The official thrift/discount store bragging thread - Page 1852

Approximate:
Early 70s to 74/75 Norman Hilton, N.J.
74/75 - 77 Lanham Ltd, Mass.
77 - circa 92 Polo Tailored Clothing, Mass. (Polo bought Lanham)
92 - 99 Pietrafesa, Syracuse, NY*
99 - ?now Cornelaini

*may have a white production tag inside the left chest lining pocket with the bottom series of numbers indicating date of manufacture; 960410 being April 10, 1996 for a Fall 96 jacket.

Lapel widths, gorge heights, shoulders, sleeveheads, armscyes, sleeve circumference, waist supression have all varied at least slightly depending on model. The same models have also varied somewhat. Some of the jackets of the late '80s, early '90s tended toward slightly extended shoulders, higher armscyes and narrower sleeves. Just after that the shoulders got kind of boxy in some instances. In general, it varied. The Cornelaini stuff has generally been soft shouldered (there are three, thin concentric layers of shoulder padding), rounded - more natural than most 'natural shoulder' jackets. The sleeves in the store stock, as opposed to runway photos, are fuller than some earlier Polo and the waist suppression less. Unfortunately, some recent Polo is an inch or more too short. If you want a faddishly short jacket, the USA Polo ain'tit. Until about 97-98 the USA Polo technical consturction was superior to Cornelaini - there was some hand sewing and perhaps better internal chest construction. The Hilton stuff construction, with the possible exception of button holes, was probably superior to, or at least the equal of, current RLPL and definitely superior to English RLPL. (Where's that spelchex/punctuationinsert?)