Need some help with an Irish jacket....

gaildavid

gaildavid

VFG Member
I will be listing this tomorrow on ebay and am having some trouble with a name for this collar treatment.....

This is the back:
nelli4.jpg


Here is the front:

nelli1.jpg


The material on the outside and inside is a very heavy canvas....not sure what else to call it besides "canvas". The label is "Nelli Mulcahy....Dublin". Any ideas on a date?


nelli8.jpg


Thanks for any help......Gail
 
Ah, Google...

From an exhibition write-up from the Hunt Museum:

"Sybil Connolly...
...was a pioneering designer in Ireland and one of the first to have international success, especially in America. She was among <b>a group of Irish designers, in the 1950’s and 60’s</b>, such as Irene Gilbert and <b>Nelli Mulcahy who’s </b>[sic]<b>designs were inspired by native fabrics, turning them into high fashion garments</b>. Later in her career she turned her attention to interior decoration and designed crystal, fabric and ceramics. Her natural style and charm made her an outstanding Ambassador for Ireland ."

Sooo... late 50s- early 60s(?) jacket with characteristically unorthodox textile choice? Shame we can't know what particular fabrics she liked using - might be a local Irish mill. Any particular Irish specialities with distinctive names?

Lin
 
Am racking my brain for any Irish textile that isn't Linen.

Crombie?? Used to use that for military coats...
 
No... perhaps not. I think linen can be made into a kind of canvas... but I'm pretty stumped. Need other input!
 
Its almost like a cut out version of a shawl collar.

Great coat looks very well made and must have been expensive.
 
Brain getting no transmissions about the collar, but I have thought of another fabric: Loden (?) wool - waterproofed for outerwear. Just throwing that out there...
 
OED citations:
1914 G. ATHERTON Perch of Devil II. 354 She..wrapped herself in a dark lodenmantle, a long cape with a hood that she had worn..in Bavaria.
1916 J. BUCHAN Greenmantle vii. 98 Long shooting capes made of a green stuff they call loden.<b>you have an actuall 'Greenmantle'! lol</b> Ibid. xv. 196 Blue jeans, loden cloak.
And then a gap 'til:
1951 V. NABOKOV Speak, Memory iv. 61 He wore an ulster unless the weather was very mild, when he would switch to a kind of greenish-brown woollen cloak called a loden.
1952 New Yorker 13 Dec. 128/2 A rugged coat for the country, made in Austria of greenish or brownish loden cloth and cut something like a hunting coat.
1956 San Francisco Examiner 9 Sept. 1. 21 (Advt.), The original Alpine Lodencoat.
1957 Times 25 Nov. 11/1 This coat is reversible, in loden cloth and water~proofed poplin.
1964 N.Y. Post 4 Nov. 11 Russ Togs in black, brown, loden, navy, and menswear grey.
1966 Listener 3 Nov. 641/1 People dressed in green Loden jackets.
1969 R. T. WILCOX Dict. Costume (1970) 198/1 Loden, a waterproof cloth resembling Irish frieze, made by the Tyrolean peasants from the wool of their mountain sheep. It is woven and dyed in several colors but especially a bluish green known as loden green.

German. loden thick woollen cloth

A heavy waterproof woollen cloth. Used attrib. to designate garments made of this material, as loden cloak, cloth, coat, jacket, mantle, skirt; also absol. Also, a dark green.

- not sure if that's *this* colour - but then, I don't think I've every handled any. Anyone else??
 
re: that 1969 citation 'like Irish frieze':

Frieze:
1. A kind of coarse woollen cloth, with a nap, usually on one side only; now esp. of Irish manufacture. Also frieze-cloth, frieze-ware.

1418 E.E. Wills (1882) 37 Also a gowne of grene frese...

1803 Ann. Rev. I. 416 In the county of Wicklow a kind of frize and ratteen of pretty good quality, is very generally made for domestic uses.

Not cited since the 19th century, though, so I'm not sure if it's particularly helpful...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top