Vintage Belgium Wool Military Pants

[RustySpurVintage]

Hi. Not sure if anyone on here specializes in vintage military, but these pants have stumped me. They have a tag that was sewn on at some point after production by a US import company based out of California called the "International Surplus Wholesalers" who were only active in the 1980s. Pretty sure these pants pre-date that time period though. The tag also says they were "Made in Belgium."

The inside waist of the pants has the size "35" (waist size in US inches) stamped next to some words I can't quite make out. Perhaps it says, "Laborie Le Chemise." (Which in French would roughly translate as "laboratory of the ladies underpants" so I'm guessing that's not it.)

The buttons are wooden. Suspender buttons and button fly. Pleats on the front. Nice thick OD green wool. It also came with a belt that was "Made in the USA." Presumably they were not originally sold or issued together.

Any help or ideas would be awesome. Mostly just trying to narrow down a decade.

Thanks!

Adam

 

[sewingmachinegirl]

Great Trousers. I am think they are definitely Post war but made to an earlier pattern, and likely to be dated around early 60's. lets see what the others have to say

 

[The Vintage Merchant]

the vintage brick and mortar shop I used to manage was run by people out of Minneapolis: they specialized in vintage as well as a TON of military surplus (much of which was vintage, as well)

however, even though we carried it, and sold a lot of it, it was very un-interesting to me, so I never researched it (the way i probably should have). I will say that most likely the belt is something that someone along the years found to wear with the pants, whether it be for costume, or just to wear for warm winter trousers.

Also, about military surplus: there were piles of it, after the war(s) and people (like my ex-boss) bought it by the pound, imported it to the USA and resold it by the piece, and sometimes by the pound, as well. He did not add his company import label to the MS that we had, however, it wouldn't surprise me that some shops that did specialize in MS would add their own tags to garments: this one for example gives the country it came from, and the fiber content for the end consumer to know.

also, in reference to the pants being marked made in Belgium, and your translation, did you see this article about Belgian French? that might help you to make more sense of that translation.

These look older than 1960s to me, my guess would be more like WW2 era wear...

 

[Midge]

I can really not read much out of that stamp to be able to say what it says, or what it could mean in French... the other option is that it's in Flemish/Dutch, which I couldn't say. I do understand it well enough when I read it, but I'm not that good that I could make up half-missing words... (still on my life's to do list - learn Dutch properly!).

Karin

 

[RustySpurVintage]

Thanks. The Cold War Era military pants I deal with look a bit different than these. Also, they are normally from W. Germany. I've dealt with some WW2 era pants and these look closer to those. However, I have yet to come across WW2 era pants that were made in Belgium and were marked in (what I think is) Belgian French. I wish there were some "give away" on these, but what fun would that be?!