Help Dating a Lord & Taylor Cape

I bought a vintage Lord & Taylor cape that we believe is mole fur. The label is very old-looking, and the fur is in better shape than the label! Can anyone help me with information dating this item? Thanks!!!

I know Lord & Taylor as a shop or department store, rather than a maker or brand label. I have a shoe advert from 1941 with their address.

I agree with Deborah that this may be early (that label looks very old, and it's not the condition I'm referring to! ';) )

More pictures would definitely be a help!

lord and TaylorThey were part of the ladies mile

They have been around a lonnnnnnnng time.....

Dear Friends, OBVIOUSLY I am new at this! Thank you all so much for your help! Sheared beaver fur sounds good to me. This fur is in fabulous condition for its age. I am semi-retired (fully retired come April 20th) but do have to work a long day tomorrow. This weekend, my husband promised to help me get better photos of both fur and lining material, and hopefully I'll be able to post them. So . . . photos Saturday. Again, thank you all. Pat Teague

Darn, I wish I had my old photo of an L&T opera coat I had. Beautiful black velvet with silk lining, definitely early 19C. The label was off white, large square with the crest and Lord and Taylor underneath.

I am (hopefully!) posting more pix of my wonderful cape. I got good photos of the lining, and the little metal fasteners, and the ribbons inside the cape, but getting a close-up that really shows that fur is almost impossible! The cape is about 28" long. I haven't measured all the way around the bottom of it. There are two small holes in the lining, right at the bottom. My Mom, who is 92 years old, told me today that it is NOT mole fur, which she would recognize. Once again, thank all of you so much for your help identifying this wonderful garment. Wanna know what I paid for it on eBay??? (Best sit down.) It cost me $25.49 + $10.00 shipping. Now I'm very reluctant to even wear it! Pat Teague

I'd say this is antique -- Edwardian or maybe earlier. I bet Jonathan could pinpoint the exact year. He knows this sort of stuff very well.

Lord & Taylor was a nice (not super-fine like Bergdorf-Goodman, but upper mid range, somewhere between Macy's and Bonwit-Teller) department store. Shopped there all my life. They've always had clothing labeled this way (with only their store brand label, no other manufacturer name -- I probably have some modern stuff in my closet right now). They had in-house designers, as most of the better department stores did, and produced their own brand.

I've never seen anything made of mole (despite my mom being a fur model and my uncle being a furrier). Perhaps it's a name for something else (e.g. "Hudson Seal" is actually muskrat. If something WERE made of mole, it would take a whole lot of moles to make a garment, that's for sure. And if you ever saw a mole with a pelt as large as these, I'd suggest you run! ; )

This does look a like sheared beaver, but perhaps slightly shorter than usual. Photos without a flash would be helpful. Sheared beaver feels heavenly, and was popular in the 1st 1/3 of the 20th century -- my grandmother had a coat I loved to hug). It was not an expensive fur, as furs go, and was accessible to many middle class women (similar to raccoon in the 50s -- oops typo, meant 20s (ljmd) -- for college men). Does the coat feel like very long velvet? Dense and thick and smooth when you brush your hand across it (as opposed to silky and "looser," like rabbit or chinchilla, or dense and sleek like lamb. Does it have longer outer hairs and a dense undercoat near the skin?

Hi, Liza Jane. Thank you for your note! It does indeed feel like the most heavenly, longest velvet imaginable. I can not detect longer outer hairs, but the fur feels like the dense undercoat - possibly they sheared off the guard hairs? It definitely feels NOTHING like rabbit. The color of the fur, without flash, is a dense mahogany brown. I'll try to attach another couple of photos, some my husband made of me wearing the cape. These pictures show the color of the fur better. By the way, the closures for the cape appear to be made of finely wrapped silver wire. I've never seen closures like them before - but then again, I've never owned a garment this old! I did wear it on Valentine's Day. Thanks again, Pat

That's exactly how sheared beaver feels. It doesn't have that "two layers of fur" like, say, mink or fox or coyote But just this dense velvety fur, all the way through. I do believe you're right and that it's because they've "sheared offf" the top hairs. Now, I'm not an expert or a furrier. But I grew up around a lot of fur and people who know fur very well, and have picked up some bits of information, that's all. FYI, those covered closures are still used on furs. Quite common.

I am now wondering where my Gramma's beaver coat went when she died. Not to me, for whatever reason. Hmm... will ask my cousins.

p.s. You look lovely in it. You should keep it and wear it.

Thank you again! For information, and kind words. I do intend to keep it and wear it. Now we're pretty sure what kind of fur it is, and approximate age. I have my Mom's cedar chest, and when the weather warms, plan to wrap the cape in white cotton and lay it in the cedar chest. Don't feel that hangers are really good for garments that old, and I know not to put it into anything plastic. I had wanted a fur cape since I was a teenager . . . SEVERAL years ago. (Well, several decades ago, but who's counting???) Hope you find your Gramma's coat, and that someone is taking special care of it and cherishing it. Big fur coat hugs, Pat

There are plenty of folks who would disagree with me on this, but I think that clothes (with the exception of historically significant and irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind items) are meant to be worn and enjoyed as long and as much as possible. No matter how well they are taken care of, eventually, like us, they will be done for. Better they spent the time being loved, no?Thank goodness for photographs and scrapbooks. You can't take it with you, so you might as well enjoy it while you're here. That's my take on it. ; )

How wise you are, Liza Jane! Yes, YAY for photographs and memories. Thanks, Pat