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Topic Summary

Posted by: Zyngaru
« on: December 08, 2024, 02:05:14 pm »

Quote from: Jack on December 08, 2024, 09:55:03 am

I mostly wore Jockey or Fruit of the Loom.  I remember Jockey because the y-front was different, and I remember FoL because I remember noticing when my briefs went from a double blue line to blue and gold ones.

I hated Jockey because of the Y front.  Things would fall out through that Y.

I always had FTL briefs as a boy.  Mom bought my clothes through the catalog and then paid for everything for the rest of the year.  I liked FTL back then and it is still my preferred brand.  Besides the boys modeling the briefs looked so cute.
Posted by: Jack
« on: December 08, 2024, 09:55:03 am »

Quote from: afinch on December 07, 2024, 12:24:49 pm
  Munsingwear is also still around, making clothes for kids and adults.  They are best known for their "Penguin" logo, which was considered a cheaper knock-off of the Lacoste alligators that were ubiquitous in the 1970s. 

I thought those were a Sear's brand for some reason.  I had several of them when I was younger, before I started wearing Izods myself.

Quote from: David M. Katz on December 07, 2024, 02:54:16 pm
  What did I know or care? There were underwear in my drawer and I put them on.

I mostly wore Jockey or Fruit of the Loom.  I remember Jockey because the y-front was different, and I remember FoL because I remember noticing when my briefs went from a double blue line to blue and gold ones.
Posted by: David M. Katz
« on: December 07, 2024, 02:54:16 pm »

Quote from: stevieweeks on December 07, 2024, 08:28:59 am

Stevie finds Walmart to be terribly depressing and takes hours to recover from shopping there...

Me too.  Sometimes it is a necessary evil but I do try to avoid the place as much as possible.

Seems my briefs as a kid came from either WT Grant or KMart.  I say that because those were the only two places my mother ever shopped.  What did I know or care? There were underwear in my drawer and I put them on.
Posted by: afinch
« on: December 07, 2024, 12:24:49 pm »

Quote from: Zyngaru on June 17, 2024, 01:01:05 pm
I never heard of Carters, Stedmans or Munsingwear.  I despised Jockey briefs. That y-fly would pop open and your **** and nuts would hang out.   Good way to get it caught in your zipper.


Carter's is still in business.  They are mostly known for infant and toddler clothes, with a slogan of "If they could just stay little until their Carter's wear out."  I'm unfamiliar with Stedman's.  Munsingwear is also still around, making clothes for kids and adults.  They are best known for their "Penguin" logo, which was considered a cheaper knock-off of the Lacoste alligators that were ubiquitous in the 1970s.  Both are better known for visible clothing than for their underwear.

Posted by: stevieweeks
« on: December 07, 2024, 08:28:59 am »

Stevie's mum used to buy Eaton's brand underwear for him as a boy... 

Stevie misses Eaton's... it had class and sold high quality goods up to and including Viking appliances and televisions... shopping at Eaton's was a pleasurable experience.

Nowadays the only remaining chains in Stevie's local area are Walmart and Giant Tiger, neither of which sell quality products. Both of these stores remind you constantly that you are only a worthless peasant lucky to be allowed to spend your money in their establishment.

Stevie finds Walmart to be terribly depressing and takes hours to recover from shopping there...

 
Posted by: Jack
« on: June 18, 2024, 01:31:10 am »

As I said, I intended to handle the store brands separately.   The reason for that is that I was having some research problems. 

Let's consider three of the big chains
Sears - https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1975-Sears-Spring-Summer-Catalog/0318
Wards - https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1975-Montgomery-Ward-Fall-Winter-Catalog/0508
Pennys - https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1975-JCPenney-Spring-Summer-Catalog/0402

To me, there seems to be a slight difference between Sears and the other two, but no difference at all between Penny's and Wards.  That leads me to wonder if they were all made by the same company and marketed individually (like is done with many store brands in grocery stores today). 

I was actually pretty confused about this, which is why I didn't include it in the first post.  I'm used to thinking of Penny's briefs as having two solid lines around the waistband - the upper one dark blue, the lower one gold.  However, as Kier pointed out above, those were actually Stafford and weren't produced until 1981.

Another issue is that each company seemed to offer a variety of different 'types' (?) of brief, which looked basically the same, but were made of different material, and some of those seem to have had different waistband designs.

Which brings us to K-Mart.  I didn't have a lot of luck with them.  I finally came up with this -


But I honestly couldn't attach a firm date to it (I'm going to search for some 70s back to school ads to see if that offers any help).

