There are plenty of Right Then, Right Now garments in Pendleton’s history, but by far, our most famous sweater was immortalized in the cult classic, “The Big Lebowski.”

This Coen brothers film was released to low to middling success in 1998, but quietly grew into a cult favorite. No one can quite pinpoint why. Was it Donny’s clueless questions?  The dream sequence scored by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition? (click here to see a young Kenny Rogers perform the song on a giant psychadelic bed, click here for a nice homage version with movie stills) Was it Walter’s chin-strap beard? Or perhaps the German nihilists?

Well, it was all of these, but most of all, we think it was The Sweater.

Jeff Bridges wore his own clothes for this role, and though there were several sweaters hand-knitted as back-ups, he preferred wearing his original Pendleton. As the Dude, he staggers in and out of trouble, wearing alternately sweats, shorts, pajama pants, a bathrobe, t-shirts and…

…his sweater.

The original Pendleton cardigan debuted in 1974 as the Westerley.

We took inspiration from the beautiful hand-knitted Cowichan sweaters of the Pacific Northwest tribes, but ours were machine-knitted by Winona Knitting Mills of Minnesota. Here’s a little U.S.A. manufacturing history for you…Winona Mills was a two-facility company, owned by the Woodworth family. They were one of the very few knitters in the US who could do a 2gg knit. A 2gg knit is basically outerwear. You could wear it in a monsoon, and you’d stay warm and cozy.

The vintage Westerley is a 3gg knit, and it is WARM. We offered the Westerley in the western, outdoor and casual lines over the years. If your tag has a white background, it was part of the Western line. The blue labels are in the outdoor and casual lines. While down in the archives researching, I counted at least eight colorations, but that was just when I stopped counting. There are probably more.

The colors went all over the place, but the zip front, ring pull and shawl color stayed the same.

We have a few versions of this sweater in our archives, but when Kyle Anderson contacted us to see if we wanted his, we were delighted to accept it. Here it is, not quite mint but then again, neither is the Dude’s.

According to Kyle, the original owner, it was worn once. It’s in beautiful shape, it’s a great coloration, and best of all, it’s an XL so it will actually fit our modern size-large forms. Eventually, we hope this garment this will go on permanent display, but until then we’ve put this sweater to work in photo shoots and fashion shows beacuse  2011 marks the year we released a tribute version of the cardigan.

We don’t call it the Westerly anymore. We call it the Dude.  This is a heavyweight sweater, designed to keep you warm no matter where you’re doing your Achieving. It’s available at our stores and our website. We didn’t exactly replicate the original.  We wanted to preserve the value of the vintage sweaters that sell on eBay to Achievers everywhere.

The phenomenon that is “The Big Lebowski” continues. There are books devoted to the lore of Lebowski. All over the country, Lebowskifests draw crowds of Achievers, troupes of dancing bowling pins, and character look-alikes. You can buy stuffed animals, action figures and, of course, sweaters new or sweaters old.

The Dude abides. And so does his sweater.

This past fall, Zoe Fisher and Matt Johnson tied the knot under an ancient tree in Portland’s Laurelhurst Park. The bride was beautiful and the groom was handsome, but here at Pendleton, our attention was drawn to the row of attending men.

All the Young Dudes…

There they are, standing proud in our Dude Cardigan, Pendleton’s tribute to the Westerley worn by Jeff Bridges as The Dude in “The Big Lebowski.”

I was able to talk to Zoe to talk about her wedding last week, and the first thing I asked her was, did her wedding have an official theme? “It was Portland,” said Zoe. “Just Portland. My husband’s family is from the East coast and this was going to be their first trip out here. So we wanted the wedding to reflect Portland as much as it could.”

Marrying in red is a bold choice. It’s a fantastic color, and Zoe’s dress has a definite Adele vibe. Was it new or vintage? “Both, kind of. I found a vintage 1950s Butterick pattern on eBay and gave it to a Portland seamstress named Skye Blue. She’s into sustainable and upcycled designs, so I knew she’d be up for an unconventional wedding dress. I gave her the pattern and fabric I found for $6.00 a yard at the Fabric Depot.”

And look what she did with it!

The dress was new and old. Zoe added something borrowed and something blue with the Chanel Nouvelle Vague nail polish, owned and applied by a friend.

Zoe was ready to get married in style. But what about the men?

