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Heading for the Path of Totality? Your Ultimate Pendleton #eclipse2017 Take-Along List

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Almost here!

The total solar eclipse of our lifetime is happening on August 21, just three short weeks away. The #eclipse2017 Path of Totality originates on the Oregon coast, midway between Lincoln City and Newport. If you’re planning to meet it there, remember that the Oregon coast is famous for its summertime marine clouds, but the interior of our state should be prime viewing country in August.

We are EXCITED, here in Oregon. We’re preparing to host from from 300K to a million visitors!  No matter which estimate turns out to be correct, a LOT of people will gather in our state to share this once-in-our-lifetime experience. So let’s hope you have your accommodations planned, your reservations confirmed, and your patience in place. It’s going to be an amazing adventure, but all life’s adventures require planning and preparation. We have the top ten take-along Pendleton pieces to make sure you have a fantastic trip, whether camping, glamping, or just stepping outside to see this wonder of astronomy.

  1. Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate

We can’t stress this enough. Central Oregon is high and dry, with gorgeous dry vistas and rolling hills.

Water Bottles by Pendleton

Keep yourself in the best possible shape to enjoy the scenery and the eclipse by drinking lots of water. Our Klean Kanteen water bottles are a practical and beautiful way to hydrate.

2. Throw Some Shade with a Pendleton Hat

During the day in August, Central Oregon can be hot, hot, hot. Weather should still be fine at 10:30 AM, but you’ll be there all day, amazed and celebrating.

A young woman stands on a hillside, wearing a gold Pendleton shirt and a Pendleton hat.

Arnelle Lozada @arnelle

Stay cool with the Outback Hat (shown in Putty). The light color keeps you cooler in the sun. If you like cotton hats, our Breezer and Hiker hats are great, too.

3. Another Way to Stay Cool

Bandanas! We’re showing the Pueblo Cross bandanas, but we have plenty of colors and styles available (like this Silver Bark pattern, which is gorgeous).

Pendleton cotton bandanas

These will cover your head, catch sweat at your neck and wrists, and keep your eclipse glasses secure. Plus they are fun way to enjoy Pendleton’s traditional patterns.

4. Don’t Forget the Dawgs

Traveling with your best friend? Some of the country in the Path of Totality is rugged and remote.

Pendleton Pet portable dog bowl

You can’t count on services, so our Pendleton Pet travel food and water bowls are important.

5. Layer Up with a Pendleton Wool Shirt

Wool is nature’s original performance fabric. It can keep you warm early in the morning and late at night, and actually can help you stay cool in high temps.

A young woman with long dark hair wears a brown and white plaid pendleton shirt

Arnelle Lozada @arnelle

We have styles for Men and Women in those plaids that say “Pendleton!” from a mile away.

A man stands beside a pond wearing a plaid Pendleton shirt

Garin Wood @garinwood @ultmo

6. Claim Your Spot with a Pendleton Towel

We wish you all a cool spot by a river for viewing. A Pendleton towel can be used for warmth, as a sitting space, or for shade.

FIve Pendleton Towels hanging on a peg rack.

Our towels-for-two in Serrado

The Serrado towel-for-two hangs on a stump at the beach.

and Fire Legend

The Fire Legend towel-for-two against a blue sky.are fantastic for marking off your viewing spot, too.

7. Luxury Seating: Pendleton by Sunbrella Floor Cushions

A touch of luxury for your viewing spot that you’ll love to take home; the Pendleton by Sunbrella floor cushion.

Floor-Pillows covered in Pendleton by Sunbrella performance fabrics.

We can’t speak highly enough of the fabric and workmanship in these outdoor fabrics—they have a depth and dimensionality that amazes us.

8. Pendleton Blankets: Camp Blankets and Serapes

Pendleton’s Camp Blankets were developed for actual cowboys, who needed a sturdy, practical bedroll on the range.

Camp_blankets on beds in a rustic room.

Our Serapes also make awesome camping blankets, thanks to their unnapped finish, which is smooth enough to stay free of campsite detritus.

Serape-blankets on beds in a beachy room.

So take your choice! These are excellent bedroll blankets, and are also great for wrapping around your shoulders as you sit around the campfire at night, watching stars and making memories.

