EG BDs / J. Press Hits UK Shores / Breton Recommendations / Secondhand Sweatshirt Steals

THE RADAR // Issue #8

Hello! Welcome back to THE RADAR, The Prep Club’s fortnightly mini-magazine for interesting bits and pieces in the sphere of collegiate threads. You can attend last week’s meeting here, for thoughts on how to ivycise your life.

Ivycise Your Life

ENGINEERED GARMENTS OXFORDS

Engineered Garments makes my favourite OCBD, I feel this is of note because EG does not hold a particularly strong reputation as a manufacturer of collegiate clothing, they’ve kept an influence from American sportswear since the label’s inception but it tends to refracted through a sort of techy, militaria approach to silhouette and detailing. Amongst all of this they produce (or have in the past produced) two very traditional button-down shirts.

What I understand to be the better known of the two, the 19th Century BD Shirt, is a six-button with a patch pocket and a rounded front hem. As the name would suggest it seems heavily influenced by the very first button-downs made by Brooks. As such details a very minimal, just a simple patch pocket on the front and the obligatory box pleat on the back.

Their other offering is a seven-button, produced under the Workaday basics line, I refer to it as the “Workaday Oxford” for this reason, however it’s worth pointing out that the 19th Century BD can also feature the Workaday label. This cut appears to be out of production, which is a shame because it’s my preference of the two. With seven buttons, a flap pocket, back collar button, and locker loop, it’s far more akin to a 60s button down, perhaps from GANT or J. Press. I have two of these, one in blue and white university stripes and one in Blackwatch tartan.

Both of these come up for good prices secondhand, in the UK I’d expect to pay £20-£60 for them. Fits on both a generous and the collars roll beautifully. EG aren’t ones to skip on detail, and seeing that care applied to making a great basic is very satisfying.

---

Small Favour: If you wouldn’t mind, please share this post, or the club as a whole, with a friend who you think might be interested, it would mean a whole lot. Please also subscribe if you haven’t yet, again, it makes a big difference.

---

J. PRESS IN THE UK

For the longest time, J. Press has been something of a forbidden fruit for those on my side of the pond. A staple of collegiate attire confined to the shores of the States. Just recently though, 2nd Academic have begun to stock a small amount of J. Press online.

It is, for now, only the more-affordable pennant line, and a small selection at that, but we’ll take what we can get. At the time of writing, the stock is four BD shirts, one of which is short sleeve, one pair of chinos, two ivy league branded tees, a cap, and a Madras Anorak. For such a small collection, they’ve done a good job of playing the hits, though I would like to see a blazer and maybe a couple of tweed sport coats next.

Importing clothes from the States is set to only really get harder, and so seeing a store commit to offering J. Press now is exciting.

---

BRANDS FOR BRETONS