I particularly like the photography of the kit layouts. It always seems to add something to the collection to see it nicely presented like that. Just like food, half of it is in the presentation. I take it that is a deerskin in the photos. It is used for anything besides a photo backdrop?
I have an accumulation of old gear, more old-fashioned than old school or traditional, though some of it dates from the 1940s (so do I). I have so much that I have to try real hard to use everything at least once in the course of a year. And I still want more! I have an eye on something from either Duluth Pack or Frost River. I was lucky to visit the Duluth Pack store once. My senses were overloaded for a while.
Even with traditional/old-school/old-fashioned items, we all evolve our own opinions about what works and what doesn't and what is simply obsolete. For instance, I have three or four pair of heavy, thick wool pants. They're good for cold winter weather but under certain conditions, no better than combinations of long johns and blue jeans. Of course, blue jeans are as traditional as a canvas pack. I love wool shirts, too, but I like medium weight dress-shirt styles, like Pendleton, though I have a couple of heavier shirts, too, and I do wear them all. None are "hair shirts." I have also decided that I don't like pullover-style outer garments, traditional or not, though I do have pullover shirts. The reason is because I only have to walk up a slight grade and I'm hot and a pullover garment doesn't allow me to cool off sufficiently.
If you go back far enough, working men and woodsmen wore leather garments, especially pants. I don't recall anyone here ever mentioning leather pants or britches. Anyone have any? Or old-style breeches (not shooting breeks or whatever they're called). In turn of the century photos, one frequently sees men wearing various kinds of breeches, probably riding breeches, either with leather wrap leggings or high boots of one kind or another. I don't suppose anyone does that, just to be traditional or old-fashioned. Somewhere I have a photo of an uncle of mine holding his son or daughter. He's sitting outside of a log house, next to the stone chimney, dressed in breeches (probably army surplus) and leather leggings.