An 80th anniversary: today we have
Esquire from March 1934. Thanks especially to Michael, Bill, Derek, David, Dopey, RJ, and Mitch for their inspiring and insightful conversations on style.
The fabric picture for town wear, featuring a navy guard's coat with turnback cuffs and grey chalk striped suit. The detachable collar shirt has a horizontally striped body. While it's widely known that men wore hats more often in the 30s, these pictures show that they thought no outfit to be complete without gloves.
The double-breasted navy overcoat is a classic, with navy suit, checked shirt, black bluchers, and fawn-colored chamois gloves.
Esquire called the navy guard's coat the "one overcoat to have, since it is in excellent taste for daytime wear and can do double-duty, in a pinch, by appearing after six o'clock over evening clothes." The authors note that "a deep navy blue" is "the color best suited to this model." For fun, I've included a few images from other
Esquire issues of the guard's coat.
With a half-belt and inverted pleat in the back:
The terrors of trigonometry are assuaged by this Glen Urquhart suit in a soft Saxony wool. It's worn with an oxford button-down shirt, one of the most popular shirts for campus wear along with the round collar shirt in "oxford, Scotch cheviot, chambrays, and broadcloths -- the collar fastened with a gold safety pin."
Esquire 1934 reports a "big vogue for the bow tie." Like the braces in the previous picture, the bow-tie is in a color that seems to follow a certain tiger-themed university in New Jersey. Though it does not say, the shoes look like deep burgundy-brown No. 8 shell cordovans to match the tone of the red overplaid.
The fabric picture for country wear. The men of the 30s were as fearless as they were tasteful in combining patterns. Here we have a beautiful match between the brown houndstooth suit and the brown and cream enlarged shepherd's check scarf.
This college student is wearing a balmaccan topcoat with a windowpane check. The popular campus shoes are brown brogues and white bucks; the most common neckwear is knitted ties or bat-wing bow ties. Note the unusual clay colored shirt with soft pinned collar.
The gentleman at the box office has a grey double-breasted coat in Shetland, "a cloth that is highly prized by the knowing for its softness and fine draping quality." It's paired with a blue-grey worsted suit and black cap-toe oxfords. In the background is a single-breasted, fly-front covert coat.
In the foreground is an Irish Donegal tweed suit with flapped patch pockets in what looks like a 3-roll-2 model. The shirt is, surprisingly, made of white flannel. The shoes are suede, unlined, and plain-toe, with a heavy crepe sole.
I like the sound of this: "a formality that would pass muster for an afternoon among the diplomats." On the left, a double-breasted navy worsted suit. The shirt is grey broadcloth with a soft pinned collar, and the tie is a blue silk foulard. On the right is a three-piece draped suit in brown cheviot. The tie is a deep maroon Spitalsfield.
The standing gentleman has a grey cheviot suit with blue windowpane, a blue flannel pinned collar shirt, and repp tie with blue bar stripe.
Esquire points out that the suit's side vents are "much better in coats intended for out of town wear than the usual center vent." The man on the fence, sitting like a Paul Stuart model, is dressed boldly in a green Harris tweed suit, blue and white striped shirt, woolen plaid tie, and reddish-brown shoes.
The sportsmen of 1934. The combination of brown hat with black band is "a stunt the boys at Yale and Princeton started." The man in the center has a single-breasted Shetland suit with a brown windowpane, covert cloth topcoat, and blue polka dot muffler worn as an ascot.
For rainy days, Mr. Fellows suggests a double-breasted raglan raincoat. The tab collar is recommended for combining "a trim appearance with a maximum of comfort." A surprising touch: the peach collared shirt fabric.
Clothes for the golfer:
The sweater. Note the patterned knit ties in the bottom right.
