summit of the industry's leading eccentrics discussing vintage clothing.

After a year's absence, Vintage Summit, a discussion of vintage clothing among vintage enthusiasts, is back after a long absence. Tomohiro Konno, Michihiko Kurihara, Fujihara Yutaka, and Takashi Abe, four regular members who boast the best personal collections and overwhelming knowledge in the scene, will bring in items and categories that they are interested in recently, or topics they want to share with the members, and will dig deep into them while digressing as usual. They will dig deep into the topic with their usual digressions.

Photo_Fumihiko Ikemoto

Text_Takehiro Hakusui

Edit_Yosuke Ishii

The packaging design is part of the fun of vintage bandanas."

VINTAGE BANDANA WITH PACKAGE

Abe:I will close with the customary bandana. This time we brought some dead stock with packages. Bandanas are interesting for their patterns and details, but the packaging design that reminds us of the times is also one of the charms of bandanas.

Konno:Are there different ages?

Abe:Most of them are from the '60s and '70s, but some are from the '50s and '80s. Bandanas from this period are often sold as a set rather than individually, and the bandanas inside are often packaged in pairs before cutting.

Fujiwara:It seems so. But in some cases you have to open the package to find out, don't you?

Abe:I've been around long enough now that I can almost tell without opening it. I've seen a lot of uncut bandanas. And one more thing, if you compare them, you will see that there are some pieces that are packaged in different brands, but the contents are exactly the same. In other words, there are many OEM products that are manufactured by other companies and just have different exteriors for each brand.

Kurihara:Is it the same RN (Registered Number. Does it mean that the RN (Registered Number, a specific number assigned to businesses that manufacture, import and sell clothing in the U.S.) is the same?

Abe:That's right. Davis & Cutler, which developed the "Elephant Brand," has RN13980, and Paris Accessories, famous for its cookie pattern, has RN13960, but we often found products with these RNs in the packages of completely different brands. For example, a Sears package may contain a bandana with a tiger symbol.

Kurihara:Heh. I see.

Konno:Is it easy to determine the brand from the RN?

Kurihara:Yes, you can easily find out from the website of the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), which has jurisdiction over RNs.

Konno:I see. Let's check things out.

Fujiwara:However, from our perspective as a vintage clothing store, even if the contents are the same, the price tag will change depending on the brand that packaged the item. Wrangler is a perfect example of this.

Abe:Well, that's what happens, but there's a cross bandana in the Wrangler package! Isn't that bad? ...I wonder if it's only the bandana collectors who get very excited (laughs).

All:(Laughter).