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Short Stuff: Corduroy · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: There's j J. Brand new guest producer. We've got this
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: revolving door going on. It's just like a beautiful and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: this is short stuffy JJ's he's a pro though, Like
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: it's not like you can just show up here take
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a ticket like you're at the deli. No, no, nothing
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: like that. This isn't This isn't cats as deli. Hell,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I'd be pretty happy for. Nor is it doctor Katz's
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: therapy office. Anytime we hear of doctor Kats, I think
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: of um. I think it was dom Arera. He used
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to be a regular on that and he used to
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: go like Dr Cats, And it's always it's been in
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: my head since. Oh man, Dr Cats was great. I
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: miss it really was. Let's go watch some after this. Okay,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: all right, but let's talk about cord of Roy first. Sure, sure,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: that's fine. We can talk about about that, because you
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: see him wearing it in honor of today. I know
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: you're wearing some rust colored corduroy pants that I would
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: say are maybe a probably about a twelve ten to
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: twelve whale, yeah, because maybe eight. They're pretty standard Levi's
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: chords whatever that whale is. And if you're wondering what
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: we're talking about, we'll tell you here in a minute
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: after we get to a little bit of the the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: history here, which is debatable. Apparently it is because it's
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: either French in origin, uh korda do roy the King's cord.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: But my money is a little more towards what the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Brooks brothers say, which is no, mate, it was street
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: streetwear in eighteenth century England. I don't think the Brooks
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: brothers sound like that. No, what do they sound like? Oh? Really?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I can just think of Albert Brooks and super Dave
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Osborne as the Brooks brothers. Oh that's good. Why Dave
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: oz Born? He's not a Brooks, is he? They're brothers? Man? No? No?
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: That wow? Man? Their parents must have been really cool
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: probably so okay. So either way, what we're really talking
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: about here is where the origin of the name for
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: the fabric came from. It looks chuck like corduroy has
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: its roots way further back than that that. It comes from,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: possibly and probably a type of fabric from dating back
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to about two CE back in ancient Egypt called um Fustians.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Names after the city where they were made, al Fustat,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: which is I think Fustian is still actually a term
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: for certain types of corduroy or certain types of fabric,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: including corduroy that are real thick and squishy and and
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: originally they were pretty coarse. Yeah, but that Brooks Brothers
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: story has a lot of credibility because the chord uh
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: referencing the rose, the ridges, the chords, and d Roy
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: which is a wolf fabric, right. That sounds like a
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: pretty open and shut case to me. Now, yeah, I'm good,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I'm no, I'm with you. I'm going with the Brooks Brothers.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Um interpretation to it was really just the um the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: impression you did that I had an issue, okay, But
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the fabric itself you think that is Egyptian or Middle Ages,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and then uh later Egyptian you know. So, so it
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: was Egyptian first, but it was um, it wasn't corded.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: There weren't whales on it. It was just one thick
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: piece of like velvet kind of right, where you have
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: a certain kind of fabric and then woven on top
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of that fabric, is it the fabric that makes it
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: kind of plushier, thicker, um sturdier, and that is what
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: corduroy is. That it's as base um, and that that's
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: what they were making for many many centuries. And then finally,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: at some point during the Middle Ages, somebody said, Hey,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I've got a really good idea about this. Let's turn
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: this into corduroy by cutting rows into this stuff. Right.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: What we do know in the United States is that
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: it was first made in Woolsta, mass In about seventeen eighty.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: And uh, I do need to shout out Corduroy the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Bear here because not only is it does it appear
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: in this house stuff works short article on corduroy. But
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I have a pretty great Corturoy the Bear history, which
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: was I loved that book a lot as a kid,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: did you. I was aware of it, but I think
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: it was a little ahead of my time. Okay, I
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: think it was ahead of my time too. I mean
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I think it predates me. But I love the story.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: And my mom made she got a teddy bear that
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: looked kind of like corduroy and made him little corturoy
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: overalls and shorts and what was missing a button? So
