London menswear, 1951

"The brute covers himself, the rich man and the fop adorn themselves, the elegant man dresses!"

-Honore de Balzac

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Concordia
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Wed Jul 04, 2012 11:04 pm

With indirect reference to high armholes:
The romantic hero of England today is, without question, the Duke of Edinburgh. He sets the style for the men of the West End. He favors double-breasted suits and he usually has the botton button of the jacket unfastened; so a man today who fastens that bottom button looks like a tramp. The Edwardian Look fad will never really make any progress for the Duke has announced himself as opposed to it on the grounds that it is uncomfortable. A fashion note says the Duke doesn't wear braces, that all his trousers are cut to "hang on his hips"-- which suggests to me that he doesn't wear a belt either. He is a trial and a tribulation to the tailoring profession because "he shows no cuff." London tailors believe that a man should show cuff-- have a bit of the shirt cuff showing-- but the Duke won't show cuff and that means cuff-showing is on its way out. This sort of thing can be important. When the Duke is being fitted for a suit and gets the jacket on, he whirls his arms around like a windmill to make sure the garment will be comfortable in action, and I can imagine what this will mean to the tailors. The Duke's windmill test has been described in the press and now violent arm-whirling will become a standard procedure in the fitting rooms. Stand back, Sir!

From Smith's London Journal, by H. Allen Smith
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Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:08 am

Made me do an image search:

Image

1951

And that made me think of 1995 Armani...

Image

1995

The number of similarities is remarkable.
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