Chandler
Well-Known Member
Your knits look like true wool, too. Mine are polyester with little wool feel to them -- might even be a cotton-polyester blend.
Does yours have a brass or nickel zip? Mine is yellow brass.
-
When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
AVIREX …. The company that started it all…. (In 500 words or less… again.)
- Thread starter B-Man2
- Start date
Does yours have a brass or nickel zip? Mine is yellow brass.
Juanito
Well-Known Member
I ran across Avirex in 1982 or so, and the L.L. Bean Flying Tigers A-2 had to go for the Avirex Horesehide A-2 a few years later. Nothing against the jacket--in many ways it is a more accurate reproduction A-2 that any of the high end manufacturers today with the chrome tanning, pigment finish and somewhat spotty quality. Anyway...
Marketing Wizard...I consider both Jeff Clyman (as well as LW Stuart Clurman and Burt Avedon of W&G), something other than marketing wizards. I suppose that was necessary to be somewhat of a "big personality" (huckster) in the early era of flight jackets. Oddly, I met both Jeff and Stuart, and also interviewed to Burt Avedon on the phone (the one I missed out on was Neil Cooper). In many ways they were very similar and in others, they were radically different. Part of that might have been the time frame as I talked to Jeff in 1988, Avedon in 1991, and Stuart of LW in 1998 or 1999.
Anyway, back to Avirex, I am thankful for what Jeff offered in The Cockpit catalog, as I purchased a number of things out of there (the horsehide A-2, the Avirex Tropical shorts are still my favorite shorts ever, the Gruen Curvex as awesome until it gave its life in pursuit of a girl in the ocean off of Mazatlan, and so on), but this is the thing that really annoyed me from a wordsmith's perspective: "We can once again offer our customers genuine horsehide A-2s." That's really bleeds into inferring that Avirex was an original supplier.
Last edited:
Juanito
Well-Known Member
My horsehide jacket had a Scoville brass zipper with what must have been a wool/polyester mix on the cuffs and waistband since they pilled horribly. That said, I figured out that a Norelco razor would take care of that and clean up the cuffs and waistband. They were later replaced with Eastman items.
B-Man2
Well-Known Member
My old Avirex was similar to this, the early ones were more authentic than the later map lined ones, mine even had a pocket flaps misalignment seen like wartime ones, liked it for a long time, I'll dig out picsI meant to add these last week before the big outage, better late than never.
@B-Man2 -- mine doesn't even look like it came from the same factory as yours. Different hide, different knits, different pocket flap contour.
What's the hanger like in yours? You can see mine is not authentic to originals.
Ed Rooney
Well-Known Member
We always had the catalog laying around our house. Mine was a gift from a family member. I think I had already bought a "CWU-55/P" from them, which was their nylon CWU-45 copy.
At that point, the only other flight jackets I knew of were from Sporty's or Flight Suits Ltd. My Dad had a paper thin goatskin Sporty's A-2, so I already had the "A-2's aren't as comfortable" prejudice.
I bought an Avirex MacArthur HH A-2 from Juanito (edit: I just realized it's the one he posted above in this thread) a few years ago. Got a great deal, but I could not live with the 24" length or the extra set of snaps under the collar, which I guess were a mistake in manufacturing. I kind of wish I had kept it. Ultimately it ended up with that guy on ebay who buys whatever A-2's he can get cheap, then slaps a bunch of nonsensical leather patches and chits on them and sells them for $595, so it is basically ruined.
Last edited:
).
johnwayne
Well-Known Member
Must have been late 80’s when at Biggin Hill airshow here in UK I picked up a copy of Cowboys of the Sky that I still have. I already had some knowledge of ‘flight’ jackets but that was the first publication I found with nice glossy pics about such gear! Then on my first visit to NYC in 1990 (I think!) The Cockpit store was one of the first places to visit on my list, mindful of the wife and two young kids in tow I was perhaps a tad self indulgent but I recall an AT6 just hanging there from the ceiling! Not long after they also opened a store here in London’s Oxford Street but for AT6 read a ‘chopped’ P51, sort of sticking out of one wall, basically a fuselage and a wing! Somehow I always thought their jackets a little too buttery and soft and not a fit that felt right. However, that was also around the time ELC came on the scene and my knowledge of flight jackets by this time had me seeing through Avirex’s not so authentic jackets. It’s a shame really because Jeff Clyman and his team had the jump on everyone and given his apparent own collection, could have made more faithful repro rather than the baggy interpretations they sold - guess it was the era of big shouldered fashions and or he just misread what many wtd, albeit I sure he did Ok when he sold the company!!!
B-Man2
Well-Known Member
Ed
Were the MacArthurs labeled or marked differently ?
Chandler
Well-Known Member
Mine was purchased as a "MacArthur" and looks like it has the same tags as yours.
Except maybe the colors.
John Lever
Moderator
When did Avirex first start trading ?
Ed Rooney
Well-Known Member
1940, if you believe the old catalogs.
John Lever
Moderator
ALC predates that, but 1940...?
