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Resurrecting Pay Day – The Revival of a Classic Workwear Label

David Shuck

Long before Pay Day meant caramel and peanuts, the name was synonymous with quality, simplicity, and value in clothing for working people. The label was founded over a hundred years ago and was one among the ranks of Blue Bell, Boss of The Road, Hercules for the hardest wearing denim, chambray, and overalls you could buy.

Some fifty years after the original Pay Day sold it’s last set of coveralls, the repro military connoisseurs at Cockpit USA have revitalized the brand with a new line made from some of the last yards of White Oak selvedge denim (that you can get 20% off of with the code HEDDELS20).

Early Days of Pay

Not much is known about the founding of the Pay Day label, many early workwear brands didn’t keep extensive records and if they did, they were likely lost to the sands of time many decades ago. What we do know, is that the brand was founded in the American midwest in the early 1900s and was acquired by JC Penney’s line of retail stores at some point in the 1910s.

Pay Day likely wasn’t started by Penney’s as an in-house brand like they did with Big Mac, Ranchcraft, and Foremost because the earliest record we can find of Penney’s advertising Pay Day is from June of 1917 in a local Iowa newspaper (see below), and Penney’s didn’t start their own manufacturing until they bought the Crescent Corset Company in 1920 (Big Mac would launch two years later in 1922).

Working clothes in these days were marketed like commodities, “Ours are cheaper and will last you longer!” and Penney’s approach to promoting Pay Day was the same. In this ad they highlight how their pair is 27 cents cheaper than most competitors, union made, and will help you be less affected by “war prices” from the United States’s recent entry into World War I.

Vintage examples and promotional material for Pay Day show they kept playing the hits of union made denim overalls and coverall jackets for most of their lifespan before Penney’s quietly discontinued the line in the late 1960s.

Pay Day Reinstated

Pay Day lay dormant until 2013, when vintage flight jacket collectors-turned-makers Jeff and Jacky Clyman won ownership of the trademark and put it back to work.

Jeff and Jacky were responsible for some of the first reproductions of the World War II era flight jackets (and many current spec ones as well) throughout their careers founding Avirex and now Cockpit USA and Jeff says they were drawn to Pay Day’s “It’s simplicity and functionality at the root of the brand.”

After sampling many vintage garments from the 1930s-50s, sourcing deadstock Cone Mills White Oak selvedge denim, and recasting buttons to the original specs, they recently relaunched their own Pay Day collection.

The new line features a variety of reproduction coverall jackets, and an overall and chambray work shirt. All are stitch-for-stitch reproductions of their original counterparts with the same hard-wearing triple-stitch construction techniques working people originally loved them for. Everything is made in US in the same facilities that produce Cockpit USA’s leather jackets.

Jeff says they’re just getting started and to “stay tuned” for more Pay Day offerings to come in the future. Through the end of July though, you can get a piece of workwear history for 20% with the code HEDDELS20 on the collection at Cockpit USA.

Like that? Read these:

Buzz Rickson’s: Exacting Reproduction Garments

Kapital – History, Philosophy, and Iconic Products