My name is Ron Starkel, and I was able to arrange a loan to the museum, via the Wichita Sedgwick County Historical Museum, because they are the current owners of my jacket and shirt that I donated to them 10 years ago.
That jacket and shirt are two items that I purchased sometime around 1968 at a store here in Wichita. It's called Yankee peddler. The building's still there. It's at Hillside and Douglas, just a block south — a little, tiny brick building. Because I played in a rock and roll band, and it fit right in with the period [and] what it took to look really good back then, when you wanted to get on stage, [like it] came from England.
The jacket itself has a label in it that says Lord Johns of Carnaby Street, which was a very popular and well-known haberdashery, or clothing store, on Carnaby Street in the late 60s, where most of the British pop musicians, such as The Kinks and The Small Faces and The Rolling Stones would buy their clothes that they wore.
The jacket has a gold and silk brocade with double-breasted long collars. The shirt is a silk and blue brocade. It kind of matches it with a very ruffled frontispiece and then lace cuffs. But you can't really see it in the exhibit because [the collar] just sticks out of the top.
They have it buttoned up. You know, when I would play, I would wear it buttoned up to come out with. But once you started playing your instruments, you would unbutton it because it was rather warm on stage with these costumes that we wore.
