I haven’t gotten J. Peterman catalogs for years but I finally broke down and requested them again. Whoever writes the ads would be a great Doper and I read it from front to back. It is high comedy.
Here is an ad for their “1903” cologne:
*"I was browsing in a Paris antique shop one winter afternoon when a fitted leather train case caught my eye. It contained silver-handled brushes, boot hooks, a straight razor, several silver-stoppered glass bottles… One bottle was different. Encased in yew-wood, with a handwritten date: 1903. Inside the bottle, there was still the faint, intriguing aroma of a gentleman’s cologne. A “prescription” cologne, custom-made for a rich traveler a century ago. Curiosity was eating at me.
I bought the case (the price was shocking) and sent the bottle to a laboratory for analysis. They broke down the residue by gas chromatography. Identified its fingerprint through spectro-photometry. The report said: an “old woody fougère.” Clean citrus notes, bergamot, “green notes.” The middle notes: clary sage…cardamom. The dry-down: leather notes, smoky labdanum…elemi, tabac, frankincense. The detective work was impressive. So is the thing itself. Women like the way it smells on a man. Like a symphony that begins loudly, then soon slides into subtle, entangling developments that grow on them.
Or so I’ve been told."*
Does anyone else read these things? Being their ad writer would be my dream job but I would probably have to abuse a substance or three on the job to make it work.
I received the catalog years ago (I am on some kind of mailing list, I get 'em all!) and my very favorite, far as I can remember, showed a muu-muu that I should have been wearing - while visiting my worldly divorced partying (and stinking rich) aunt - while staying at her villa in the south of France . Loved that! Where do you GET a relative like that? I could buy that muu-muu, sure, but I’d probably wear it while dragging the recycle bin to the curb…
The secret to Peterman’s success is as follows: DRAWINGS. BAD DRAWINGS. Accompanied by copy that just barely describes the product. Instead it’s enveloped in mystique. Sometimes pretty shoddy mystique that seems recycled from tepid bestsellers, middlebrow movies, or other mail-order catalogs.
And guess what: nothing I ever got from Peterman pleased me. Their clothes are pretty well made but designed by bubbleheads. They sit on you like doll clothes. They’re actually made to stand up empty, slightly crumpled. Like those goddam drawings.
I have three old Banana Republic catalogs from 1980-'81 or thereabouts, back when Banana Republic used to be exotic military surplus and travel gear. French Foreign Legion caps! Panamanian Army shoes! Artillery bags as travel totes. I treasure those catalogs like Shakespeare folios and wish I’d ordered everything in them.
I worked for J.Peterman - first name basis with him, his wife, the copywirter and a number of other folks for several years… This was before the bankruptcy and Sienfeld era. They really did go to unique places looking for unique items - my favorite was the motorcycle/side car they found in a cave in china (military surplus) - but the catalogue - yeah, there were selling the romance/mystery side of it more than anything - why else would you spend 20$ on a t-shirt.
Wow. You really can hook up with damned near anything on the Dope. Is there just one ad writer or multiple ones and what kind of background did he/she have? They throw some bizarre things into those ads if you read them closely but it really does seem like it would take a really smart and worldly person to write them at all even if it is high camp. Is J. Peterman really that eccentric in person or is it just an act?
It is real and it predates Seinfeld. The show used it because the company is so odd and quirky but the real company is based in Louisville, KY and not in New York City.
The main writer was out of New York, we had a few folks that worked locally on that side of it, locally, it was primarily the buyers, sales and shipping. Its been a number of years so I don’t recall the details well enough.
John and his wife were/are very down to earth folks - even tho its been years, if I run into them at the local Krogers (grocery store) they’re still very friendly. I remember him telling me, quite proudly, that he had “bought his name back” - this was post bankruptcy where he lost his name to Lands End.
He bought a fairly large farm just outside of Paris Ky because he wanted to do farming stuff - remembered him talking fondly of it, fixing up the old tractors he had, etc. John himself was a down to earth businessman that had a great idea that took off - it all started with the Duster.
When I first saw the Sienfeld stuff, I remember getting pretty pissed about it, and I still fault it as the primary reason they went thru the trouble they did - well, that and over expanding into the retail market. I always wanted to tell John - “you can’t sell a mystery if you make fun of it on national telivision every week.”
This is my experience also. I ordered a linen shirt once. The description made it seem like I was ordering gossamer, a wraith-like fabric that one wold need to survive India’s worst heat. What I got in the bag was almost burlap. What a piece of junk. I think it was called the Simoon Shirt. I had the same experience with a leather jacket I bought. The quality of their stuff sucks. It’s all sizzle. Zero steak.
$20? More like $200, at least when I used to get the catalog (and yes I was a huge Seinfeld fan back in the day and ordered the catalog only out of curiosity after seeing it referenced on the show).
My favorite leather jacket was one from BP. I lost it and would be big dough to have it again. It was super simple: two slash pockets. Cotton ribbing at the neck. Oh, I miss it.
But, in a reality blurring twist, John O’Hurly (who played J. Peterman) became part owner of the catalog when the real Peterman (who plays the real J. Peterman ;)) bought the catalog back. Link
So it could be said that “The J. Peterman catalog dwells in a place between here and the next; where fact, fiction and fantasy are swirled into sameness by the whirlpool of time. . .”
If your interested I came across the book catalog version of the J. Peterman catalog. It’s called “The Common Reader.” I don’t know how many times I’ve been tempted to buy a book from them simply because of their description.
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