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A compilation of the Esquire/ AA illustrations 1934-42 L. Fellows

Rabbit

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Men in Style: The Golden Age of Fashion from Esquire. Sold out and super expensive for years now. I believe there would be a market even if I am normally quite catious. The whole bespoke / trad / ivy guys also like Apparel Arts and Esquire even though they dress rathher differen.

Right, that's the one. Do you happen to know how much material this volume actually contains?
 

Broccoli

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That looks like a normal smoking with satin lapels (or whatever they are called) but the rest of the jacket is in green velvet. A very nice outfit I must say.

Right, that's the one. Do you happen to know how much material this volume actually contains?

From what I've heard, there are only 40 illustrations or so? But that might not be correct. I think it would be disappointing to get the book anyway, since I would already have seen the majority of the illustrations.
 

Rabbit

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That looks like a normal smoking with satin lapels (or whatever they are called) but the rest of the jacket is in green velvet. A very nice outfit I must say.

I agree, it looks nice. Note the green silk socks and cap toed Oxfords. The cuffs remind me of the practical joke in Astaire's Swing Time.



From what I've heard, there are only 40 illustrations or so? But that might not be correct. I think it would be disappointing to get the book anyway, since I would already have seen the majority of the illustrations.

That's quite possible; the book has only 112 pages. Holding the printed volume in hands is a luxury I wouldn't be willing to pay for, either, given the current prices for this book.
 

Flat Foot Floey

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If it is really a "smoking jacket" and not a dinner jacket it could be just trousers from a normal suit. He is drinking and smoking and the other guy isn't in formalwear either.
 

Rabbit

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If it is really a "smoking jacket" and not a dinner jacket it could be just trousers from a normal suit. He is drinking and smoking and the other guy isn't in formalwear either.

Now that you mention it, the trousers do look a lot more like the however unusual "color-reversed" chalk stripes of a lounge suit than the cashmere stripes of semi-formal daywear. It is said that there used to be endless variations of the cashmere stripes, though. Still, it makes much more sense if it's actually the trousers of a suit.
Too bad we don't have the text, but I think we can safely assume that the jacket is a velvet smoking jacket.
 

Rudie

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That's quite possible; the book has only 112 pages. Holding the printed volume in hands is a luxury I wouldn't be willing to pay for, either, given the current prices for this book.

You don't have to buy it. You can lend it in a library. I once did that. :)
http://gso.gbv.de/DB=2.1/SET=1/TTL=1/CMD?SERVER=gso.gbv.de&ACT=SRCHA&LNG=DU&TRM=Men+in+Style%3A+The+Golden+Age+of+Fashion+from+Esquire&DB=2.1&SRT=YOP&IKT=1016&COOKIE=U999,K999,D2.1,E1f08a237-46,I0,B9994++++++,SY,A%5C9008+J,,1,,U,,4,,7,,M,H13-15,,17-23,,30,,50,,60-61,,73-78,,88-90,NGAST,R92.78.29.46,FN
 

sola fide

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Rabbit,
Awesome topic with great pics. I used to check the "Esquire's Encyclopedia of 20th Century Men's Fashions" book from the library and wanted my own copy, but too expensive. I would have no problem wearing most of these outfits bar the shorts. My wife doesn't like be wearing baggy slacks because she says, "They make you look short and stumpy." so I have to go with more fitted. Many of the men depicted in the illustrations are either tall or quite thin and slight in stature; I'm 5,5" and neither of the two.
Thanks for your hard work in uploading all of these images.
Mike A
 

Rabbit

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My apologies about the disappearance of the photos in this thread. The monthly bandwidth limit of my Photobucket account has been exceeded. The photos are still there but won't show up until next month's bandwidth count starts. The count starts with the day of the month when my account was opened; I have no record of that date, so I don't know when the photos are supposed to reappear.

Anyway, the reason for exceeding the bandwidth limit of 10GB is likely due to my posting so many images per page as I did in this thread, which I can see now was a mistake. It takes only a few hundred views per page (in default setting of 10 posts per page) per month to reach the bandwidth limit, not counting the views of any other of my images in other threads.

We could wait for next month's count to see if the same things happens again, as I don't know how much this thread will be frequented in the long run.

However, it seems unavoidable that the high number of images per page isn't going to work for my free Photobucket account, so I'm asking the bartenders to delete all posts in this thread that contain images, if that's feasible.

Once my account is functioning again, I will then post the Esquire images again, with the difference that I'll post only less images per page. I'm not sure if that will actually help, though. If someone views all images in this thread, it won't make any difference to the bandwidth count, after all. Still, it's worth a try.

Any other suggestions are very welcome, from bartenders or members.
 
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Broccoli

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I have found "imgur" to be the best website for uploading photos. It does not seem to have restrictions. And you could even create an album for only illustrations, then post the link.
 

Rabbit

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Thank you! I'll follow your suggestion and switch to imgur. Once my posts containing the Esquire images are deleted, I'll post the full set anew, using imgur, or post a link to an album, depending on which works best.

My other Photobucket-hosted images on TFL should reappear sometime within the next weeks.
 

Rabbit

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The Esky images will be re-posted by the end of the week, I guess. Thank you, Feraud, for your help!

This time I'll take the opportunity to arrange the images by topics which is admittedly going to be a bit arbitrary, but hopefully better than posting them randomly. I'll sort them into 1) spring/summer, 2) fall/winter, 3) formal/ semiformal day and evening wear, 4) details and accessories and will see how it goes from there.

Excellent advice on that image hosting site, Broccoli! Thanks again.

Stay tuned.
 

Rabbit

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The subsequent posts contain the full set of images.

Contents:

Section I, Part 1: Spring/summer, suits
Essentially warm weather suits in fabric, color and/or pattern, or construction.
You'll see lots of linen, twist and tropical weight worsteds in light colors and mostly solids, and patch pockets.

see posts #37 to #49

Section I, Part 2: Spring/summer, hot weather clothes
Let's face it, there is no such thing as true hot weather suitings. Above a certain temperature, all a man can do is sweat. For the dog days, we have polo shirts, sports shirts, shirt jackets and safari shirts.
see posts #50 to #52

Section I, Part 3: Spring/summer, beach clothes
see post #53

Section II: Shoulder season
Suits borrowed from either season, aided perhaps by an odd waistcoat, gloves or a scarf while dispensing with the outercoat, or made of fabrics that are really ideal for the transition period, like mid weight gabardine and mid weight worsteds. Lots of raincoats in here, too.
see posts #54 to #59

Section III: Season-neutral suits
Suits that are neutral in appearance, regarding fabric, colors and patterns. These are simply the illustrations I didn't know where else to file.
see posts #60 and #61

Section IV: Fall/winter
Essentially cold weather suits in fabric, color and/or pattern.
You'll see lots of tweed, heavy flannel, darker colors, and bolder patterns.

see posts #62 to #69

Section V: Formal and semi-formal, both day and evening
see posts #70 to #74

Section VI: Hunting
see post #75

Section VII: Details and accessories

see posts #76 to #79



***Please keep in mind that this arrangement is arbitrary. I also may have sorted some images in the wrong sections, and a few double posts may have occured.***
 
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Rabbit

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Section I, Part 1: Spring/summer, suits

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