We found a small roll of this amazing vintage pure Rayon Silk Gabardine (so called because of the silken hand -- you won't believe how it feels). The fabric pattern and shirt design are pure 1940s. Montgomery Clift could be wearing it in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY.  If you don't know Montgomery Clift and his tragic story, read Patricia Bosworth's MONTY. Clift is an important icon of postwar American movies and culture. The classic Hollywood tragic story. Check out the antique cast pewter buttons. Loosely cut for that period flow. When the roll is gone, that's it. Today's purchase, tomorrow's antique. Is $185.00 a lot of money for a shirt? Yes, most shirts. For a virtually bespoke neo-classic of which only a tiny handful were ever made, it's cheap. The collector "cult," with its ludicrous Trekkie tunnel vision, locks itself into a mythic past whereby anything current is crap. The genuine collector appreciates something that's new and equals or exceeds "Shroud of Turin" originals and doesn't make him yet another minnow in the eBay feeding frenzy  because he understands the historical and style savvy and nigh impossible sourcing difficulties in making a superior, original statement in this inferior Xerox, wannabe age.

To whit -- There's a classic short story by Jorge Luis Borges, "I Pierre Menard." An absolute parallel to what we try to do at LOST WORLDS. The narrator, Pierre Menard, decides to reimagine Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE, word by word, comma by comma, without reading the masterpiece. That is, by an impossible creative act, recreate the QUIXOTE exactly, without direct reference, only by the imagination. If he succeeds, Menard tells the reader, my QUIXOTE will be infinitely greater than Cervantes' original. "Pierre Menard" has always been an inspiration to us here if you get the parallel. Lame copying is one thing -- and never successful or even beyond curio interest because you can't "comp" spirit -- but recreation, starting from the same place as a cherished original and using inspiration to forge the same footprints ... this is where creativity and craft are wedded and welded. From time to time we get the odd  comment from those too creatively dim to understand what we attempt and what we accomplish. It's not that we're elitist, particularly, rather that we seek customers who understand, rather than merely follow. Some other manufacturers might be thrilled by legions of bobble head groupies. Not us. Er, unless they're female. Can we say that? Aren't we liable somehow under antifeminist laws? The Thought Police are knocking at our door.