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: that is so sweet. Yeah, I had my very own
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: kind of one of the great things about my mom.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And she could really so and so she could make
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: me things when they did not exist on the toy market.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Oh that's me. Or she could save some money and
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: just make her own knockoffs. Well we did that as well,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: right right. I had more than one T shirt made
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: from like curtain fabric. That's hilarious. Um My mom used
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: to take my T shirts and like stuff them and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: turn them into pillows when I outgrew them. Oh that's sweet. Yeah,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: it was pretty sweet. I have no idea where they
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: are anymore, but yeah, I had a few. I had
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: one that said BMX. Oh yeah, that'd be pretty cool
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to have today. It really would. So we mentioned the whales, uh,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: and I think we should get to that before we
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: take our little break. The whales are those rigid little
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: ridges W A L E. S. I'm so glad you
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: spelled it. Yeah. Um, And it's the higher the whale count,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the smaller the little ridge is. So if you have
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: worn one of those really fine sort of like corduroy Oxford's.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not a huge fan of them for myself. I
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: don't mind the way they look, but I've never liked
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: them for me personally. But that's about a sixteen whale.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: What don't you like about them? It's just not my bag.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not big on collar church period. They've
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: they ruffled my neck and my chin. Yeah, um, I
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: but that particular one you just described about the sixteen whale.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Cord think is typically called pink cord. Yeah, you have
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: some of those, right, I do not. But I have
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: to say researching corduroy made me want to go buy
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: some corduroy stuff, so I think it's in the offing. Yeah.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: My problem with my chords is they really wear out
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the knees very fast. And I'm not he spends a
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: lot of time on his knees. I'm not scrubbing floor
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: as much or anything. So I don't know what the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: deal is. Okay, well that's a mystery. I think we
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: can go to a commercial break on. All right, we'll
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: figure it out. Well, now we're on the road, driving
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: from Josh Madam, Chuck stuff you should know? All right,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: m all right, Chuck, we're back in. Um, let's talk
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: a little more about how corduroy is made, right, because
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: this blew my mind when I finally saw some diagrams
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: and I understood it. All right, let's hear it. So
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: with a typical fabric, you take two different sets of
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: yarns and you weave them together perpendicular to one another,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: and you have fabric. When you're making a fustian, like
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a thicker, fluffier fabric like say terry cloth or velvet
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: or corduroy, you it's very nice, isn't it, you use
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: a third set of yarn, And so what you have
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: is that basic, you know, flat fabric, and then woven
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: into the top of that is that thicker pile of
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: fabric called the um worst right, okay, And so just
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: leaving it like that, you have something like velvet or
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: again like terry cloth, which you love so much. But
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: if you want to make corduroy, you take that that
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: um fussy and fabric and then you take a very
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: sharp set of scissors or something like that, and you
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: cut a line all the way along the length of
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the fabric. And what you've just done is created a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: two whale um bolt of corduroy. But that's no one's
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: gonna wear that, right, Yeah, And two whale bolt is
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a great band name, by the way it is. That's
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: funny because I was just gonna say, the only person
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: who wear that is somebody like Flee from the Red
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Hot Chili Peppers, but he'll wear anything as pants as
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: we've seen over the years. Um. So you start making
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: more cuts and more cuts, and like you were saying,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: depending on how supple or um nice you want to
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: make the fabric, the more cuts you're gonna make. But
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: however many cuts there are. However many ridges there are
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: per inch. That's the whale count, and that's kind of
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: describes how thick the ridges are. But the point is
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: when you make that cut, what you've done is cut
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: that top layer of fabric, the additional third set of yarn,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and you've cut it into two and you've exposed the
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: other traditional two yarn set of fabric underneath. And that's
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: what corduroy is. It's a raised ridge that used to
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: be all one complete set of yarn, and then there's
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: valleys that are the fabric below. Yeah, I've been practicing