Two occurrences had the bride-and-groom-to-be thinking about having the male members of the wedding party in Pendleton sweaters.

Last December, Zoe saw a feature in Portland Bride magazine that used the Pendleton Jerome cardigan. “It definitely fit in with our theme. Pendleton is the Portland brand.”

Then in May of 2011, The Oregonian ran a feature on the Dude Cardigan, a tribute version of the cardigan worn in a movie that, well, it means a lot to Matt and  Zoe. “We’re basically obsessed with The Big Lebowski. So much so that we quote it almost every day.”

The stars were set to align. But a call to the downtown Portland Pendleton store was worrisome. “The ship date was really close to the wedding, and they’d pre-sold most of the stock before it even arrived. We were on the waiting list!”

Zoe decided to go to the store in person to look at other sweater options. When she arrived, associates were unpacking Dude sweaters and making calls. And once Zoe saw the cardigan in person, no other would do.

That’s where Pendleton people stepped in. Sheri Vanderpool, manager at Portland Pendleton, says, “Associate Michelle Seyer worked with Zoe personally, calling all around the country.” Michelle kept calling until she found enough for Matt’s three groomsmen, and Zoe’s best friend Jazz, who was one of her attendants. The sweaters came from every geographic region.

“We bought the sweaters and gave them as attendant gifts,” explains Zoe. “My dad was a little pouty that he didn’t get to wear one, but I said, no Dad, you’re the father of the bride. You wear a suit.” And of course, the groom Matt wanted one, too. He may or may not be getting one for Christmas. Matt will just have to wait and see on December 25th.

The event was captured on film by Heather Bayles, a Portland photographer who allowed us to use these shots (more shots from this wedding, and more examples of her beautiful work can be seen here).  Ms. Bayles took the pre-wedding shots at the Nines Hotel and the reception photos at the Bossanova Ballroom. Yes, that’s the groom rocking out with friends at the reception.

The very Oregon flowers were provided by Quince .

A big thanks to Zoe and Matt for allowing us to share in their very Lebowski wedding, and a special thanks to Zoe for sharing all the details that went into planning an event of so much heart, soul and style.

When complimented on her bravery for planning an outdoor wedding in Portland’s fall weather, she said, “Well, we decorated our save-the-date cards with an umbrella.” Did the wedding party have umbrellas, just in case? That idea made Zoe laugh. “We’re natives! We don’t do umbrellas!”

Congratulations, Zoe and Matt Johnson, and here’s to a beautiful future together. And if the Johnsons have  inspired you to investigate some creative choices for your wedding, come see us online or at one of our stores. We’d be happy to make it happen for you.

Our newest store is opening!

Kristen Philipkoski of GIZMODO.com called us to talk about the plaid shirt last week. She says, “Plaid shirts will always represent for me Kurt Cobain, riot grrrls and grunge music. That’s because I’m self-centered and lived my twenties in the ’90s. But today when I see my husband putting on a plaid shirt, it inspires entirely different connotations. He couldn’t be less grunge, but he is a certified geek. And it suits him perfectly.” She covers the history of plaid from tartans to Kurt Cobain, including Pendleton’s part of the story.

Read all about it here, and enjoy. 

Enjoy! We are definitely worth the trip.

In the early 1960s, a group called The Pendletones adopted their name in honor of the surf uniform of the day: Pendleton shirts worn over tee shirts with khakis. The original lineup included brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine.

 The Pendletones soon changed their name to the Beach Boys . Even though only one member of the group had ever been on a surfboard, they sang about the California surfing scene; waves, sunshine, cars and girls. This might have been simple subject matter, but layered instrumentation and soaring harmonies made these songs anything but simple. Under the unique artistic leadership of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys defined surf music. And though their name changed, their uniform didn’t. The band wore this blue and charcoal plaid shirt on the covers of 45s and LPs throughout the early 1960s.

The Beach Boys’ Pendleton shirts were part an existing trend. When surfing came to California in the late 1950s, surfers devised performance wear: swim trunks and plaid Pendleton shirts over a layer of Vaseline. Surfers wore the same shirts over light pants on the shore, and a fashion trend was born.

This look hit the radio airwaves courtesy of the Majorettes, whose song, “White Levis” became a number one hit in 1963. As the lyrics said, “My boyfriend’s always wearin’ white Levi’s…and his tennis shoes and his surfin’ hat and a big plaid Pendleton shirt.”  

