Small Engineer · Baby Gap Hickory Stripe Baby Overalls, 1990s
Hickory stripe cotton · metal overall buckles · snap legs · patch pockets · Baby Gap Best Basics · 1990s to 2000s · approx. 12–18 months
Hickory stripe in soft washed blue and white, scaled all the way down to a baby: the toughest workwear cloth ever woven, here given proper antique-finish metal overall buckles and patch pockets at front and hip, because pockets matter even before you have anything to put in them.
Baby Gap Best Basics, 1990s to 2000s. Hickory stripe was originally woven for railroad workers and farmers: dense twill-woven cotton, the warp stripe intended to take years of hard washing without breaking down. The Gap borrowed the cloth and the silhouette and took both as seriously as the original, right down to the full metal hardware. Snap closures run the inside leg for changing. These have already had one life and the wear shows honestly, as it should on a garment like this.
The stripe has softened with washing into the kind of blue that is better than new.
Care
Warm gentle wash. Turn the metal buckles face-down in the drum. Line dry and press warm on the stripe.
More on looking after vintage pieces in our care guide.
Size
Measured flat: length 46cm, bib open (no fixed chest width), hip 31cm flat, leg opening 16cm, leg length 6.5cm. Approximately 12–18 months.
Our size guide explains how vintage sizing is read here.
Condition
Well-loved, with the patina of use. The stripe is sound, the buckles work. Had a previous life.
Our condition lexicon explains the grades we use.
Before it reaches you
Someone loved this before you did, and I try to honour that properly. Each piece is hand washed, or cleaned in the way that the fabric permits, then steamed until it softens and straightens and feels newly attended to. Wherever a button was missing, it has been replaced with a vintage one from my long-kept collection. Wherever a hem had given way, I fix it by hand. By the time it leaves this room it is genuinely clean, pressed, whole, and looked over one final time before I let myself believe it is ready. Not restored. Not made new. Just returned to a state where it can be loved again, by someone who was not there the first time.
Hickory stripe was woven for people who fixed engines and mended fences, and no one has told the cloth its wearer is too small to do either yet. The empty patch pockets are not truly empty: they are holding a place for the first important stone, the first found feather, the first secret worth carrying home. Cloth this stubborn keeps every wash it is given and hands none of them back, which is how the blue got to be better than new. Give it something to fix and it will be ready long before the child is.