Plotting a Comeback

For the last couple of centuries, western menswear has been largely shaped by what a select number of taste-makers declare to be correct, tasteful, and manly. It doesn't matter if they endorse fur collars, leather pumps, blue and gray suits, or lavender pajamas, when the demigods of fashion have spoken, the menswear industry, as a whole, puts its shoulder to the wheel, and makes a valiant effort to win some small sign of their icy approval    

Of course, what do you do, when the demigods of fashion decide to turn up their discerning noses at your branch of the industry? What if you no longer fit in with the aesthetics of the moment, or worse still, what if they dismiss your products as gauche? What were the experts in sequin embroidery to do, when Beau Brummell denounced the wholesale bedazzling of the tailor's craft?

Below is a letter to the editor of The Jeweler's Circular from August 1st 1922, addressing an article exploring the issue. As the public fascination with sports began to inform the laws of menswear, the trend-setters and taste-makers of the day decided that little glittering accessories should, for the time being, be kept to a minimum. Jewelers needed a plan to re-establish the market for men's jewelry, when the average Joe on the street had, out of respect for his favorite trend setters, firmly decided that most jewelry was no longer "correct." 

Diamond Dragnet

I've found that most fashion industry journals from the 1920s are quiet affairs. They publish the latest trends in lapel notches, and the best ways to arrange silk neckties in windows. The height of drama, on their well ordered pages, might be a little coy feuding between fashion scholars and adventurous trendsetters, or perhaps a hint of a copyright infringement scandal. 

Not so, with The Jeweler's Circular! That robust periodical is glittering with more drama than a rack of dime novels! Jewel heists, automat holdups, car chases, cavalier criminals who give their victims sporting chances at escape, bugged hotel rooms, and detectives in disguise, The Jeweler's Circular has it all in spades. 

Here's one example that is the stuff of Hollywood classics!

The Genuine Article

No delicate hot-house fashion illustrations here, we are assured. This is a real  man,  an intense  man, cutting loose with a real,  gutsy primal bellow! And, he's wearing a real  hat, one that's just as intense as he is!

According to this ad from a 1910 issue of Men's Wear Semi Monthly, Eagle Brand Caps would include a copy of the "forceful and attractive" oil painting, with every order of a few dozen "Gaylor" hats. But, who is this rough-and-tumble force of nature featured in the painting? What kind of man was chosen to be a visual representation of manliness, confidence and indomitable spirit? A closer look at the advertisement reveals the painting's title, and the subject's occupation: 

The Collar Struggles Continue

The quest to wear the latest in snug 1920s collars, claims another fashion victim , in this Art Helfant cartoon from a 1921 issue of The Haberdasher. 

Busy Bees

Glancing through old advertisements, I just never know what marvelous and colorful expressions I will stumble across next! Take, for example, this tidbit, tucked away in a rather busy looking ad in a 1910 issue of Men's Wear :

"Ha! Salesclerk at a haberdashery? Naw, I'm an at-home dealer. I give the honey and get the money. See?"  The full ad is below.

Virtual Tour

Here is a wonderful virtual tour of a made-to-measure factory in Chicago. It was printed in a 1910 issue of The Clothier and Furnisher. 

Fashion Victim

Looking trendy is not always easy, especially when being the pinnacle of fashion means adopting extreme styles, like the close-fitting, perfectly crisp, and perfectly unforgiving stiff collars of the 1910s and 1920s. When starched to their limit, they could render their wearer quite uncomfortable, and, according to a few contemporary reports, sometimes even constricted gentlemen to the brink of faintness. 

A major draw-back to extreme trends, is that when they are in full swing, it becomes much more difficult for those who wish to be stylish and practical, to find products that are both. 

Example: An ad by J.C. Leyendecker,   

Note the cutting fit of the stiff collar.

Mr. Art Helfant weighs in on the situation, in a 1921 issue of The Haberdasher:

It's no wonder that through the 1920s, soft collars slowly began to gain in popularity, and by the 1930s, their conquest of collardom was virtually complete. Infact, the same issue, in which Mr. Helfant's cartoon was printed, contains an article with the following headline: