Any WRANGLER experts out there?

[dr greg]

Just got this, and it's a bit different: there is a green selvedge both sides of the placket ( never seen that before) and there is no W on the pockets, and while every Wrangler jacket I've ever seen has a straight yoke, this has the western style yoke...there is no label remaining but I know enough about denim to place it around the 70's so not some lost treasure, but it's definitely rare....

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[majormajor]

I'm not an expert, but I have seen at least one of these - in a size far too small for me.

Wrangler did a whole lot of different stuff back in the 80's, so it could be from then.

A very nice jacket

 

[apba1166]

Great jacket....and I think the look of it outscales the pedigree. Keep in mind that Wrangler, post Blue Bell, was really a licensing operation from VF (Lee, among others) who bought them in the 80s, and used them as brand leveraging via licensing deals all over the place. There were no real tight style guidelines, as there were for Levi, so if the jacket is a VF one, it could have come from anyplace with any one of a dozen "looks" and still sold under the Lee or Wrangler name by some retailer somewhere, or a chain who designed and/or ordered a batch, licensed the name, and put the brand tags on themselves.

 

[Sloan1874]

I'm going to show my ignorance here: VF? Very nice jacket, though. MM is the presence of handwarmer pockets on a denim jacket a general indication that it was produced from 80s onwards?

 

[majormajor]

I'm going to show my ignorance here: VF? Very nice jacket, though. MM is the presence of handwarmer pockets on a denim jacket a general indication that it was produced from 80s onwards?

VF = VF Corporation - holding company of Lee & Wrangler brands, amongst many others. Was called Vanity Fair at one time.

Re the handwarmer pockets - Levi & Lee both went with handwarmers quite late (and ruined two classic jackets), but Wrangler, bless 'em, beat them all to it, introducing them in the early 60's. Got my first Wrangler denim jacket in around 1967 (swapped it for a Levi Cowhide!):eeek:

Wrangler also pushed the envelope with zips. Their old zipped jean jackets are fabulous. Ken Calder told me he shares my liking of them

 

[apba1166]

MM, did those older Wranglers have slightly bigger, boxier shoulders than Levi or Lee jackets? I seem to remember getting one because it had bigger shoulders and I could wear it over more or heavier stuff easier vs. the others, which only seemed to work over a t-shirt or thin oxford-cloths. The example above has altogether different shoulders; there's an inward seam, matching the yokes, from where the shoulder would be.

 

[Sloan1874]

VF = VF Corporation - holding company of Lee & Wrangler brands, amongst many others. Was called Vanity Fair at one time.

Re the handwarmer pockets - Levi & Lee both went with handwarmers quite late (and ruined two classic jackets), but Wrangler, bless 'em, beat them all to it, introducing them in the early 60's. Got my first Wrangler denim jacket in around 1967 (swapped it for a Levi Cowhide!):eeek:

Wrangler also pushed the envelope with zips. Their old zipped jean jackets are fabulous. Ken Calder told me he shares my liking of them

Cheers for that, MM. A zipped dj is cool. Something a little different.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

IIRC those buttons with WRANGLER stamped on them were most common from the late 70s onwards. Is this made of "Wrangdam"? (zig-zag woven denim) That was brought in, again IIRC, in the early-middle 1970s but was by no means universally used.

Old Wrangler is by a long way my favourite. Those Rodeo Ben designs with the elasticated interiors are fantastic.

 

[dr greg]

Handwarmers? I always thought they were called 'fruit' pockets, not in the sense you might think, but because you can actually put an apple in them.....this jacket is just a bit too tight for me round the cabaret curve, but still loath to sell it.....

 

[majormajor]

MM, did those older Wranglers have slightly bigger, boxier shoulders than Levi or Lee jackets? I seem to remember getting one because it had bigger shoulders and I could wear it over more or heavier stuff easier vs. the others, which only seemed to work over a t-shirt or thin oxford-cloths. The example above has altogether different shoulders; there's an inward seam, matching the yokes, from where the shoulder would be.

I guess it depends what you class as "older"....

As I said, my first Wrangler was in '67 - and it was skinny (so was I!). I now have a similar one (a couple of sizes bigger), but compared with, say, a Lee 101J, the Wrangler is still skinny.

So I guess the one you had has pased me by

Handwarmers? I always thought they were called 'fruit' pockets, not in the sense you might think, but because you can actually put an apple in them.....this jacket is just a bit too tight for me round the cabaret curve, but still loath to sell it.....

"Fruit Pockets" sounds good to me......

If you do wanna sell it, and the pit-to-pit is 23", then I'm your man