Old Town clothing is a small manufacturer based in Holt, England. It makes simple clothing from British cottons, wollens and linens in their small workshop. Much like the company’s English counterparts (and friend) Labour and Wait, Old Town turns out basic garments reminiscent of times past. The “general idea” of Old Town is “simplicity of line, consistency of detail and durability of construction are the main considerations for our designs.”
Everything from Old Town is made to order in England.
The shop.
One or two of our customers have enquired about the origins of the styles or patterns employed by Old Town. Having been very impressed by a friend showing me a bronze green velveteen frock coat which had been stuffed up a chimney in Yorkshire, possibly since the time of the Brontes, perhaps I can shed a little light on our source material.
Our single breasted rever collar jacket is an unfaithful copy of one found in a tool locker during the demolition of Stratford locomotive works; locker and contents seen on offer at Lea Bridge Road car boot sale.
Handed in as lost property in 1936, the originals for our style know as ‘High Rise’ were then mislaid behind a radiator in the London Transport Lost Property Office until redecoration in the early nineteen eighties.
Not so much lost as abandoned were the navy serge prison trousers left mysteriously inside a church porch on the north Kent marshes. For some years these trousers were one of the many curiosities to be seen in ‘Dirty Dick’s’ on Bishopsgate where the measure of them was taken as a model for our ‘Plains’.
Our popular ‘Overall Jacket’ is the mutant offspring of a pre-war lamplighter’s jacket glimpsed on the back of a chair in Coffee Republic at Canary Wharf.
Thanks to Archival Clothing.