That’s a Pendleton shirt  cover of that 45, even though they named the song after the pants. You can give it a listen here, and don’t be surprised if you start singing along.  But let’s get back to the shirt made so popular by the Beach Boys. 

In 2002, Pendleton celebrated eight decades of Pendleton shirts by bringing back iconic shirts from each decade. To celebrate the 1960s, we brought back the Board Shirt in the same plaid seen on all those record covers. We officially named it the Blue Beach Boys Plaid.

The shirt has stayed in the line ever since. We’ve used it in caps, hats, bags and jackets. It’s still made in the original 100% virgin Umatilla wool as it was back then, but we’ve interpreted it in rayon for campshirts and cotton for sleepwear.

We have done a few colorations of the plaid. Whether it’s in blue, coral,  rust or olive,  the pattern is easily recognizable.

Because of its strong ties to surfing history and culture, this pattern was used in key collaborations with Hurley and VANS in the late 2000s.

There is a discussion now and then in Pendleton’s Menswear division about which is our most enduring men’s item of all time. Some say it’s the Topster, the shirt jacket that defined collegiate wear in the 1950s and 60s. Some say it’s the Westerley cardigan worn by the Dude in “The Big Lebowski.” Others claim the honor for the Beach Boys Board Shirt.

This shirt is almost as beloved as the band that made it famous! It’s one of our top-sellers each year, regularly chosen by winners of the wool shirt giveaways we have on our Menswear Facebook page, and still worn by surfers, boarders, musicians, sons and fathers. The shirt is still going strong, and so are the Beach Boys. The band is currently out on tour, and they still love Pendleton.

This is Shelley, the Visual Director for our stores.  We are lucky to have her creative visual input around the corporate headquarters. While down in the archives, Shelley found some sepia-toned prints of people at work in the Pendleton mills. She brought them up, dusted them off, and let them inspire some beautiful lobby windows with blankets, and Fall 2012 apparel from Womenswear, Menswear and The Portland Collection.

Hope you enjoyed this tour of Shelley’s creative work. We are thankful to enjoy it every day. From all of us at Pendleton, have a happy Thanksgiving.

To answer the first question, click here.

To answer the second, watch this.

“Hi, my name is Daniel Glicker, and I’d like to work with Pendleton for a film I’m doing, an adapation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.”

That was an exciting phone call to receive. For those of you who don’t know, Danny Glicker is the Oscar-winning costume designer who dressed Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart and many more for their roles as Beat pioneers. He shopped vintage heavily, but the demands of filming require multiples of nearly every garment. Those are difficult to come by when you are searching out garments made in the 1950s.

That’s where Pendleton came in. We supplied Mr. Glicker with some new shirts made in plaids drawn from our archives, which he tailored to match our earlier specs. Because he is an exacting perfectionist, he also re-labeled the shirts with vintage tags we provided. And then, using processes known only to costumers, he weathered them to suit the road-battered, nonconformist lifestyle of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, the novel’s protagonists.

Premiering at Sundance this year is “Kill Your Darlings,” a film about one of the more infamous episodes in Beat history. With Jack Huston as Jack Kerouac and Daniel Radcliffe as Alan Ginsberg, this is a fantastic cast.  And it is not another reworking of On The Road. This is a the story of an actual death, possibly murder, possibly self-defense, that echoed through the tightly-knit  Beat Generation. We also worked to provide Pendleton shirts for this set of Beats.

These movies demonstrate the lasting impression made by Jack Kerouac on American literature. The story of his life, echoed in his works, resonates with iconoclastic spirit.

On The Road has never been out of print since it was first published by Viking in 1957. Here is a tour of the book’s covers, decade by decade along with some shots of the author. These shots of Jack Kerouac explain why costumers sought out Pendleton.

You’ve heard about it on the radio, seen it on YouTube, read about it in the paper and on innumerable blogs  all over the world. Yes, we are talking about the 100 Day Shirt by Wool & Prince, the new company Kickstarted  by Mac Bishop. We have fielded quite a few queries about this project because the shirt Mac wears in his video is actually a Sir Pendleton. So, here are some Pendleton answers to your Wool & Prince questions.

Was Pendleton aware that their shirt was being used by Wool & Prince?

Yes, we were aware the shirt worn in the video is a Sir Pendleton. Mac Bishop is a proud member of the sixth generation of Pendleton’s Bishops, and he’s worn Pendleton products his entire life.

