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Original poster

I need help to identify a clothing logo please

41 replies

Highlighta · 06/04/2023 19:07

I'm hoping someone who buys/sells vintage clothing can help me.

I bought a vintage skirt (I think it's from the 70s ) which I would like to sell, but the logo is bugging me. I thought it was an old Marks and Spencers, as it's similar to the St Michaels logo, but after doing a load of googling and reverse searching I can't seem to trace it. The rectangle around Princess is the same as St Michael, so I think this is what makes me think it's possibly from M&S.

Does anyone recognise this please:

OP posts:

Thread gallery

TwitTwooTooYou · 06/04/2023 19:45

It really does look like an old St Michael label doesn’t it?
Even the lettering, not just the rectangle, looks recognisable.
Is that an registered trademark R in the red circle above the last S? What does is say below cotton?

Is there a garment care label in it anywhere or do the buttons/zip or whatever have any logo?

Original poster

Highlighta · 06/04/2023 20:45

@TwitTwooTooYou I had a look at the buttons which aren't logoed but didn't think about the zip. Which has puzzled me even more now. Pic attached.

Yes it does looks like a registered trademark, the label says nothing about where it was manufactured and this is the only label, which is on the waist.

The whole tag seems very old M&S to me, but I just can't find any info linking them.

It's a lovely quality too so I'm doubting it's a cheap rip off (were they even around back in the day anyway? 😊)

OP posts:

TwitTwooTooYou · 06/04/2023 20:56

You need to find out what year a 26inch waist was a size 14, that could help narrow it down.
Seemingly a 26 inch waist is a size 8 these days but, depending on the different clothing charts, possibly late 70’s -mid 80’s 26 inches was a size 14.

Nothing comes up for Perl zip manufacturers though.

senua · 06/04/2023 21:24

The whole tag seems very old M&S to me, but I just can't find any info linking them.
I don't recognise the Princess label but I do remember copying-St-Michael's being a thing. I'm sure that I remember a St Bernard label similar to that outline and font.
Also, aren't Perl just a zip manufacturer (like YKK or whoever).

matis · 07/04/2023 07:38

At Bernard is Dunnes version of St Michael.

matis · 07/04/2023 07:38

*St

LookItsMeAgain · 07/04/2023 08:30

The first thing that came into my mind was that it would have been around the time that the Irish supermarket Dunnes Stores was also known as St. Bernard, just as M&S was St. Michael.

There's something bringing me down a rabbit hole that it's an Irish brand but I have no idea why

Floisme · 07/04/2023 11:33

I don't recognise the label but re the date: Size 10 was a waist 24 when I was a teenager - early / mid 70s. The label also gives the measurement in centimetres which suggests it was after decimalisation (1971). Most clothes were made in the UK at that time so labels didn't mention it as there was so need.

Several stores copied the look of M&S: Littlewoods and British Home Stores were the main 2 but there were probably others. So it could have been a range for somewhere like Littlewoods.

Another possibility is that the big sewing factories that made stuff for M&S often had their own shop. M&S normally didn't let them use their label for rejects so typically they either cut the label out or, if it was a big enough company in its own right and known locally, they might use their own label, if that makes sense?

senua · 07/04/2023 12:55

The label also gives the measurement in centimetres which suggests it was after decimalisation (1971).
Decimalisation concerned currency, not weights and measures. Metrication started in 1965.

Floisme · 07/04/2023 12:55

Or it could have been made for a catalogue - some M&S lookalike brands were sold that way. Freemans is the main catalogue I remember but there were loads.

Floisme · 07/04/2023 12:56

senua · 07/04/2023 12:55

The label also gives the measurement in centimetres which suggests it was after decimalisation (1971).
Decimalisation concerned currency, not weights and measures. Metrication started in 1965.

Ah ok thanks!

senua · 07/04/2023 12:58

RandomMess · 07/04/2023 12:59

More importantly what does the skirt like, I love vintage 🤣

senua · 07/04/2023 13:19

Ooooh, did you know that you can search for a Trademark? Gov.uk website here.

Before you get too excited, I've done a (very) quick search on Princess - but only looking for the logo - but couldn't find it. The label could be non-UK, of course.

Search for a trade mark

Look up a trade mark to see if something identical or similar to your brand is already registered.

https://www.gov.uk/search-for-trademark

hermioneee · 07/04/2023 13:24

I am blown away by a size 14 having a 26 inch waist. I really want to go back in time and see how tiny people were.

Floisme · 07/04/2023 13:40

People were generally thinner then, but also a lot of grown up women still routinely wore foundation garments, as they were politely called - aka girdles - to give you that teeny-tiny waist look.

Sadik · 07/04/2023 13:47

I think people were also genuinely a different shape though, and not just thinner. So for example, my DM & I were always roughly the same weight (& height) at the same age, but my waist has always been bigger at each point, & I believe that's fairly standard. Perhaps something to do with nutrition in childhood?

senua · 07/04/2023 13:49

hermioneee · 07/04/2023 13:24

I am blown away by a size 14 having a 26 inch waist. I really want to go back in time and see how tiny people were.

But normal sizing mostly stopped at a 12. There was no such thing as Size Zero back then!

hermioneee · 07/04/2023 14:04

Yes I think that might be the case @Sadik . I don't think my waist could possibly ever be a 26. Not being dramatic but it just wouldn't be physically possible!

senua · 07/04/2023 14:26

Back then the ideal was 36-24-36.
I read somewhere a study that had been done on prisoners of the Nazi who had been starved. Those who survived and went on to have post-war babies found that this generation 'inherited' the effects of starvation and were underweight themselves. So babyboomers (the fashionable of the 60s and 70s) could have shown the effects of their parents' war- and post-war-rationing.

Time40 · 07/04/2023 14:46

I think people were also genuinely a different shape though, and not just thinner

I don't know about men, but women definitely were. Women were shorter, and had smaller waists - they were a more hourglass shape than they are now. The average height for a woman in the 1950s was 5' 4"

That label is infuriating! It's so very like an old M&S label.

Original poster

Highlighta · 07/04/2023 16:00

Thank you everyone.

We might have a development. I am not in the UK, but my mum, who is in the UK picked this up at a charity shop in the Midlands and brought it out for me when she visited.

Here in SA we have a store similar to M&S and back in the day they sold some St Michaels clothing. At a whopping price too. I think this is how I recall the logo.

I asked a friend's mum if she knew this logo and she seems to think (but wasn't sure) that it was an SA version from this store, so along the lines of St Bernard as mentioned upthread. A subsidiary of M&S in South Africa.

If this is the case, then this skirt is well travelled. If it was bought new in South Africa, it's been taken to the UK and handed into a charity shop there, and now it's travelled back to its home in South Africa again. 😊

I have searched online again to try see if this could be, but still have got no further to be sure.

It would make sense as to why I sort of recognised it though, I may have seen it many years ago as a child. It definitely does not seem to be very common or very easily identifiable though.

I was wondering about the 1177 on the care label, maybe it was manufactured November 1977.

For the pp who wanted to see it, I've added a photo. It's has a white belt too which isn't on in this pic.

It doesn't fit either DD or myself, so I'd like it to go to someone here who would wear it. The photo doesn't do it justice at all.

The sizings here are the same as UK, so I did wonder about how a 26" waist could be a 14.

I do love old clothing, I wear a lot of thrifed items, and I would just love it if what I suspect about this item and it's history is correct.