Reproduction Canadian Seven Button Tunic

The creation of all this obscure Canadian webbing has made a quiet but insistant demand that there be a seven button tunic to go with it. The seven button tunic is distinctly Canadian and was the battle dress of 1914, the tunic of the militia units at the war's opening. While the Oliver Pattern webbing and the 1915 pattern never made it to the Front this tunic did and had a certain mystique as the uniform of the Canadians who first fought in France and Flanders, so much so that later soldiers seem to have hooked their fold-down five button collars into a stand-up version of the Canadian tunic. Here's a photo of my grand father in November 1915 with his PPCLI gun crew, British tunic all the way, even with British buttons, but the collar points drawn together. (Lower left).

By contrast, on enlistment, he looks like this.

Finding differences may seem academic at first, but it was a distinction recognized by the soldiers themselves. It simply wouldn't be right to put Oliver Pattern equipment on a five button tunic. For this reason I researched several examples of the seven button tunic in Ottawa finding that the only constant element was....seven buttons, and mostly a stand up collar.

This topic has been covered in another blog so I won't repeat myself here. Check this link:

http://leathersatchels.blogspot.ca/2014/05/seven-button-tunic.html

The point I wish to emphasize is not so much the details of the seven button tunic, or even the reproduction by What Price Glory, but the difficulty in creating a single representation at a time when there was no absolute standard. Here, then, a reproduction becomes an impression, like a sketch. It is the essence, distilled, and yes, there are two more buttons beneath the Oliver ammo pouch in this photo.

What Price Glory is now reproducing these tunics in sizes for the modern man. Don't be scared off re-tailoring! They did that in the trenches too. 

                      http://onlinemilitaria.net/shopaff.asp?affid=1497