Television Suits You

In the second half of the twentieth century, the Botany 500 name for the wardrobe ending credits of many television programs was as common as Gunsmoke. The brand's association with television personalities helped it become a household name. Throughout the 1970s, Botany 500 provided menswear for many game show hosts and countless television stars. That list can be found online. Botany 500 often paid for the clothes of television celebrities and did not always provide the clothes themselves. They were sometimes custom-made by other tailors.

Botany 500 was a brand name owned by the Botany 500 Group of New York. Beginning in 1889, their men's suits and sport coats were manufactured in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by H. Daroff and Sons, who were contracted with Botany Mills of Passaic, New Jersey, to produce products and later bought the firm outright. Given the exaggerated proportions of the 1949 illustrated man above, one could assume he was once the center of an NBA team. His forty-inch inseam would not be a challenge for Daroff.

Daroff and Sons and the Botany group went bankrupt in the summer of 1973. An attempt was made to turn the company over to another company, still operating profitably. Because of resistance by the company's employees, they backed out of the deal. By the winter of 1973, Cohen and Sons bought the Botany 500 name and assets for $4 million. They planned to keep the labels, marketing, sales, and distribution of Botany as a separate Botany 500 line produced in Philadelphia.
The Botany 500 name lives on as a licensed property of several foreign clothing manufacturers, ending the exclusivity of Botany 500's glory days. In 2021, the Botany 500 name resurfaced as a brand name sold by the mail-order company Haband.