Fashion Supplement to The Tailor & Cutter, Autumn-Winter 1939-40

  

  

 


This little guide to gentlemen's tailored fashions has been sitting in my collection for years.   Since it was published at the very beginning of World War II, it includes pictures of RAF and (British) Army officers' uniforms.  Later in the war civilian men's clothing would be strictly regulated and rationed - so these dapper and generously cut outfits would be treasured items in the wardrobes of any men lucky enough to own them.

Koch & Co., Fall and Winter 1892-3

Next up for my Menswear Month, a page from a late Victorian catalog that includes pretty much everything a 19th century gentleman would want to wear - except evening dress!  Outfits include a "sack suit" (figure 2), the ancestor of the modern business suit, a "fancy English house coat" (figure 9), a "Bath Robe" (figure 10) and a "all wool tricot serge and velvet smoking jacket" (figure 11).

Menswear ads from "Punch", 1974

I don't usually post pictures of men's fashions - but over the years I've accumulated a small stash of them.  So I've decided to make February 2013 a "menswear" themed month on my blog.  To kick off, I scanned these advertisements from 1974 issues of Punch:

I found a pile of these magazines for sale at a Lifeline Bookfair some years ago and couldn't resist buying them.  Not only were they going cheap, but the advertisements were as good as a scholarly thesis on middle-class consumers' desires in the 1970s.  They were a real little piece of social history!

And as you can also see from these advertisements I've just posted, they also demonstrate why the 1970s are known as "the decade taste forgot".  While not promoting the most extreme of seventies mens' fashions, there's plenty to wince at - from over-loud plaids, to over-wide ties, to ridiculously flared pants!