Archive for April, 2008
Auctions come and auctions go, but this auction featured a polo shirt that has taken its former owner to the stars. Bidding for the pink polo shirt once owned by NASA astronaut Eileen Collins opened on 1 April at just $10. A week later and more than a day before its auction was set to close, collectors had pushed its price up to $300 and the final winning bid was $520.
“I can’t say it was easy for me to donate such an important part of my past,” Collins said. She wore the shirt while training for her four space shuttle missions and her career was a glittering one indeed. In 1995 she was the first female U.S. astronaut to pilot a spacecraft and just four years later, she was the first woman to command a space shuttle mission. Most recently, and humblingly, it was Collins who led the shuttle fleet’s 2005 return to flight after the loss of Columbia and its crew in 2003.
This shirt was important to her because Collins has only a few mementos from her time in space. “Astronauts can keep very little. [I have] only the personal items, such as my wedding ring, old toothbrushes, and some shirts!” she said. She donated the shirt, which is embroidered with her name and her astronaut class’ nickname, “The Hairballs,” on its front to be part of an annual auction run by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF). Founded by the Mercury astronauts in 1984, the ASF supports college students who are excelling in their pursuit of science and engineering degrees to give them the best chance of doing what Collins did – saying The Sky’s The Limit.
Polo-shirt image courtesy of austronaut scholarship foundation
April 28th, 2008
Bruce Oldfield, the British fashion designer who is more accustomed to swathing Catherine Zeta Jones in stylish gowns, has launched his latest line - McDonald’s uniforms!
They appeared in the UK outlets (all 1,200 of them) this week and hare proving very popular with staff. The new clothes, which include a black suit for male managers, a ‘mocha’ skirt and blouse with airhostess-style scarf for female managers (we’ll see how well that fares when its been dipped in a few fryers!) and a polo shirt for the burger-flippers, had to be redesigned once because, apparently, the fabric used in the first set of apparel chafed the nipples of the McWorkers!
The driving forces behind the redesign seem to be two-fold, the company is trying to reframe its image so that increasingly health-conscious and style-aware consumers and older ones, who tend to leave the McLunch behind as they enter their thirties, can see their style reflected in the golden arches – in the UK this has included ripping out the plastic seats and putting in wifi, and adding deli sandwiches, reducing the amount of waste and litter that accompanies a McDonalds meal and putting more upmarket hot beverages to its menu. But the others side of the equation is a resurgent self-confidence in the company, which thinks that the recession could serve it well as people ‘trade down’ to cheaper meal options. McDonald’s first-quarter results on Tuesday revealed rising sales, albeit not in the United States, and confirmed the group’s relatively strong position, suggesting that McRebrand, at least in the UK, may indeed be helping revitalise the sixty-four year old company.
McDonald’s meal courtesy of Taekwonweirdo
April 25th, 2008
Well, sometimes they become ‘vintage’ or ‘collectable’ (1970s McDonalds workwear is selling for a goodly price on eBay) and sometimes it just gets dumped in rubbish bins or charity shops, but Festival Place shopping centre in Basingstoke has something else in mind. Their old uniforms are to be recycled. More than 600 items, including:
- 350 shirts
- 140 pairs of trousers
- 50 jumpers and cardigans
- 20 Hi-Viz coats
- 30 Hi-Viz waistcoats
- 30 ties
- 60 fleeces
- 20 blazers
- and four suits, have been collected.
They will all be sent to Devizes Textile which will sort through the items, sending the best quality clothing to Africa to be reworn, and recycling the rest into items for industrial use. Danny Williamson, company partner at Devizes Textiles, was equally happy to help. He said, ‘This is the first shopping centre that we have worked with and we look forward to working with them in the future to help reduce Basingstoke’s landfill.’
