By Garland Pollard
Izod Lacoste wasn’t the only popular polo shirt during the preppie craze in the 1980s. Folks who wanted to be even more country club than the rest were wearing Boast, which, contrary to popular belief, did not have a pot plant on the shirt (it was a Japanese maple).
Of course Americans now call them polo shirts, but really they are tennis shirts, as what we call “button downs” were formerly known in the old Brooks Brothers catalogs as “polo” shirts. But we digress.
The Boast brand of shirts and shorts had a high-WASP cachet to it; it was closely associated with tennis and mostly sold in country club and tennis pro shops. Pictured here is tennis icon Charlie Pasarell looking stylin’ in Boast; it’s one of the many images on the Boast USA Facebook page. The Facebook page has other famous folk in Boast, including George W. Bush and John Updike.
The brand was created created in 1926 in France, but became popular in tennis and country clubs through the efforts of Bill St. John.
Entrepreneurs partners John Dowling and Alex Tiger reintroduced the classic Boast shirt in partnership with the founder of Boast, Bill St John, and investors. St. John had continued to keep the brand alive at country club shops.
The brand is online on Facebook or Boast USA
1 response so far ↓
1 Ed // Aug 19, 2011 at 6:37 am
For goodness sake it’s a shirt. I wore them for years. They were fine but wearing one doesn’t confer upper class status. Push the shirt not the image.
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