Were you surprised by Wool & Prince’s claim that your Sir Pendleton was wrinkle and odor-free after being worn for 100 consecutive days without cleaning?

We were not. We have been making men’s wool shirts for 90 years, and we understand the attributes of wool. Even though there is no such thing as a self-cleaning shirt, a wool shirt will refresh itself when allowed to rest after a wearing. We’re excited that Wool & Prince is illuminating the qualities of wool to new consumers.

Have you ever subjected any of your wool shirts to a similar test?

Pendleton’s consumers have been wear-testing our Men’s shirts since 1924. That’s why we’re not surprised at the outstanding results.

Is Pendleton producing the Wool & Prince brand?

No. Mac Bishop has developed his own fabric and sourced production independently.

Is Pendleton planning any changes to the line based on the excitement generated by Wool & Prince’s slimmer fit shirts?

We have been doing great business with our Fitted shirts, which we introduced years ago. Our contemporary brand, The Portland Collection, offers a trim fit, and this fall we are launching a new brand, Thomas Kay, celebrating our founder and 150 years of weaving in America. The garments in this collection (including new shirt models and fabrics) have a modern, tailored fit. Which is all just our way of saying that we have been working on a more body-conscious fit for a few years.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, you can watch the Wool & Prince video here.

For excellent background on Wool & Prince, read Fast Company’s profile .

And for more information on wool, see our website.

At Pendleton, we have so much local lore to draw on when naming products. We all agreed that the Burnside was a perfect name for this Fall’s new cotton shirt! What else would we name it? It was a perfect name, the perfect name! But then it occurred to us that not every one lives in Portland. So here’s a little background.

Burnside Avenue runs from east to west in Portland, crossing the Willamette River with one of Portland’s original bridges. The best-known stretch on the west side of the river, where Burnside was originally known as “B Street,” is part of Northwest Portland’s Alphabet District. In the 1800s, before the bridge was built, this was a wild part of town. B Street was home to bars, card rooms, and other nefarious businesses that made it a less-than-respectable part of town. The street name was changed to Burnside after David W. Burnside, a Portland merchant, in the late 1860s, but it took more than a new moniker to alter the neighborhood. It took traffic.

Yes, traffic! The bridge, the streetcar and then the demands of the automobile turned Burnside into one of Portland’s more heavily traveled avenues. When the 205 freeway was cut through, Burnside even got some on-ramps (one block off Burnside). Burnside served as one of the boundaries of what Portlanders called “close-in Northwest,” an industrial area adjacent to the river.

image courtesy of vintageportland.wordpress.com

It was home to rail yards, breweries and warehouses. But by the late 1980s, the breweries had closed, and the rail yard had relocated its giant concrete turntable to SE Portland. Change was coming.

Today, Burnside bounds the Pearl District, a prosperous mixed-use neighborhood full of lofts, studios, galleries, restaurants and shopping. But Burnside’s gritty charms remain. You can see it in Powell’s, the City of Books housed in an amalgamation of warehouses joined together to make a square city block of books.  You can also see some original Burnside in Everyday Music, another vast emporium housed in converted industrial spaces. And you can see it in the work of the McMenamin brothers, Portland entrepreneurs who restored an ancient dance hall with a famous floating wooden dance floor and opened the Crystal Ballroom with Ringler’s Pub underneath.

Pendleton’s HQ sits where the Pearl District meets Portland’s Old Town, on NW Broadway, just east of the North Park Blocks. Burnside Avenue is only two blocks away. It continues to carry foot, bus, car and bike traffic through a part of Portland where the newness of the Pearl District rubs shoulders with history, and it carries it all comfortably. What better name could we find for a 100% cotton flannel shirt, peached on both sides of the fabric for softness, bar tacked for strength, and made in the kinds of plaids that say Pendleton?

That’s right. We called it the Burnside shirt, and we hope you like it.

Your favorite sweater is back.

The Westerley Cardigan, made famous by Jeff Bridge’s The Dude in The Big Lebowski, is back for fall. This is a different coloration, but as you can see by the vintage ad on the left, it is straight from our archives. We found a mill that could recreate the weight and gauge of the original sweater. We changed one detail; this version zips with a leather pull tab instead of the original metal ring.

We’ll have a contest coming soon, so you can win your own.

