This lab coat was worn by Loretta Swit as lead nurse Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in M*A*S*H, and is of a fitted, left-buttoning variety used during the middle seasons. There's a variety of lab coat styles worn by Major Houlihan over the seasons--some buttoning on the left, some on the right; some form-fitting, and some loose; etc. Early seasons tend to have Nurse Houlihan in labcoats of the same thin white material and translucent buttons used on this labcoat, but those coats usually button on the right. Middle seasons feauture the same thin material and translucent buttons, but switch to buttoning on the left, as with this coat. Then late seasons use a different, thicker, coarser, nearly beige material, with opaque white buttons which go back to buttoning on the right. Within seasons there are variations in cut and styling; but the material and buttons tend to follow this seasonal pattern.
Western Costume stamps and a handwritten "SWIT" are present inside on the pocket area, where the fabric is doubled and doesn't show through. A "Costume Collection" stamp is also present--Costume Collection was a 1990s source of Hollywood costumes & memorabilia, similar to the more widely-remembered and long-lived Star Wares. White scrub pants are also included, and bear the same internal markings--although, on the show the labcoats were typically worn over olive-drab uniforms or civilian comfort clothes, and not over the surgical scrubs, so the scrub pants are more of a bonus rather than an item which completes a set.
The lab coat is missing the button(s) for the center of the integral rear-buttoning cinch. A Star Wares retail tag, of a variety familiar to longtime collectors as being used in the Marcia Tysseling era, is present, as is an inventory tag presumably from either StarWares or Costume Collection before it. A Star Wares COA is included, and dates to the period when Kevin Martin first bought the company and liquidated its vast collection on eBay. I bought this set directly from that big liquidation.