9. Socks for your Tootsies

It’s cold in the tent overnight! Snuggle into some Pendleton socks.

A campfire, over which marshmallows are being toasted, and six people's feet wearing Pendleton socks.

These beauties are National Park themed cotton blend, and we have so many more to choose from. Your toes will thank you.

10. Campfire Coffee

We know you’ll spend the balance of Monday celebrating, sharing your photos on Instagram (if you can get a signal!) and meeting other eclipse-watchers who are camped near you. Tuesday morning will come all too soon.

Brandon_Tormanen_NatlParks_MUG

Brandon Tormanan @b.tormanen

When it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee, use one of our Oversized Pendleton Mugs. They are durable and beautiful, with lots of patterns to choose from.

And remember: WEAR YOUR ECLIPSE GLASSES.

Thanks to our brand ambassadors for their photos. You can see more of their work on Instagram:

Arnelle Lozada  @arnelle

Garin Wood  @garinwood   @ultmo

Brandon Tormanan   @b.tormanen

Happy Father’s Day. Sometimes, a picture says it all.

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Family History

Matt Raven1963_photo with father, son, pheasants

This is a photo of Robert and Matt Raven, father and son, taken in 1963, and shared with Pendleton this last year. It was taken by Carl “Pete” Petersen, who was there along with his son Grant.

Here are some words about his father from Matt, who is a professor at Michigan State University.

My Dad (Robert D. Raven) was the epitome of what Tom Brokaw termed the Greatest Generation. He grew up on a farm in Michigan and was a gunner/mechanic on a B-24 in the South Pacific during WW II. This was one reason he was such a great wing shot. He went to Michigan State (then Michigan State College) on the GI Bill. My mom (Leslie Erickson Raven) was a Marine during WWII (an aircraft mechanic) and also went to Michigan State on the GI Bill. They moved to California after they graduated in 1949 with $200 in their pockets. My Mom help put my Dad through Law School at UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall) and he graduated in 1952. He practiced law for Morrison Foerster (home office in San Francisco) all of his professional career and help build them into one of the premier law firms anywhere. He was one of those men that helped the United States become the greatest nation on the planet after WWII. He died in 2004 and I miss him every day. I am proud to be his son.

Thanks, Matt

What a great American story. We love this image so much, we chose it for our Instagram #PendletonDad photo contest this year. It just says Father’s Day, and it’s a fitting way to wish Happy Father’s Day to all the admirable dads out there from Pendleton Woolen Mills.

Pendleton Wool Decade Shirts for Women: Steal His Shirt

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Boyfriend Style

Women have been carrying on a love affair with men’s style since the 1940s.

1940s teenager in Pendleton wool shirt. We won't apologize for the cigarette, because everyone smoked in the 1940s, including doctors while they performed surgery.

Call it Boyfriend Style, call it Menswear-Inspired, call it dressing like boys or whatever you want to. Women have always loved wearing male-inspired fashion and men’s garments. Especially, it seems, men’s Pendleton wool shirts.

Photo courtesy of Rachel Comey Boots

Boyfriend style is hot right now, but it’s not new. The Pendleton 49’er grew directly from this trend. To quote our blog post on this iconic jacket:

Pendleton’s success with men’s shirts had happened twenty years earlier, but during WWII, men were not the only people enjoying distinctive plaids and ombres in pure virgin wool. Women began to borrow men’s work shirts for both work and warmth.

1940s women in Pendleton wool shirts. The fetching ax-wielder on the right looks like Mad men's Peggy Olson AKA Elizabeth Moss, doesn't she?

 It’s possible that by wearing their husband’s shirts, women kept the memories of their husbands, fiancés and brothers close, though many undoubtedly needed some serious work wear that was simply not available for women at the time. Whatever the reason, women loved Pendleton shirts.

We answered this love by introducing the Pendleton 49’er jacket in (you guessed it) 1949. (As an aside, how much does the woman on the right resemble Peggy Olson?)

ICONS!

Women loved the 49’er, but continued to raid men’s closets. Here are two 1950s icons of femininity, rocking their Pendletons.

Marilyn Monroe in a Pendleton wool shirt.
Jayne Mansfield in a Pendleton wool Board shirt. With chihuahuas. Cooking breakfast, because that's how all chihuahua owners cook their eggs.

