Fashion

VANITY FAIR Throws a Bobbed Hair Party (Vanity Fair, 1919)

A smattering of cartoons depicting those sweet young things of yore who were partial to bathtub gin, short skirts and
short hair styles.


In 1919 you didn’t have to be plugged-in 24/7 to the youth scene in order to recognize that bobbed hair was where the fickle finger of fashion was pointing. Perhaps the editors of VANITY FAIR presumed that a bobbed hair party was the best social alternative that could have been offered six months after the 1919 passage of the 18th Amendment, which ushered in the Prohibition of alcohol throughout the United States.

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Spring Fashions (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1935)

Paulette, the fashion critic for the long-defunct Beverly Hills society rag, Rob Wagner’s Script, joyfully reported that color had at long-last come to liven-up the drab wardrobe for the Great American male:

The myriads of color, diversity of design and gamut of styles displayed in men’s shops are revolutionary…The new page in fashion history began when daring members of the nations’ social elite first braved formal dinners in suits showing decided sheens of blue and red.

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Black Tie, Please (Collier’s Magazine, 1947)

One evening in 1947, Henry L. Jackson, co-founder of Esquire Magazine, realized that his magazine alone was not sufficient enough in circulation for passing the word along to his fellows that the rules for men’s evening wear were rapidly being rewritten; knowing full-well that Collier’s was one of the preeminent American magazines of its day, he no-doubt must have pleaded the urgency of his case to their editors and, in so doing, saved the collective faces of the homo Americanus once more! We’re delighted that he did so, because now you will have a more thorough understanding as to how you might have dressed had you lived in post-war America.

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The Dos and Don’t in Men’s Suiting of the Forties (Pic Magazine, 1945)

This article appeared in an issue Click Magazine that was deliberately edited to aid those young men who had been wearing uniforms for the past few years and, subsequently, had no knowledge whatever of tailoring or of fabric that was not government issued. It consists of a handy guide for the aspiring dandy showing just how a gentleman’s suit should fit if it is to be properly worn.


Read an article about the history of Brooks Brothers

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The First Celebrity Hairdresser (Coronet Magazine, 1955)

This article tells the story of a certain Antoni Cierplikowski – better known as Antoine of Paris (1884 – 1976). He was the premiere hairdresser throughout much of the last century and his illustrious client list included many names that you would recognize. Yet, to simply write the man off as a celebrity hairstylist is to ignore his myriad innovations:


• Antoine was the creator of the Bob.

• He created the Perm.

• He was the first to tint gray hair to blue.

• He was the first to apply a lacquer to hair as a fixative.

• Antoine was the first to tinge isolated elements within a hairdo blond as a streaked highlight.

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A History of Brooks Brothers (Coronet Magazine, 1950)

There is only one retail establishment in the world that is able to boast that they had retained the patronage of both Thomas Jefferson and Andy Warhol, and that would be Brooks Brothers.

Diplomats and prize fighters, dukes and bankers, Cabinet members and theatrical luminaries stroll every day through the ten-story building on Madison Avenue. The sight of Secretary of State Dean Acheson trying on a new overcoat, or Clark Gable testing a new pair of shoes, or the Duke of Windsor undecided between a red or green dressing gown causes scarcely a flurry. The reason is simply that the store itself is a national legend, as noted in its own right as any of its patrons.


The attached five page article lays out the first 132 years of Brooks Brothers. It is printable.


– from Amazon:


Brooks Brothers: Generations of Style, It’s About the Clothing

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Flaming Youth (Time Magazine, 1923)

Here is an entirely unsympathetic Time Magazine review of the 1922 film, Flaming Youth starring Colleen Moore and Milton Sills. The uncredited reviewer really wasn’t buying any of it and was not at all impressed with the morality of Flappers. Today, Flaming Youth has deteriorated to just just a few feet of film and rests in the vaults of the Library of Congress; the reviewer probably would be pleased to know that.

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The Back-Hand from a Flapper (Flapper Magazine, 1922)

Flapper Magazine crowned itself the

official organ of the national flapper’s flock

If nothing else, this verbiage simply spells out that the editors took themselves very, very seriously indeed and it was in that same spirit they gleefully went to work disemboweling a movie that they saw as anti-flapper to its very core. The film in question was

Nice People (Paramount, 1922) starring Bebe Daniels and Wallace Reid. Produced by Willam C. deMille (1878 – 1955), elder brother of Cecil, the film makers were clearly intimating that nice people will always keep their flapper daughters in line; it is at that point in the flick when the reviewer dipped her pen in the ink:

This is one of the themes that ‘old fogies‘ usually delight in; the ‘reformation’ of the flapper… The picture is replete with pithy subtitles, such as ‘the smart girl of today removes the rouge from her lips only to kiss and make up.’

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Elsa Schiaparelli Recommends…(Photoplay Magazine, 1936)

Elsa Schiaparelli (1890 – 1973), Paris’ leading fashion authority of the 1930s tells how to dress inexpensively and yet look smart as a star.:

Cheap jewelery should never be worn unless it happens to be something that you positively know suits you. Pearls, including cheap ones, are always in good taste.

Women can learn from men and improve their ‘chic’. A man wouldn’t think of wearing a tight shoe or one that didn’t harmonize with his suit.

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The Need for Color in Men’s Fashion (Current Opinion, 1919)

Tom Wolf and Mark Twain have not been the only men to have lamented the drab hues so prevalent in manly attire: now you may add to that list a new name: H. Dennis Bradley. The late Mr. Bradley was a tailor in London’s Old Bond Street some time back, and he was quite vocal concerning the issue of men’s fashions. Being a true man of the cloth, Mr. Bradley was certain that, prior to the unpleasantness of 1914, men’s fashions were headed in a healthy and aesthetically sound direction, but when the boys came home, the promise was not kept.

We may not go back to the rainbow shades and wonderful stuffs of the bucks and the dandies of olden times–do what we will, we live in utilitarian days–but whatever comes do not let us revert to the hideous hues and shapelessness of the Victorian era…

Click here to read a 1929 article about the Dress-Reform Movement.

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