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Vintage Polo Shirts

Fletch

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Iowa - The Land That Stuff Forgot
I associate the pre WW2 polo shirt with a sewn self-fabric collar, rather than a knit one.
The one I'm wearing here is a cheap Italian make called Stile di Vita.
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Flat Foot Floey

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Germany
Montgomery Wards
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Au Bon Marche 1934
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German trading card
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From Ebay, sold as 1930s
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Buster Keaton
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Some boxers 1930 (not sure)
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Seeberger Brother photo 1930s
seebergerpolo.jpg
 

Fletch

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Who is that devoon young thing in the sandals? She's tan as a nut. French, of course.

From 1932, the "Do X Shirt," named for the famous giant flying boat, and also for the doeskin feel of the chamois lisle fabric (up till then used mostly in gloves). It opened with a Talon half-zipper, an innovation in shirting at the time. Watch those chest hairs, fellas.
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Flat Foot Floey

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I agree with Fletch on the self fabric collar. Maybe a little pointy too similar to dress shirts? It looks more vintage to me. I don't know when the typical modern polo knit collar were invented and maybe both style were avaivable at the same time. [huh] But I guess we often prefer the version that is more special and stands out. ;)

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Serge Lifar, Paris, 1929

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Joe Louis and Jesse Owens 1930s

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Madelios Catalog 1934

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DOW and Wallis Simpson 1936


Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde 1931
 

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Dinerman

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Bozeman, MT
It looks like that last one is printed backwards. I feel like the combination of a polo shirt and homburg would give some people here fits.
"A homburg is formal and no one wore it with anything else ever!"
 

Flat Foot Floey

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Ah yes, I see the buttons are on the other side. Maybe it has loops instead of buttonholes too? I have seen this loop collar polos in old Sears catalogs.

:D about the homburg thingy.
 

Fastuni

Call Me a Cab
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2,277
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Germany
I don't think this is a Homburg... it appears to have no trim on the brim.
Either a fedora with brim turned up or the trimless cousins of the Homburg, called "Camber" or "Lord's hat".

Here BTW a German Charmeuse shirt I recently found:

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Two Types

I'll Lock Up
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London, UK
It's difficult to tell if this is a polo shirt, but something tells me it is. It's my father in the late 1940s:
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In about 1955 Dad went on holiday and bought himself two polo shirts, one was plain blue and made from a very heavy knitted cotton, the other was (if I remember correctly) made from a towelling fabric and was in blue and white hoops. These things were really made to last. The earliest photo I could find was 1962 (on its sixth summer):

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Here it is again in about 1970:
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Even in the 1970s my mum would laugh about how old these shirts were - but Dad kept wearing them.

It was still going strong in the 1990s:
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Here is the plain blue one in about 1976:
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Eventually they were too far gone and my mother threw them away, but they were part of Dad's summer wardrobe for nearly 50 years.
 

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