Workwear, and work colleague, photograph courtesy of Robstephaustralia
April 23rd, 2008
The must-have souvenirs in Washington this week include I love the pope bumper stickers, Property of Benedict XVI T-shirts and mugs emblazoned with the pope’s heavenward gaze, all being snapped up by Roman Catholics who visited the capital ahead of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit. Many hoped that Benedict would bless rosaries and other religious articles at Thursday’s Mass. Merchandise licensed by the archdioceses of Washington and New York will be for sale at Masses and other events and online - some of the proceeds will go to help pay for the pope’s visit, but archdiocese officials say they are not expecting a huge sum. The most popular items from internet sales have been holy cards and polo shirts, which feature Benedict’s personal crest as an archbishop. Also selling well are the Benedict tour T-shirts, listing all the U.S. sites he is visiting, as if it was a concert tour.
And George? Well he’s been the victim of a scam that was nipped in the bud. A pair of Milanese forgers have just been charged with trying to sell a men’s fashion and accessories collection branded as Exclusively GC and designed by George Clooney. While the first response was that this was an April Fool’s Day hoax, police in Milan later found watches and garments that would have gone on sale if the scam hadn’t been stopped. Clooney told reporters in Rome, ‘If someone tries to sell you clothes or watches that are based on me, don’t buy them.’
Pope Benedict courtesy of Beyond Forgetting
April 17th, 2008
Going to the Masters Golf Tournament is a grail for many golfers, and nearly everybody who does attend wants to capture the memory with Masters souvenirs. Possibly the only place on earth where men outshop women is the Masters Gift Shop. Favourite gifts include Masters branded polo shirts for family members and cheaper printed T-shirts to take back for friends and neighbours.
Why so much fuss?
Because you can’t buy Masters memorabilia online – it’s purchasable on the course, on the day, or not at all and this rarity factor means that some people can lose their heads. This year one golf fan spent $1,200 (£600) on his souvenirs in under five minutes.
And what do the players think?
Well, Tiger Woods is pretty well all in favour – his wardrobe for the Masters is ‘scripted’ by Nike, several months in advance, along with the wardrobes of all their other contract players: Paul Casey, Trevor Immelman, Justin Leonard, Stephen Ames and K.J. Choi. This happens because correlating the clothing of eight to ten players so that they don’t all look like they’re wearing a uniform.
Nike’s athletes seem to like the clothes-scripting process. Most of them tried on and approved the garments they are wearing this week back in February, in a special Nike ‘outfitting’ van during the Accenture Match Play Championship.
Masters tournament courtesy of johntrainor
April 15th, 2008
Lacoste enjoys its 75th birthday this year. Founded by French tennis legend Rene Lacoste in 1933, it is still a family firm, the current Director is Philippe, grandson of Rene. The alligator logo, seen on all Lacoste products but most famously on their polo shirts, arises from Rene’s career as a professional tennis player. He was nicknamed The Alligator by the American press, after making a bet with the captain of the French Davis Cup Team in which he promised to buy the man a suitcase made from alligator skin if he won an important match for their team.
Lacoste was world number one seed in 1926 and 1927, and won seven Grand Slam singles. But it was in 1933 that his name became a legend. He set up La Societie Chemise Lacoste (The Lacoste Shirt Company), to produce shirts for him to wear on court – he specified that the shirt should be soft, not stiff, short sleeved not long sleeved, and have a floppy collar – the opposite of the tennis shirts being worn by his contemporaries, and it bore his trademark alligator (often mis-described as a crocodile!). It was such a successful product that it became the standard tennis wear for over fifty years.
Tennis shirt courtesy of Bludgeoner86
April 10th, 2008
Next time you see people wearing polo shirts, check to see if the logo has one or two horsemen. There’s a big legal dispute going on in the USA over precisely this, because US Polo Association’s logo is similar to the one made famous by Ralph Lauren because, as they say, they are the main organisation for the sport of polo in the United States and it seems a little odd for them not to be able to depict the sport on their own clothing. Now it seems that Ralph Lauren may be about to lose the battle to stop the US Polo Association using two horseman striking the ball in their logo. The association also has USPA underneath their two polo players logo on their clothing but Ralph Lauren feels that this infringes their logo and the Polo Association’s polo shirts may be mistaken for Polo Ralph Lauren and is trying to get the logo banned. The battle between Ralph Lauren and the Polo Association has been going on since the 1980s and although it now appears that courts may be willing to uphold the USPA’s right to continue with their logo.
Polo courtesy of Paul Keleher
