Very famous ad campaign that began in 1952. Hathaway was a small shirtmaker in Maine that never spent on advertising but came up with this "man with an eyepatch" gig that launched the brand into being almost a household name. A man with an eyepatch was looked upon as early James Bond "man of mystery" type figure. Baron George Wrangell, 65, Russian aristocrat and onetime New York Journal-American society columnist, who made advertising history in 1951 when he donned an eyepatch (though he had 20/20 vision) and posed as the original "man in the Hathaway shirt";
In that case then, not only is the model a fake, but the ad was a lie as well. There has been no Sea island cotton produced since the 1920's, when the last commercial crop of it was destroyed by the boll weevil. It was only grown along the coastal regions of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida anyway. There has not been any seed of the original Sea Island cotton in existence since the early 1940's.
It was a very fine (micronaire) cotton of very long staple (fiber length), which supposedly wove into extremely high quality cotton cloth. The closest thing to it today is Pima (Supima) cotton which is grown in the arid southwestern U.S.
Apparently, from what I can determine, anybody can claim their clothing is made from Sea Island cotton, because it never was a registered name or trademark.
Interesting ad, nonetheless.
SRH
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