Guiterman Bros 1930s Town and Country leather jacket

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271307079241
This vintage leather jacket was made in the early to mid 1930s by Guiterman Brothers, under the Town and Country label. The company was founded in 1883, and began the “Town and Country” line in 1904. They produced flying coats for US aviators during World War One, and pioneered early civilian leather jacket designs starting in the 1910s. In c. 1928, the company was bought out by Gordon and Ferguson, who continued the line. This jacket as a rare early example of a button-front Cossack jacket. Early Cossack jackets, c. 1930-c.1934 generally featured leather waistband and plain backs. This is an early example of the transitional style, retaining the collar, cuff and pocket detailing from the early jackets, but moving away into what would become the half-belt jackets of the later 1930s-1950s. The back is belted, with bi-swing shoulders and side adjusters. The front still has an old style button front, instead of a hookless zipper. The jacket buttons right over left, which, along with the shoulder darts, identify this as a women’s jacket. Other than these details, early on, men’s and women’s styles were generally extremely similar patterns. As was typical of many of these early jackets, this one is made with the suede side out. For jackets of this style, it wasn’t until later in the 1930s that weight started to become a major concern. These were really designed as lightweight leather windbreakers for sporting activities. Gordon and Ferguson had the exclusive rights to the Cravenette process for leather, and it is employed on this one.

Chest (pit to pit): 20″
Shoulder to shoulder: 16-1/2″
Sleeve (shoulder to cuff): 24″
Length: 23″

 

 photo IMG_0040-1.jpg

 photo IMG_0042-1.jpg

 photo IMG_0045-1.jpg

 photo IMG_0046-1.jpg

 photo IMG_0048-2.jpg

Ad from 1934.
 photo 193401.jpeg
Ad from 1935
 photo 193501.jpeg

Advertisement

2 thoughts on “Guiterman Bros 1930s Town and Country leather jacket

  1. Pingback: Town and Country Sheeplined Coat | Vintage-Haberdashers Blog

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s