Fashion loves hybrids—jeans as tight as leggings! shorts that look like a skirt!—and fashionspeak loves hybrid descriptors, also known as portmanteaus. Thus: jeggings (first use in print: 2009) and skort (1951), not to mention athleisure (1995), flatforms (2010?), and cardi-coat (date unknown). (More fashmanteaus here.) This year we’ve been hearing a lot about the shacket (“the cutest way to stay comfortable in between seasons”—Stylecaster; “a must-have”--Narcity), a blend of shirt and jacket that sounds like it ought to describe a petite shack. It’s newly trendy but not really new at all.
First of all, the word itself was coined almost a decade ago. I mentioned it in passing (and with scorn) in an August 2012 post about the women’s athletic-wear company Title Nine. I thought Title Nine had invented shacket, which may be true: I haven’t found any earlier citations for the word. Even back then, shackets weren’t only for women: A November 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal about casual menswear acknowledged both the shacket and the “sweaket” (sweater-jacket). Let’s be grateful that “sweaket” died an early death.
Men’s shackets by Cotton On and Diplomacy, Macy’s, September 2021.
Basically, a shacket is just a loose-fitting shirt in a substantial fabric that’s designed to be worn over another shirt. Like many popular clothing items—trench coat, cardigan, bomber jacket, aviator sunglasses—it has military origins. The first “shacket” was the CPO jacket, a thick wool shirt with breast pockets issued to chief petty officers in the US Navy in the 1930s. Proto-hipsters found used versions in Army-Navy surplus stores and began wearing them as a less-stuffy alternative to a sports jacket.
Some of those hipsters were women, and in the years after World War II Pendleton Woolen Mills—the Portland, Oregon–based company founded in 1863—took notice. In 1949 Pendleton released its first item of womenswear: a loose-fitting, 100 percent wool plaid jacket it called the “49’er.” Despite its steep retail price—$14.95 to $17.95, the equivalent in 2021 dollars of $172 to $207—it was an instant hit. In 1957 Pendleton filed for trademark protection of “Pendleton 49’er.” It’s still making the shirt today, although at some point it changed the punctuation to “Pendleton ’49er.” The fabric is still woven in the US; the shirts are sewn elsewhere. Today, the “retro ’49er” sells for $239; for that price you’ll get details you don’t find on lesser shackets, including shaping darts in the back and expertly placed bias-cut pockets.
Pendleton Retro ’49er Jacket, Fall 2021
But the 2021 ’49er Jacket is likely missing one detail from the original: some very special buttons chosen by the garment’s original designer.
Here’s how the Pendleton blog tells the story:
The designer was Berte Wiechmann, a young woman who came to Pendleton from Jantzen, another iconic Portland apparel company. Miss Wiechmann sewed the original samples herself, taking styling particulars from the Pendleton men’s shirt. The ’49er jacket featured discreet tucking at the yoke, and two bias-cut patch pockets near the hem. The boxy cut showcased Pendleton’s famous plaids, and larger iridescent shell buttons softened the look.
Miss Weichmann was very particular about these buttons. She insisted on a special black shell from Australia and Tahiti, supplied by J. Carnucci & Sons, NJ.
In 1956 alone, Pendleton would use $150,000.00 worth of these buttons.
If you’re handy with a sewing machine, you can buy Pendleton Umatilla wool fabric, named for Umatilla County, Oregon ($40 a yard), and a reissue of the original 1949 pattern (or something similar) and make your own ’49er.
My post about shackets coming soon. I had one of the original CPO shirts, in a sturdy navy melton cloth. But in Michigan ca. 1964, "hipsters" had not been invented, we would have called them beatniks. The COP shirt was a preppy uniform, worn with Levis (often 'white' ones, which were actually ecru) and a burgundy v-neck, had to be burgundy.
This year, any jacket with a shirt collar and button closure gets called a shirt-jacket even if it is down-stuffed.
Posted by: Duchesse | September 28, 2021 at 03:48 AM