The Original Store

Buzz Rickson sweatshirt, 6 month road test 2009-05-20

Time to introduce our first Original Store blogger, John the Panel Beater, friend of the stars and all round aficionado on all things Original. You'll hearing a lot more of John in the months to follow, so now check out his Buzz Rickson user report........

I'd been after one of the Japanese vintage style sweatshirts for sometime and looked at many brands. I ended up choosing Buzz Rickson purely on the basis that the company was named after a character played by Steve McQueen and that alone would make it good !
First off, these are not the loose fitting, lightweight, fashion sweatshirts we've all become accustomed to. The body and sleeves are slim fitting by design and of course they have the all important deep waistband and cuffs (which I'm wearing turned up) of sweatshirts from the first half of the last century.
 
The construction is also from back in the day, the fabric is woven on "loopwheeler" looms which means a one piece tubular body with no seems at the sides. The machines themselves date from the 1920's and a different one is needed for each body size, they also run far slower than modern machines which obviously limits the amount of material and therefore sweatshirts that can be produced.  I'm quite into the fact that these have been made on machinery and in a manner that was probably the norm seventy to eighty years ago, it gives the shirt a sense of history even though it is essentially a "replica".

I've been wearing this for just over six months now and it has become a favourite , it gets two or three outings a week and has been washed numerous times with no shrinkage and no loss of shape at all. I'm sure it could pass for a dead stock 1950's.

Anyway, I'm about to go out for a quiet beer on this cold , wet, Mancunian spring evening, better grab my sweatshirt. Do yourself a favour!

John P