Beach Cloth
- Eric Langlois
- Jan 10
- 4 min read
My grandfather was a postal carrier in Rhode Island for much of his life. In the dead of a New England winter, he would have to head out and spend most of the day, from pre-dawn until after dark, climbing in and out of trucks and carrying a bag of mail. Spending the majority of his day exposed to the teeth of frigid winter winds, he would have needed clothing that would keep him warm and dry until he’d finished his appointed rounds. What my grandfather could have used was a jacket from Brown’s Beach Jacket Company.
Beach Cloth is a funny name for a material designed to insulate the wearer in harsh winter weather. The word “beach” conjures up the image of warm, sunny expanses of golden sand caressed by gentle breezes. I’ve probably spent more time standing on grey, rocky New England beaches in winter than most people, but I wouldn’t market a garment around the experience. Instead, the “Beach” in Beach Cloth refers to the Beach Manufacturing Company, which first developed it.
Founded in Hartford, Connecticut, the Beach Manufacturing Company originally produced fleeced fabrics for winter underclothes. At some time in the late 19th Century, the Beach company developed a new material. In a time before the mass production of the 1950s and ‘60s, reuse and recycling of materials was much more commonplace than we might think, and old clothing was often collected and reused as rags or for industrial purposes. Someone at the Beach Manufacturing Company (ostensibly one “Mr. Beach” although there is little information about him) developed a method of recycling fibers into a heavy, pile-lined material called Beach Cloth.
In 1901, William W. Brown broke off from Beach to found Brown’s Beach Jacket Co. which would capitalize on this new material. First in Hartford and then in Worcester, Massachusetts, Brown’s company would bet everything on Beach Cloth. Made of 70% recycled wool and 30% cotton, Beach Cloth was warm, water-resistant, and virtually impossible to shrink or tear. Brown used this cloth to produce a run of jackets marketed to outdoorsmen, who would need hard-wearing clothing for hunting and fishing in the winter months.
The initial jackets were a wild success among hunters and fishermen of the Northeastern United States, and Brown expanded his offering to a range of garments, including caps, trousers, and the now-iconic vest. As a canny businessman, Brown recognized that Beach Cloth garments would be equally as useful for labor as they were for recreation. He expanded the scope of his marketing, aiming it at all-weather workers like farmers, truck drivers, lumbermen, and construction workers. In doing so, he also highlighted that his products were union-made in the United States, an important marketing tool when many buyers would be union members themselves and would want to support union labor.
Brown’s Beach Cloth was wildly successful in the inter-war period, even being used by Admiral Byrd’s 1934 expedition to the South Pole. In addition to the warm, comfortable fabric, the garments were made with snap closures, which were easier to manipulate with cold or gloved hands than buttons or toggles. Besides their practicality, Beach Cloth garments were also very affordable, due in large part to the use of recycled fibers in their construction. With their trademark marled outer material and piped pockets and hems, Beach Cloth garments were highly recognizable and extremely common in the wardrobes of anyone who spent time outdoors in winter.
After the Second World War, Brown’s fortunes seem to have declined. This may be in part due to the increased availability of lightweight down jackets (pioneered by Eddie Bauer) and competition from inexpensively produced garments made from new synthetic materials. The company was sold to Jacob Finkelstein and Sons in Rhode Island, who closed down production of Brown’s Beach Cloth in the late 1960s.
This would not be the end of Beach Cloth. Due to their hard-wearing construction and the sheer volume of Beach Cloth garments produced in the company’s heyday, they continued to be worn and passed down, with many surviving to this day. They can be seen in the wardrobes of films and television series set in the first half of the twentieth century, such as Titanic and Boardwalk Empire. The highly recognizable yet subtle design of Beach Cloth clothing continued to draw the attention of fans of classic workwear, but as the limited stock got older prices crept up (sometimes into the multiple thousands of dollars today for an original piece). Something had to be done.
Around 2010, Japanese manufacturers Speedway, Fullcount & Co., and Lost Hills all acquired the trademark to the Brown’s Beach Cloth name and began reproducing the classic clothes from a century before. The market was receptive to Brown’s throwback style, and similar pieces soon came out from Sugar Cane, RRL, Kapital, and J. Peterman, to name just a few. While these new versions are not cheap, they are more affordable than the originals, and have allowed this icon of American workwear to live on and find a new audience.
Eric Langlois is a writer, menswear professional, and history enthusiast based on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
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