The Overcoat

The black overcoat I am wearing in the photo that introduces this blog is vintage.  That photo of me is from December 2011, but the coat was purchased by my father when he was 16 years old in 1959.  My father was raised with his older sister, Claudia, by a single mother in Concord, CA.  Concord is on the edge of the greater San Francisco bay area, connected to Walnut Creek and an hour drive to Oakland and San Francisco where wool overcoats are perfectly useful.  As far as I can research without a visit to the Oakland Public Library, there was a men’s shop called Smiths of California on Broadway in Oakland that emerged in the 1920s and lasted through the 1960s at least––it’s not there now.  Another thing that’s not around is the Clifton Dale overcoat, sold exclusively at Smiths, so the label stitched into the inside of my coat states.

Actually, the Clifton Dale line of overcoats were sold in other men’s stores as well, but it seems the labels were individual to the men’s store that happened to carry Clifton Dale menswear.  I have no idea who Clifton Dale was, or if he wasn’t a real person at all, but he made an overcoat that lasts.  Too bad he isn’t still making them.  This one is not quite black, but charcoal, with a subtle check print in it.  The sleeves have the detail of a cuff around half of the circumference and a useless button for show, as if the cuff needed buttoning down for safe keeping.  The coat fits nicely in my shoulders and hangs straight down with plenty of room to comfortably wear a suit jacket underneath.  The style is typical of what you see on Mad Men.  It is basic and yet it has a kind of subtle elegance and detail to it not seen in a similar garment on the rack of Macy’s today.

During my childhood this coat was hanging in our hall closet going nowhere and doing nothing.  I never remember my dad wearing it.  The coat had traveled up the hill from Concord to Placerville when we moved in 1969 and because it was warmer more of the year, not conducive to the snow conditions in the winter and my father only traveled a short distance by car to his office, there wasn’t any need for the coat.  My dad also felt it was a bit too dressy for most country activities.  But it was a good coat, and as I mentioned before, it sure looked beautiful over a suit.  There was nothing wrong with hanging on to it, but I’m amazed that it never ended up in the periodic pile of goods being donated to Good Will.  

When I became a teenager, my parents were introduced to a game at a Christmas party.  The idea was that if you rolled doubles on a pair of dice, you could start trying to open a package waiting in the center of the circle of players.  However, before you could rip open that paper, you had to put on an overcoat, mittens, hat and scarf.  Once you were all bundled up you could start opening that package if the mittens would allow it.  Meanwhile, the rest of the crowd is taking turns rolling the dice.  Low and behold, someone rolls a double and starts tearing the clothing off the last winner, who must drop the package and give up his turn to the new winner.  This can go on for quite a while.  One trick of the game is that the package is actually a series of packages wrapped inside each other.  When you finally get to the final package it is pretty small and there is some sort of novelty gift that is never as exciting as it was to play the game.  

I thought this was such a great idea that I tried it at a small dinner party I gave when I was 15 years old.  The guests were neighbor friend Paul Hunt, Jossette Childress and Laura Batho.  This was the year when the four of us went to all the school dances together and shared in birthday parties and such.  My little brother, who was still actually little at the time, played along and we had a good round of the dice game, laughing and screaming until our sides might split.  We played the game in a big hat, scarf, mittens and that Clifton Dale overcoat from the hall closet.  The coat came out of the closet a few more times while I was in high school just for that game at various parties.

I left for college and the coat hung quietly in the closet, somehow unharmed, for a few more years.  In my junior year at California State University, Sacramento, I picked up a used midnight blue tails tuxedo with my first paycheck from a new job with the Sacramento Light Opera Association’s Music Circus (now known as California Musical Theatre).  What did I need with a tails tuxedo?  Nothing, except I thought it was cool and I was a tap dancer and, you know, Fred Astair wore tails, so....  You aren’t supposed to analyze it, nor are you supposed to find a practical purpose, but you are just supposed to accept that at age 20, in Sacramento, I needed a midnight blue tails tuxedo.  I wore it to the CSUS Drama Banquet and to the Sacramento Area Regional Theatre Alliance Elly Awards.  I was able to use it on Halloween once and in a few performances.  On one of these occasions, the weather was a bit chilly and I was going to need an overcoat to wear with the tuxedo.  My thoughts went to that lonely Clifton Dale in the hall closet in Placerville.  I drove up the hill to get it and wear it to my event.  I never brought it back and I have made good use of it ever since.

At this very moment, everyone thinks I am so cool when I wear it because of the general Mad Men craze that is affecting fashion everywhere.  But, even before Mad Men, the coat was admired by others often.  When I first kidnapped it I was very slim and wore a 39 long suit jacked.  Now I wear a 46 long suit jacket and the overcoat still fits beautifully, so I suppose it was oversized on me when I first began to wear it, but it hung off my shoulders well and didn’t look like I was swimming in it.  In my early 20s I only wore it when I needed something to wear over the tuxedo or the rare occasion when I wore a sport coat on a chilly evening.  Now I wear suits and blazers quite often and the overcoat has become essential to my wardrobe.  I’ve kept my eye out for a replacement as the day will come when I’ll just have to buy a new coat, but I haven’t seen one made as well or as good looking that wasn’t priced entirely beyond reason.  Whatever coat I buy, it won’t be a Clifton Dale, for they are sadly a thing of the past.  Even now, I am sewing up a small tear caused by either time or a moth, but as long as no one can tell the difference, I’ll keep patching it up and wearing this prefect garment.