Today's illustration is one of the first Fellow's drawings I ever saw, and the caption puzzled me for years. It said the fellow on the right was wearing a "lord's hat," which made no sense because it looked to my eye like a homburg.
When I saw another reference to the lord's hat recently I was driven to research it. Lo and behold, a lord's hat turns out to be a more casual version of the homburg. Where the homburg's edge is bound with silk, the lord's hat brim is left raw. The brim is still turned up but the unconstrained edge looks more casual. The lord's is also worn pinched, adding to the less formal air.
I'm thinking about midnight blue beaver...
Thursday, December 20, 2007
A Small Mystery Solved
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5 comments:
I love these kind of drawings and see them periodically here and on other sites. Are they all by the same person? Is so, who? Is it possible to buy prints or books of the drawings? I know that this is not the point of the post, but thank you for your help.
Will, always great to make a discovery. Congrats and thanks for the info. The hats in this picture are exquisite. Better than the baseball caps one sees these days. I also like the socks on the guy on the left.
Andrew - I am lucky enough to live near the Business Library on Madison Avenue which houses a complete set of Apparel Arts. I enjoy spending my Saturdays looking at them over and over again. I have tried finding old AA for sale but it is virtually impossible and if one turns up it is in the hundreds of dollars for one single issue. Will posted a book on his 20 great clothing books post which has some of the photos but that book is expensive too. Also, London Lounge has some pictures that you can look at if you have not already done so.
Andrew, Esquire was created in 1933 by the same people who published Apparel Arts and it used many of the same images. You will find that vintage issues of Esquire are far more affordable than AA. The only drawback is Esquire was created two years after the first issue of AA so they don't include the earliest drawings from the original magazine.
I have seen this same hat in AA illustrations refered to as a Cavalier. I too have been trying to discovery this hats identity. Thanks for clearing up this mystery. Now to find one!
David, the cavalier is the hat on the left. The lord's is on the right.
A cavalier will be my next felt I think, but probably not before Autumn.
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