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: this for for days. That's good, and it's still didn't
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: go according to plant, Like I want to cut my
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: thigh with the razor blade, right now. I'm so frustrated, Chuck. No,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I think that was perfect actually, what you end up
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: with and how they actually referred to it in the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: industry as a three dimensional fabric, a three dimensional pile weave. Uh.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: And like you've mentioned, velvet and terry cloth are also
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: three dimensional fabrics and it's pretty great. Um. They say
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: in here, uh that you need to steam or fluff corduroy.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's the case, or I've never done that. No,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: only a Brooks Brothers would do that. But I do
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: have a pretty rock end corduroy coat from back in
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: the day. Uh. I mean this thing is I probably
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: had it for twenty years and I got it second hand,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and it is beautiful and it's got a really fat
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: whales on it and I don't pull it out much anymore.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: It used to be my New York coat, but I've
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: evolved a bit since then, but I still have it
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: and it's it's really a nice coat, that is. Yeah,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I think I know that coat you're talking about. I'm
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: either confusing you or Joe McCormick has one that he
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: likes to rock a lot. It's probably Joe, because I
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: haven't one mind in years, okay, but you got your
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: second hand twentysomething years ago, so that would have coincided
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: roughly with the last corduroy revival. And the first one
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I remember was in the nineties. Do you remember that. Yeah,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I mean they were big in the fifties, certainly in
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, and then in the nineties. I
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: think that's when I got this thing, and I got
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: to I got one shorter one that had a narrower whale,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: and then this longer one that has the big fat whales,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and I think I still have both of them. Is
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: it like a trench coat at corduroy trench coat. Yeah,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: it's like a long corturoy coat with the big brown
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: buttons and like a wool uh lapel. Is it like
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a barn coat or something? What a barn coat? I'm
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: not sure what that is. It sounds like what you're
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: just scribing, You're gonna have to wear this in some day.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I'll bring it in, all right, cool bringing in for
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: show and tell. But yeah, So it was kind of
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: big in the fifties, really took off in the late sixties,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and then really huge in the seventies and then went
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: nowhere until the nineties, and then I guess this thing
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: said in the two thousand tens that came back or
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the two thousands that came back in which I was
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: not aware of that at all. Well, I've always rocked
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the cord pants, but over the years it has ranged
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: from like school uniform fabric to UH. In World War One,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: low ranking soldiers wore it UH work where if you
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: worked in like a factory, because the stuff is pretty warm,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: because it's thicker, and it's durable too, Yeah, very durable,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: excepting the knees and um. And then it's you know,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: sometimes it's also been looked at as something a little fancier, right,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: which apparently originally was it was sportswear for the upper
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: class um, and then somehow just kind of fell out
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: of favor and became associated with the working class and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the lower classes, and then it's it just kind of
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: stayed that way until, like I think, starting in the twenties,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: for a little while there it was pretty common as
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: um upholstery for cars. Did you know that. Yeah, I
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: have seen a car upholstered in Cortroy and it's pretty awesome.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I'll bet it's pretty awesome. The only way that could
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: be any better is if there were like patchwork corduroy. Yeah,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: now I know the jacket that you're talking about. That
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: is Joe's for sure. Yes, I think it even has
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: elbow patches. Yeah. His is more like a blazer, sure,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: not a duster like yours. Right, what else you got?
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else? Man. I support corduroy, like knowing
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit more how it's made. And uh, I say,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: wear it never out of fashion. Up with corduroy, agreed. Um.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: If you want to know more about corduroy, by the way,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: check out headles H E D D E l S
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: dot com. They have something called Corduroy read between the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Lines of the Wailed Fabric by James Smith, and it
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: has a picture that will finally explain better than I
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: possibly could how corduroy is made very simply. Yes, Okay, Well,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: see you guys later, because short stuff is out. Stuff
• 13:30
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