Filming has wrapped on “Love and Mercy,” the upcoming Brian Wilson biopic. The costume department came to us for–you guessed it–many, many of the Beach Boy Plaid board shirts worn Brian and the Boys on the cover of Surfer Girl and various 45s. Remember, before they were the Beach boys, they were the Pendletones.

The movie won’t be out until next year, but we thought you’d enjoy these shots from filming.

More information on the movie can be found here and here.

The Thomas Kay Collection should be arriving in your mailbox today via catalog. 

 Joining our founder’s British roots with the sensibilities of the American West, the men’s and women’s apparel and Home goods in this collection tell the Pendleton story. We hope you enjoy!

A brand builds a base in many ways. Pendleton has been around long enough that we have fans who’ve been shopping with us since the second World War. We also have generations of brand fans who have come to us through vintage shopping.

That’s why were were especially excited to be featured in the in-store publication of Buffalo Exchange.

They have a nice write-up about our brand history, with photos featuring apparel from our mens, womens and The Portland Collection, as well as some of our blankets.

And, they have an accurate shirt label guide on the last page.

We’d like to point out that the “2000s” example is from The Portland Collection. On Menswear, the label you’ll see is more like this one:

Thanks, Buffalo Exchange! If you are a vintage shopper, please check them out.

We’re just a little bit crazy for these images shot by PO­­­NYBOY featuring Luke Ditella in vintage Pendleton wool shirts. Luke is a surfer (read about him at The Surfer’s View ) who works with Click Models NY.

As the magazine says, “We were pleased to feature Luke, and his rugged good-looks worked so well for this story.” He models an array of classic Pendleton plaids from tartan to exploded to ombre to check to glen to windowpane, shown tucked into high-waisted vintage wool dress slacks.

And, he wears a solid wool shirt reminiscent of the Tony shirt we have at pendleton-usa.com this spring.

Based on the plaids and lengths of the collar points, we see shirts from nearly every decade we’ve been making wool shirts in our nine decades of quality shirtmaking. Check out our Instagrams tagged #pendleton9decades to see some of the recreated shirts we’re doing this fall to celebrate. And you can follow Luke’s Instagram at LUKEDITELLA.

See the full Ponyboy feature here with many more shirts.

As much as we dislike half seasons, the decision to spread Mad Men’s last episodes over two years puts off the inevitable, painful farewell to a fascinating show.

We’ve seen Pendleton on Mad Men’s men, in robes and Topsters. Peggy disguised her pregnancy under the waistband of an ever-higher Pendleton reversible skirt–or Turnabout as it was called back then.

The early seasons captured an iconically Pendleton look. The characters seemed to step right out of a Ted Rand illustration.

Time has passed in the world of Mad Men, and the characters are wearing miniskirts and bell bottoms. As always, the costumes are pitch-perfect.  And, as always, we will be watching–for just as long as we can.

ed. note: Happy Summer! This post originally ran a few years ago, but with the weather like it is, we hope you’ll enjoy it again today.

In the early 1960s, a group called The Pendletones adopted their name in honor of the surf uniform of the day: Pendleton shirts worn over tee shirts with khakis. The original lineup included brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine.

The Pendletones soon changed their name to the Beach Boys . Even though only one member of the group had ever been on a surfboard, they sang about the California surfing scene; waves, sunshine, cars and girls. This might have been simple subject matter, but layered instrumentation and soaring harmonies made these songs anything but simple. Under the unique artistic leadership of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys defined surf music. And though their name changed, their uniform didn’t. The band wore this blue and charcoal plaid shirt on the covers of 45s and LPs throughout the early 1960s.

The Beach Boys’ Pendleton shirts were part an existing trend. When surfing came to California in the late 1950s, surfers devised performance wear: swim trunks and plaid Pendleton shirts over a layer of Vaseline. Surfers wore the same shirts over light pants on the shore, and a fashion trend was born.

This look hit the radio airwaves courtesy of the Majorettes, whose song, “White Levis” became a number one hit in 1963. As the lyrics said, “My boyfriend’s always wearin’ white Levi’s…and his tennis shoes and his surfin’ hat and a big plaid Pendleton shirt.”

That’s a Pendleton shirt  cover of that 45, even though they named the song after the pants. You can give it a listen here, and don’t be surprised if you start singing along.  But let’s get back to the shirt made so popular by the Beach Boys.

