Trafalgar Braces Suspenders Baseball “America's Pastime” aka “National Pastime” LIMITED EDITON 100% Silk. Condition is Pre-owned.
Shipping FREE with FedEx.
These braces are in near-mint condition. They have been worn, but these are pristine:
• NO Stains
• NO Fraying
• NO Marks
• Back elastic strip is tight and clean
• Brass fasteners stamped "Trafalgar" are scratch-free
• From a smoke-free office space and home
• Buttonholes are tight
Exquisitely detailed, Trafalgar's Limited Edition braces are the creme-de-la-creme of suspenders. For those who have a passion for fine men's attire, or a love of a specific hobby or pastime, these beautifully rendered hand-woven 100% silk braces will be a treasured wardrobe addition.
Produced in short runs and offered for limited periods of time, each of these luxurious suspenders features a specific theme.
“America's Pastime” is Trafalgar's baseball-as-national pastime themed silk braces. They depict action scenes of a suspenseful baseball game. Please see closeups for the unsurpassed detail achieved on Trafalgar's vintage looms.
If you’re interested and would like to negotiate, I am allowing “Best Offer” submissions, so please submit an offer for a reasonable amount.
And thank you for looking!
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I’m happy to answer any questions, and I can provide more photographs upon request!
The New York TimesBRACES: HIDDEN ASSETS GO PUBLICBy Michael GrossJune 13, 1986The New York Times ArchivesSee the article in its original context from
June 13, 1986, Section A, Page 24
It's hot and muggy, and all around town a sartorial secret of some of New York's most conservative men is being revealed as they doff their jackets on steamy streets.
Suspenders - or braces - in wild stripes, polka dots and plaids are emerging from beneath conservative business suits. Nude women and acrobats and devils and dollar signs stream down starched shirts. Why? Well, basically to hold up their trousers. But that is far from their only appeal.
Many men say they wear flashy braces as a counterpoint to their serious business lives. Braces ''give you a chance to express yourself,'' said Ken Kleiman, owner of an interior design concern.
Call them braces or suspenders - the words are used interchangeably, though with a strong preference for the former among the affluent and assured. Either way, they are now big business, high style and an easy last-minute gift for Father's Day. Sales Are Up Sharply
At Paul Stuart, the Madison Avenue businessman's haberdashery, suspenders now far outsell belts. In the last 10 years, sales have increased fifteenfold. And the trend is traveling all over the United States.
''It really blew apart in the last two years,'' said Patricia Grodd, Paul Stuart's merchandise director.
Nowadays, suspender stocks go far beyond the traditional solids, jacquards, brocades, foulards, florals and paisleys, stripes, spots and plaids. While some snappy dressers such as Philip B. Miller, chairman of Marshall Field's in Chicago, still favor simple solid colors, today's best-selling brace styles are motifs: roosters, parrots, devils, owls, Confederate flags, playing cards, bulls and bears dripping ticker tape, cupids and acrobats. Braces decorated with nude women, retailers say, are the biggest seller of all.
One New York manufacturer has exclusive rights to reproduce designs of the late Calvin Curtis, a renowned New York brace maker. It sells numbered, limited-edition reproductions of the eagle and flag suspenders Mr. Curtis created for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the acrobatic strongmen he made for John Ringling North. These braces sell for $80 to $85. Their maker, Trafalgar, has also reproduced rare braces given to Benjamin Disraeli by Queen Victoria and a pair featuring bees made for Napoleon Bonaparte. The company's sales have increased from under $100,000 in 1980 to well over $1 million today. 'Jumping on the Bandwagon'
''Now,'' its president, Marley Hodgson, said, ''department stores and all the me-too people'' are jumping on the brace bandwagon.
''It's just clicking this season,'' Bruce Binder, men's fashion director of Macy's agreed, standing in a department filled with braces that range from Trafalgar's Calvin Curtis classics to clip-ons for as little as $11 carrying such labels as Liberty of London, John Henry and Polo/Ralph Lauren. Polo's brace business has quintupled since 1980, a company spokesman said.
America's most conservative men are the leaders of this resurgence. ''Your more affluent people wear braces,'' said Elliott Rabin, co-owner of Peter Elliott (1383 Third Avenue at 79th Street), a speciality shop. ''You've got to have confidence.'' At Peter Elliott, braces can cost as much as $250 for custom-made alligator-tipped sets, Christmas specials made of woven seaweed, hemp and tiny sea shells or custom orders such as a bartender's pink elephant set. 'A Sartorial Pretension'
''I wear naked ladies,'' said Sewantana Kironde, a director of the Chase Investment Bank. He calls his collection of 20 braces ''a sartorial pretension.''
That pretension is often passed down through generations. Jack Heller, the Foreston Development's president, whose grandfather always wore braces, said: ''They put humor into an otherwise serious life.''
John C. Burton, dean of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, former chief accountant for the Securities and Exchange Commission and a one-time Deputy Mayor of New York,said his father had influenced him, but it was gravity that got him to wear braces. ''The body droops,'' he sighed. Others don braces in emulation of men they admire. Michael Scharf, chairman of the board of Edgcomb Metals, adopted them fresh out of business school when his professional mentor, Peter Sharp, owner of the Carlyle Hotel, ''told me that was the only way a gentleman's trousers hung correctly,'' Mr. Scharf recalled. An Assuring Concept
The stylish influence of the Duke of Windsor got Mr. Kleiman into braces. ''A belt breaks the vertical line,'' he said. Mr. Kleiman owns 10 pairs, but none with cherubs. ''I want things that are basic and forever,'' he said.
Even the word braces is somehow assuring. ''They are associated with those who have always worn them,'' said Alan Flusser, a designer and men's fashion authority. He sells British braces adorned with dots, stripes, crossed golf clubs and dice for $50 in his shop at 16 East 52d Street.
Braces have been signaling men's place in society for about 200 years. But during World War I, men grew used to belts. Braces' fall from America's shoulders had begun. By 1950, sales were stagnant and stayed that way for 30 years.
Christopher Fleming, a lawyer and president of St. James Properties, a Boston real-estate development concern, is typical of the rare breed who stuck with suspenders. He has worn them ''ever since I got out of law school,'' he said. ''They are a Boston lawyer's tradition.'' Now he sees younger men in his concern donning braces, too.
''They're a key to the door of the board room,'' Mr. Flusser said.
Young brace-wearers in midtown recently cited other, simpler explanations.
''If you eat a lot, you don't have to loosen your belt,'' said Peter Halbauer, a 24-year-old law office manager.
Charlie Fetter, a printing salesman with R. R. Donnelly, said he wears them ''just to be different.''
Quiet rebellion, whimsy or practicality: all are reasons to button on braces.
And once again, if you’re interested and would like to negotiate, I am allowing “Best Offer” submissions, so please submit an offer for a reasonable amount.
And thank you for looking!
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