There is also this -

Which is listed as a Sears, 70s vintage boys brief, but I couldn't find a solid date or confirm it by catalog, so I'm not sure.

Once again, thanks for any thoughts, input, or corrections.
Posted by: Jack
« on: June 17, 2024, 09:22:49 pm »

Quote from: afinch on June 17, 2024, 06:18:57 pm
When they switched to "Stafford"

Thank you. That was the key to a lot of why I was still researching the 'store brands' section.
Posted by: afinch
« on: June 17, 2024, 06:18:57 pm »

Only ones I ever had until I was an adult buying my own clothes were JC Penney's and they were terrific.  When they switched to "Stafford" as a more upscale sounding house brand, all their products experienced so profound a decrease in quality that the store itself is in danger of totally disappearing and has in many locations.
Posted by: Adric
« on: June 17, 2024, 04:56:59 pm »

Quote from: Zyngaru on June 17, 2024, 01:01:05 pm
I preferred the Fruit of the Loom double seated briefs.  Why double seated, because we got paddle in elementary school on our underpants.  Double seat gave a little more protection.

I liked the double seat too, although I'm not sure about the brand.  First pair I had was one my size I found on the ground.  (Don't know how some kid could lose his underwear, but he did.)  Much later when I was in college I found a pair at a store and got flak from the woman at the cash register when I tried to check out.  I was furious but my mom was with me and the things I wanted to say weren't suitable for her hearing so I just seethed inside.  Did buy them though.
Posted by: Zyngaru
« on: June 17, 2024, 01:01:05 pm »

I never heard of Carters, Stedmans or Munsingwear.  I despised Jockey briefs. That y-fly would pop open and your **** and nuts would hang out.   Good way to get it caught in your zipper.

I did wear Hanes and BVD on rare occasions.  They were okay, but not my favorite.   That usually happened when they were bought by mistake or given to me.

I preferred the Fruit of the Loom double seated briefs.  Why double seated, because we got paddle in elementary school on our underpants.  Double seat gave a little more protection.

Mom bought our underwear and all of our clothing, through Mail Order Catalog.  Montgomery Ward and Speigel's Catalogs.  You can still find photos of those old underwear adds online.  Back then boys modeled under for catalogs.  I so wanted to be one of those boys.

Today the closest I have found that resemble those old modeling adds, are the Tiger Underwear Adds.  Logan being my favorite Tiger Model.  You can find lots of photos of Tiger Boy Models online.  Logan, Spencer, Rudy, Scotty and many others.  But the Tiger Briefs resemble the Fruit of the Loom briefs a lot.  They even have the double seated ones.  Very expensive though.  I guess it costs a lot to have boys model those briefs.

Posted by: Jack
« on: June 17, 2024, 09:45:41 am »

A few facts to set this up:

1) I am writing an ongoing series that's set in 1975.  Because of that, I've done a lot of research to remind myself what boys clothing was like back then (and if you want a really good resource to check clothes from a number of eras, this site has catalogues from several different major department stores many, many years): https://christmas.musetechnical.com/

2) Some of you probably know that I have a bit of a fetish about tighty whities, so it should be no surprise I did a lot of research on this topic.

I present my findings here in hopes that it's useful to others who might be writing period stories, and that someone might answer any questions I've left, or correct any mistakes I make.

Thanks.

From what I can tell, boys underwear fell into two main groups - labels and store brands.  By labels, I mean those companies who produce underwear and sell it in my different locations.  Of course there are the big three - Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, and Jockey, but there are several others - BVDs, Carter's, Munsingwear, and Stedmans.  (I think some of that latter group might be more regional, but I'm unsure).

BVDs -

Carters -

Fruit of the Loom -

Hanes -

Jockey -

Munsingwear -

Stedmans -

It's unfortunate, but it's very hard to find information about underwear of different years.  Most of these pictures come either from eBay auctions or advertisements in relevant years, but in some cases, nothing was available, so I had to stretch. 

With most of these, you can easily tell that they are boys briefs, but it's harder to be sure of the time period. 

When it comes to Munsingwear, I couldn't find anything from the right time period or for boys.  However, I shared this picture, because Munsingwear offers the unusual 'kangaroo pouch' fly.

As for Stedman's while I couldn't find anything 70s era on boys briefs, the ad (which is from the 50s) seems to show that the boys and mens briefs have the same waistband markings.

I'm going to address the store brands in a separate post.  In the meantime, if you have more information, correct information, or just want to talk about one of these brands, please feel free.