Frye Boots

J

John Clarke

Registered Guest
Hello All!

First I would like to introduce myself. My name is John Clarke and I own a rag house in Garland Texas. We have been in business for over 15 years and currently sort and grade 2 million plus pounds a year of used clothing and shoes. When I first started my business I was one of those guys buying Levi's and military surplus to sell to Japanese store owners. As the years progressed we developed markets for not only jeans and military clothing but all aspect of used clothing and shoes. I have always been especially intrigued by vintage clothing. The quality of the garments produced in prior eras far exceeds today's garments. I am really into the 70s stuff since I graduated high school in 1976.

I have been using your website, especially the label resource page, to help identify and date items. Plus, I have collected over the years numerous books and old catalogs that I find helpful when training my employees on what to watch for when sorting the rags.

If I may I have a question that maybe one of you nice folks can help me with.

We play around with eBay a little and currently have some Frye boots listed that a question was asked of me that I do not have the answer for. The question was what is the difference between the black tag and the white tag in Frye Boots. I called Frye and they told me there was no difference. The customer service rep said when they are running production what ever color tag they have on hand is what they use. To me this just didn't sound right. She seemed to be in to much of a hurry to get me off the phone and go back on her coffee break.

Can anyone help me to clarify this tag dilemma?

Thanks in advance for everyones assistance.
John
 
Hello John, and welcome!

That does sound a bit like they were trying to get you off the phone.. I know the feeling!

I'm over in the UK so sadly don't tend to come across or know that much about Frye boots myself, but I know that we do have some real experts around here so hopefully someone else may be able to shed some light on it. :)
 
It might have been true. Ceil Chapman dresses use white script on black grounds or black script on white grounds and there is no difference in quality, cost, or style with those labels or the dresses they are in. I suspect it was originally so that white lined dresses had white labels and black lined dresses had black labels, so that the label was less obvious (in the days when labels were intended to be hidden) but this is not always the case and I have seen black labels in white lined dresses and visa versa. It could also be an inventory control and they switch back between the two to keep tabs on how many labels they have and when they need to reorder, so when they run out of black labels and start using white labels they know its time to order or make more black labels. It could be something that is very innocuous and not relevant to the boots at all.
 
Hi John. I'm in Austin but have never made it up your way to buy. I've only been to the raggers in the Valley and Houston. Interesting that you actually look at labels there. I've never experienced that at a rag house! :)

Anyway, as far as I know there really isn't a difference between the two Frye labels. It's not that uncommon --- as Jonathan has mentioned with the Ceils. I collect Lilly Pulitzer and have found identical garments with both the orange and green labels as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top