Safari Suit!

[Chad Sanborn]

Bought a 'Vintage Safari Suit' off of ebay. It an offwhite flecked 3 peice suit. The jacket has a belted back. Total price with shipping was about $20!!!
Anybody ever heard of a Safari Suit? What was it designed for?

Chad

 

[BellyTank]

Is it '70s? Is it polyester?
The beige sounds about right...

Hope not-

B
T

 

[Veronica Parra]

Is this the suit that you won? (See photos below.) If so, then it's made of "oatmeal" heather wool. My guess is that it dates to the very end of the 1970s. The pants are essentially straight-leg, with a close-fitting thigh and a very slight flare below the knee; the waistline doesn't sit particularly high. Belt back suits from 1979-'80 were a lot better looking than their polyester older cousins, those travesties made by Levi's under their "Angel's Flight" brand.

Your suit almost certainly has high armholes and narrowish sleeves that flare a bit at the cuff, slightly padded shoulders, and a nipped-in waist: all of which are very reminiscent of the '30s. Great inverse pleats on the pockets, too! All in all, a nice set of threads. Congratulations Chad!

-- Marc

 

[Mycroft]

That is an awsome suit, I love the color and how the vest looks. It looks a bit like something you could take hunting in the tropics (a safari in a way) or an explore's suit.

 

[Sefton]

If that suit is 1970s then perhaps not everything from "the decade that good taste forgot" is all bad. Good find!

 

[Veronica Parra]

Indeed. :cheers1:

 

[Chad Sanborn]

That is the suit!!!
70's? I thought it was older. Oh well. I need to pay closer attention to details I guess.

Chad

 

[MikeBravo]

I didn't want to start a new thread, however I just had to show this safari jacket I spotted at a clothing sale here in Oz.

It's a brown seersucker safari suit. Try saying that five times real fast, seersuckersafarisuitseersuckersafarisuitseersuckersafarisuitseersuckersafarisuitseersuckersafarisuit



And a close-up

 

[Evan Everhart]

Somewhere or other, I have a photograph of my great-grandfather wearing some sort of tropical get up with the matching safari-style jacket and etc. He worked in oil for a spell, down in Southern and Central American back during the depression when he wasn't boot-legging. I've really got to find that damned photograph! The suit in gramps' photo looks like it's linen maybe from how rumpled and wrinkled it looked. Safari and tropical clothes are a passion of mine. I LOVE EM! Especially seersucker when it's not powder blue or some equally atrocious colour. Off to go look for that missing photo now.....

By the by, that looks like a fun one! Anyone remember Shout at the Devil with Roger Moore? This suit with its short sleeves rather reminds me of his in that film. Good show. (though I'd be paranoid of mosquitoes and thorns with those short sleeves...)

 

[Chasseur]

These used to de rigour in India in the 1960-80s for politicians, bureaucracy, businessmen etc. Of course in hot and scratchy polyester that did not breath well...

You still do see some older men wearing. Heck, my non-Indian dentist here in Hawaii still wears them, in pale blue polyester

Here's a fun article about the demise of them:
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/hail-the-safari-suit-vanished-symbol-of-modern-india

 

[Benny Holiday]

It's a brown seersucker safari suit. Try saying that five times real fast, seersuckersafarisuitseersuckersafarisuitseersuckersafarisuitseersuckersafarisuitseersuckersafarisuit

Yeah thanks Mike! Now I've got to untangle my tongue from around my nose!

I've seen some cool pix of 1930s safari suits on the Lounge somewhere . . .