The J. Peterman Company
Posted on April 22, 2008
Filed Under Items, Clothing |
“Sometimes you don’t need a reason to walk up to a pretty girl sitting alone in a cafe. And sometimes the decision is taken out of your hands entirely.
She’d been writing in her journal, pausing often to look out the window at the endless blue beyond the beach. At one point she reached down to the Heirloom Gladstone Bag next to her chair and drew out a small, illustrated catalog.
I could see it perfectly, so I knew I must be dreaming. Since I was dreaming, I figured I didn’t have anything to lose.
‘Pardon me,’ I said looking down at the unmistakable layout, ‘but how long have you been carrying that around with you?’
‘This?’ she said, fanning the pages slowly, stopping on the Lexington Hacking Jacket. ‘Why, ever since it came in the mail about 3 days ago. Why do you ask?’
I pulled up a chair, knowing that this story was going to have a happy ending…”
Imagine my surprise when, in the process of looking for information on what I thought was the defunct J. Peterman catalog, I found that the J. Peterman Company is back and just as good as it ever was; retailing their wares on the Internet and in their quirkily wonderful catalog.
Last I heard, the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1999. Soon after that I stopped getting the catalog in the mail, so I assumed that this was just one more good thing that had come to an end. Apparently the name had been sold to another company that subsequently also went under. When it did, John Peterman was able to buy back the rights to his own name and relaunch the business with the help of a core group from his original company.
It’s all still there; the hand-painted illustrations, the simple vignettes that draw you into the backstory of each shirt and shoe, even the original J. Peterman coat. I was able to visit the retail store in Chattanooga several times during the first company’s run, and all the items are just what they say they are; distinctive, good-looking, and well-made.
You don’t always get a second chance to enjoy something this good.
The J. Peterman Company
888.647.2555
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