Epic Road Trip : Hamilton Dry Goods, Sparta, TN.

While Sandy was back in Brooklyn, handling the daily operations of both The Hill-Side and Hickoree's, Emil and I made a trip down south to Nashville to do some sight seeing, some honky-tonking and so Emil could do some fabric hunting for the Hill-Side.

A few years back, (before many knew what The Hill-Side was) when Emil and Sandy were making ties one at a time, mostly from vintage and deadstock fabrics, Emil came across Period Fabrics online. Based on verbal descriptions over the phone, Emil ordered some fabric, liked what he got, and made some ties out of them. A few years later, the opportunity presented itself to pay a visit. I decided to tag along.
Located in Sparta, TN, Hamilton Dry Goods' makes period-correct supplies and clothing for historical re-enactors. They make their own tin cups, shape their own slouch hats on site and much of the rest is made locally in Tennessee. Hamilton also warehouses an enormous amount of fabric for manufacturing their clothing. On a particularly hot day a few weeks ago, Emil and I made the two hour drive east from Nashville to Sparta to see just what the Hamilton warehouse had in store for us.
We were greeted with true Southern hospitality and after looking around the shop for a while, (me trying to find a hat to fit my rather large head)we were shown out to the back and, roll after roll, spent a good part of the afternoon digging around. A few hours later, Emil had come up with some pretty promising stuff. With swatches in hand, Emil and I were on our way back to Music City USA for beers and tacos at SatCo., an old favorite of mine since high school. And I think a new favorite of Emil's.