In 2002, Pendleton celebrated eight decades of Pendleton shirts by bringing back iconic shirts from each decade. To celebrate the 1960s, we brought back the Board Shirt in the same plaid seen on all those record covers. We officially named it the Blue Beach Boys Plaid.

The shirt has stayed in the line ever since. We’ve used it in caps, hats, bags and jackets. It’s still made in the original 100% virgin Umatilla wool as it was back then, but we’ve interpreted it in rayon for campshirts and cotton for sleepwear.

We have done a few colorations of the plaid. Whether it’s in blue, coral,  rust or olive,  the pattern is easily recognizable.

Because of its strong ties to surfing history and culture, this pattern was used in key collaborations with Hurley and VANS in the late 2000s.

There is a discussion now and then in Pendleton’s Menswear division about which is our most enduring men’s item of all time. Some say it’s the Topster, the shirt jacket that defined collegiate wear in the 1950s and 60s. Some say it’s the Westerley cardigan worn by the Dude in “The Big Lebowski.” Others claim the honor for the Beach Boys Board Shirt.

This shirt is almost as beloved as the band that made it famous! It’s one of our top-sellers each year, regularly chosen by winners of the wool shirt giveaways we have on our Menswear Facebook page, and still worn by surfers, boarders, musicians, sons and fathers. The shirt is still going strong, and so are the Beach Boys. The band is currently out on tour, and they still love Pendleton.

Our Surf Pendleton collection draws inspiration from our history with the California surf scene, where our Board Shirt was featured in songs and on album covers. The collection also celebrates the robust surf culture of our home state, Oregon, where we’ve collaborated with Blackfern on two limited edition surfboards.  But surfing was born in the Hawaiian islands, and nothing says the islands like a Reyn Spooner shirt.

To quote the company:

It is true that in Hawaii, time has a way of stopping.  Our way of life here has roots in the ancient, with nature and in Hawaiian culture.  We are committed to enhancing the past by bringing our lifestyle right to you.  We’ve been in business since 1956 using unique archival prints, exclusive vintage artwork, and work of celebrated artists to evoke the island life.  

Our designers worked together on to incorporate traditional Pendleton patterns into Reyn Spooner’s Spooner Kloth®. This fabric is woven in Japan and sewn on the reverse for a distinctively weathered appearance. Shirts and shorts made with Spooner Kloth® are cool, easy care, and they last forever.

So there you have it; a little bit of Hawaii with Surf Pendleton style. Mahalo!

We’re celebrating nine decades! yes, that’s right. We have been making men’s wool shirts for ninety years. The Pendleton shirt story starts in 1924, when the Bishop family decided to enlarge their business from trade and bed blankets into men’s apparel.

To quote http://www.pendleton-usa.com:

In 1924, a man could have a wool shirt in any color he wanted – as long as it was grey. Wool shirts were utilitarian items; warm, durable, an excellent first line in the defense against the elements. They were uniformly drab. Of course, all that was about to change.

At Pendleton Woolen Mills, Clarence Morton Bishop envisioned a different kind of fabric for a man’s wool shirt. Pendleton’s sophisticated weaving capabilities were producing vibrant Indian trade blankets. Why not bring that same weaving and color know-how to flannel shirting?

He wrote to his father, Charles Pleasant Bishop, “I believe we should add such goods as shirts and hosiery.” C.P. Bishop agreed, replying “I am more and more impressed with the opportunity we have here in Oregon.” While his son investigated production options, C.P. Bishop did the early marketing work. He wrote to his son that “I am impressing it on the minds of my employees and patrons…that we are putting a new fabric on the market, something better than other mills can or will make.”

After much weaving experimentation and hard work, Pendleton’s innovative Umatilla shirting fabric rolled off the loom. The rich colors in Pendleton’s woolen plaid shirts were completely new to the market in 1924. The positive response was immediate. It has also been enduring.

Ninety years! To celebrate, we’ve released a poster that elaborates on the design features of our most enduring models.  Click for a larger view, though the best view is in person at one of our many retailers.

Here’s the styles you know and love in photos.

Fall 2014 brings our Decade shirts, each made a style and fabric that represents a decade of Pendleton shirtmaking. We will be taking a closer look at those in the next few weeks. But for now, it’s kind of awesome to sit back and consider how many Pendleton wool shirts we’ve put on the backs of men over the last ninety years. Thank you for your loyalty, and here’s to the next decade!