Surplus Ike jackets

[Alan H]

This has come up before...Riverkilt for one has posted pics of himself with an Ike jacket and his kilts, and my friend Casey often wears an olive green wool Ike jacket with his MacNaughton tartan kilt.

However, X Marker XMayniac has worn an Ike jacket with his X kilt as "sort-of-semi-formal" and I thought it looked great. They're tough to find as surplus in a size that would fit me, though What Price Glory used to carry them in more *ahem* robust sizes. It's just that the price tag was rather hefty for my wallet.

Here's what I'm referring to, though I would personally NEVER wear insiginia and service bars if I weren't entitled to them....off they'd come if I got a surplus jacket that had them.



Dickies makes what they call an Ike or Eisenhower jacket that's a zip-up-the-front thing, that's not at all the same thing. You can find pretty reasonably priced ones like the picture, above, on Ebay if you watch for a while. I'd say treat the insignia and what they represent with respect and not to wear them if you're not entiteld...but the jackets themselves are great.

[walkerk]

Alan - you are aware that each one of those brass buttons has an insignia on it?

[AFS1970]

IF you don't mind it in a very dark navy blue, called midnight navy, these are available at many uniform stores that cater to police departments. They are actually going out of favor with police departments, so I think the price may end up coming down. These come with no insignia other than a generic P on the buttons, but those could be changed out to any suitable button you wanted.

[Alan H]

Alan - you are aware that each one of those brass buttons has an insignia on it?

I am!

But sewing on buttons doesn't intimidate me!

[Tobus]

I got my Ike jacket on eBay for around $35, if I recall. Sadly, though, it's just a wee bit too snug for me to wear. I'd really need to lose about 10 pounds to make it comfortable. But I keep it in my closet in the hopes that I'll fit into it next winter. I'd need to take the patches off too. But I bought it for a good casual kilt-length jacket:



Another good source for vintage (milsurp) Ike jackets is here: Vintage Trends.

[The Wizard of BC]

Now what would be super cool is to find this jacket made from Black Barathea Wool.
With standard square Argyle type buttons.




I would be all over that in a moment.

[CMcG]

Marlow White has them in black or midnight blue without insignia. Their stock buttons are gold- or silver-colored with “P”, “S”, or “FD” but they could easily be swapped.

http://www.marlowwhite.com/dress-uniforms/coats.html

[The Wizard of BC]

Sorry CMcG.

I should have been more specific.

I would want the jacket in the picture. It is significantly different than the Police uniform jacket.

Note the lower lapel notch.
Note the wider and buttoned waistband.

The shoulders are rolled and the sleeves are more like a suit coat.

This is what I meant I wanted.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[CMcG]

Marlow White also sells Mess Dress Jackets, if I remember correctly. Oops...wrong sub forum!

Tsk, tsk Alan, next you're going to start talking about Red Sea Rig

Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that... just as you wrote, wrong sub-forum!

Sorry CMcG.

I should have been more specific.

I would want the jacket in the picture. It is significantly different than the Police uniform jacket.

Note the lower lapel notch.
Note the wider and buttoned waistband.

The shoulders are rolled and the sleeves are more like a suit coat.

This is what I meant I wanted.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

No problem Wizard, I tried! Still, I can see that they are different but I wouldn't say that the difference is significant. More like variations on a theme.

The type of jacket you're interested in doesn't appear common in black, so maybe you could dye one? But you also asked specifically for barathea wool... maybe your ideal version would be a custom job. Now if we only knew a contemporary kilt maker who would be up to the task

--------------------------------------------

I did a search with the term that OC Richard used "battle dress jacket" and came up with something a little different. I quite like it and this one is more my style! It has a stand up folded collar and no lapels. It comes in the usual tan/khaki/olive colours but also comes in black, like so:



In terms of availability of any of these types of jackets, eBay seems to have lots of options for used surplus. I also found someone on eBay making reproductions for under $100. This seller has the black one I posted above and also ones like this:


Here is a link to that sellers selection, which includes the two I posted and a bunch of other styles too:
http://shop.ebay.com/barrylyndon28/m....c0.m270.l1313

[Spartan Tartan]

I am actually having a difficult time imagining it with a kilt. I like the style, but I'm also a military junkie...