These photos of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield offer a clue as to why Boyfriend Style was so popular in the 1950s.  It was associated with relaxation, home, comfort, ease, the outdoors. It probably offered them a break from their sexpot styling, though this Life magazine series of Jayne Mansfield cooking breakfast in a Pendleton shirt still manages to radiate her kittenish allure.

Jaynex3

(As another aside, clearly Jayne inspired today’s selfie-pout).

The desire to steal his shirt didn’t end in the 1950s. Diane Keaton’s Annie Hall style showed up in the 1970s, creating a wave of skinny-tie-and-vest wearers. Women tucked shoulder pads under the bigger shoulders of men’s shirts and jackets and belted them tightly to create the signature silhouette of the 1980s. The 2000s brought the rise of thrifted style. Countless women reworked shrunken men’s Pendletons into their looks. And when we introduced our Fitted line, market intelligence informed us that a surprising amount of these slimmer-cut shirts were selling to women. Women still love wearing Pendleton men’s shirts.

Today, with Nine Decades

When we decided to celebrate our Nine Decades of Pendleton Wool Shirts, we knew that women would want to celebrate this milestone, too. So we developed three Decade Shirts for women using plaids from our archives.

WEB_WomensDecadeShirts

Three styles, five fabrics, all available at pendleton-usa.com. The Prineville is a popover with a 3/4 placket. The Ranch Hand is based on our Men’s Canyon model, the original High Grade Westernwear shirt. The Ponderosa uses our beautiful Sir Pendleton worsted fabric, meaning there’s almost a mile of yarn in every shirt.

pendleton_wool_shirt_90yearslabel

To finish things nicely, because we love to do that, each shirt has a special Decade Shirt label in the placket. We wanted to give you everything you love in our Men’s shirts with Women’s more fitted shaping.

Here are the Decade Shirts for Women in action.

Photo by Lauren Field

You can see the special Decade label in the shot above. Copyright 2014, Lauren Field All rights reserved by Pendleton Woolen Mills

Brother and sister in pendleton shirts

Copyright 2014, Lauren Field All rights reserved by Pendleton Woolen Mills

photo by Blaire Russel A woman stands in front of a waterfall

Copyright 2014, Blaire Russel All rights reserved by Pendleton Woolen Mills

photos by Travis Hallmark, woman in wheatfield

Copyright 2014, Travis Hallmark All rights reserved by Pendleton Woolen Mills

Our Decade Shirts for women celebrate our past and inspire our future. But even so, we know from experience that you’ll continue to steal his shirt.

The Decade Shirts: Nine Decades of Pendleton Wool Shirts for Men

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The Pendleton Decade Shirts

This special group of shirts for men celebrate our ninety years of Pendleton shirt making using re-creations of fabrics from each decade. We went deep into the archives to find the wool shirt fabric that best expressed the men’s fashion ethos of each decade, and here’s what we chose. 

Pendleton wool shirt 9 decade wool shirt fabric

We used these special fabrics  in your favorite Pendleton shirt styles; those that have stood the test of time, just like a Pendleton should. That includes the Gambler, a western shirt that first debuted in the 1930s.

January 1959 vintage pendleton wool shirt ad

And Sir Pendleton, which is turning sixty next year.

Sir pendleton wool shirt advertising vintage

We’re offering the Lodge, Trail, Epic, Guide, even the Zephyr shirt from early in the 2000s. And the Board Shirt is offered twice, including a labeled version of the shirt made famous by the Beach Boys in their Surfer Girl days.

Photo of Beach Boys

Look for the label

If you want to make sure you’re getting a Decade Shirt, check the front placket. You see a special label there, letting you know you’re getting the goods.

pendleton wool shirt label

And here they are: all the shirts and all the fabrics and all the styles and all the decades.

Pendleton wool shirts - Decade styles

Of course, there are nine decades and ten shirts. The tenth is the numbered limited edition Guide Shirt.  All the shirts are currently available at pendleton-usa, and in most of our retail stores.

We are fairly certain that there’s a shirt for every man in that assortment. But quality shirts are not just for men. We marked the Nine Decades with some beautiful Pendleton wool shirts for women, which we will talk about next week.

In the meantime, ladies, just steal his shirt.