Modern material culture: Pendleton '49er

Maybe this entry should be entitled "traditional material culture." Someone put me on a Pendleton mailing list and that's how I recently discovered what these Pendleton jackets are called. A few designs have been reissued. Here's a recent press release that calls them "iconic." I call them practical. I owned two hand-me-downs and wore them completely out. They were as old as the style itself. I think that Ralph Lauren copied this design some time ago but either the sales weren't good or perhaps Pendleton just shut the copies down. I wonder. These are just as classic as Johnson greenies or Sweet-Orr work clothes. At least the greenies survive, and they still require the very sturdiest of suspenders to sustain their weight, now sold on line by the Johnson Mill. The mill also sells its remnants in this way, by the pound, for braided rugs that last forever. I hope that Pendleton keeps some of its great classics in production.