Archive for September, 2010

Do you feel confuse when looking for a gift for your beloved one? I believe you do, this kind of confusion belongs to everyone who really wants to give only the best gift for their special person. Feeling confuse to choose what the most suit gift is experienced by everyone, since there are only provided very usual things that we are not tempted to buy it. If it is the situation, then you really need the unique and funny stuffs as your gift. At this point, you need gifts ideas that are different from what you’ve ever heard. How lucky you are, since now you can find the unique and funny gifts easily from the internet.

It is spencersonline.com, the online source for unique and funny gifts and gift ideas. Spencersonline.com provides everything you need as your gift ideas to be given to someone special. They provide from accessories, Halloween costumes, lingerie, clock, mirror, even adult stuff and bache lorette party games tools. They can cover all your needs to not only high quality gifts, but also unique and funny too. For your bachelorette party, it is actually you can find something free to be used to, but it will be much better if you can get that stuff from spencersonline.com. If it is so, then your party will not only be pleasing, but also unforgettable for yourself and your guesses.

Spencersonline.com will also help you in increasing your romance with your boyfriend. I believe that the right gifts for him will make any awkward in your relationship be ended and he also will love you more. Forget about something usual as your gifts for your boyfriend, since he is a special person for you then the gifts for him should also be special, unique, not usual and funny. Making him surprise when you giving the gifts to him is very pleased, pleased for you and for him too. You better choose something that he likes, especially related to his hobbies. Make this moment of giving the gifts to your boyfriend being unique and pleased with gift ideas from spencersonline.com.

Like so much in American life, the standard clothing sizes we use today can be traced back to the Civil War.  If that answer sounds glib, it isn’t meant to be.  The Civil War was the pivotal event in American history, marking a transition to the modern era, and heralding changes that stood until the 1940s.  It even changed the way we buy our clothes.

Antebellum Clothing Sizing

Prior to the Civil War, the overwhelming majority of clothing, for men and women, was tailor-made or home-made.  There was a limited variety of mass produced, standardized clothing items, mainly jackets, coats, and undergarments, but even these were only produced in limited quantities.  For the most part, clothing for men was made on an individual basis.  The Civil War changed that.

Mass Producing Uniforms

During the war, the Northern and Southern armies both needed large quantities of uniforms in a hurry.  The South, without a large industrial base, relied primarily on home manufacture for uniforms, and through the war Southern armies typically suffered from a shortage of clothing.  The North changed garment making history forever.

It quickly became apparent that the Northern armies could not be supplied with uniforms using traditional modes of clothing production.  Fortunately, the North had a well developed textile industry that could meet the challenge.

When the government began to contract with factories for mass produced uniforms, the textile manufacturers quickly realized that they could not make every uniform for a particular soldier.  The only option was to standardize the soldiers’ uniforms.  They sent tailors to the armies, to measure the men, and saw that certain measurements, of arm length, chest size, shoulder width, waist size, and inseam length, would appear together with reliable regularity.  Using this mass of measurement information, they put together the first size charts for men’s clothing.

After the War

So why didn’t the textile companies go back to the older production methods after the Civil War?  The answer lies in profits, as with many things in business.  Clothing manufacturers saw that the standardized sizes they had introduced significantly reduced the manufacturing cost of men’s clothing; rather than make one item for one man, they could make one size of an item, mens jackets for example, for a group of men.  Suddenly, clothing was easier to produce, mass production became the staple of discount men’s clothing, and the clothing industry would never be the same again.