Southern heritage/vintage clothing brands?

April 30, 2014 12:16 PM

I'll be thrift shopping in and around Savannah Georgia next week; what brands am I looking for?

I let my 'secret' go on a prior askme concerning thrifting, but to recap, I've had really good luck finding some amazing clothing by shopping regional heritage brands. Examples would be L.L Bean for when I was living in Maine, and Pendleton for as long as I've been thrift shopping in and around the Northwest. I'm really aware of national brands and labels to keep an eye out for, so that's not an issue.

I'm looking for older, regional analogs to Pendelton or LL Bean that I might come across in the south. As it stands, I'll have my eyes out for L.C. King clothing, but even that is a bit further away than I would expect to find readily.

Suggestions for specific thrift (not vintage) stores are also welcome.

posted by furnace.heart to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (5 answers total)

The only thing that comes to MY mind would be anything with a Rich's tag in it. Rich's was an Atlanta based department store that was bought out by Macy's about 20 years ago.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 12:39 PM on April 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Chico's, Bealls (NOT Bealls Outlet) and Burdine's are/were all Florida-based department stores that might be around. Belk's is North Carolina-based, and also might be found in a Savannah thrift store. Those are all department stores, not manufacturers, though.

Southern Tide is a South Carolina-based apparel company, which may be more in line with what you're looking for. Southern Proper is a preppy brand from Atlanta. Southern Point Co. is out of Alabama, I think. Costa Del Mar is out of Daytona Beach, Florida, but they're mostly sunglasses, not apparel. They'd be some of the brands you could likely find at said department stores.

The South was never much for manufacturing, especially when compared to the North, which makes this question tricky. I'm not really sure if there is a proper analogue to something like LL Bean down here.
posted by PearlRose at 1:02 PM on April 30, 2014

I don't know whether the companies themselves are regional, but what I think you'd probably find in Savannah thrift stores are Lilly Pulitzer, Vera Bradley, Kate Spade, Ralph Lauren, Izod, and so on.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 2:33 PM on April 30, 2014

There's an art school with a huge fashion department in Savannah, I think the thrift stores are going to be pretty well picked over.
posted by bradbane at 6:26 PM on April 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Duck Head brand is historically based in Tennessee. It was around for 90 years before a burst of popularity in the 1980-1995 range, which included one sale of the name. Shopping may be a challenge, because the brand kind of went under for a while, before the name was revived by Goody's which I think of as being kind of TJMaxx-like, but also a historic southern clothing source. And then Goody's went under in ~2008 and Duck Head is a defunct brand. But while I was in highschool in Alabama (~1990), "Duck Heads" was synonymous with chinos/khakis. It was the thing. So if you're vintage shopping, keep an eye out. Except you probably aren't actually interested in men's semi-casual pants.
posted by aimedwander at 9:08 PM on April 30, 2014