Nowadays you can get a pair of pants for about $24 at Walmart, tax in. In 1887 the price of pants at Kennedy's on 31 St. Lawrence, which was a coupla doors up from Common St. was
$3.50 per pair. (
That's $1.75 per leg. Glad to be of help. When's lunch? - Chimples). The folks were rockin' the 1887 capri-pants fad though, so you these boys were flashing some crazy skin in these ads, surely a sort of Abercrombie and Fitch ad of the time. So if ever you get popped in that time machine back to the 1880s, you know that Coolopolis told you how to dress for success.
Yeah except the 1887 pants were made of thick, durable material, lined with silk, and sewn together by seamstreses on The Main. They lasted 5-30 years, depending on use.
ReplyDeletePants at Wal-Mart are the opposite: thin, flimsy, no liner, patched together in 30 seconds on a sweatshop by an underaged taiwanese, and made to be replaced within a year. Poor people spend a lot of money on clothes because they are always having to replace them.
I would like to add that a pair of pants from LL Bean or Brooks Brothers - e.g. of comparable quality to the 1887 models - are in the $80-150 range.
ReplyDeleteAND WORTH IT!
Onkel Charlie.
I wonder if Kennedy and Company’s advertising agency is still in business?
ReplyDeleteThis looks like JWT stuff to me - - - hmm?
Still wearing a pair of Dickies(tm) brand work pants after 25 years. A little paint-spattered, but they've outlasted countless pairs of jeans.
ReplyDeletePeabody