the male silhouette 1922 -1941

[jake_fink]

In 20 years the representation of men in apparel industry images went from Peter-Pan pixie-armed waifs with childishly large heads to burly he-men with shoulders as inflated as Macy's parade floats. See the images below from 1922 and (Style Hits of...) 1941 respectively:

So, was the physique that changed or the ideal? Maybe it was something else.

 

[scotrace]

The guy in the top photo, on the left.

Gollum, just before he found The Precious...

 

[jake_fink]

The guy in the top photo, on the left.

Gollum, just before he found The Precious...

I don't know.... Gollum looked a little more robust.

 

[Jovan]

I can't say I like either extreme of those illustrations.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Looks like the ideal was changed by the fashion industry. Or maybe just the results of primitive scissors and glue - cut and paste?

 

[Benny Holiday]

This oddity can be explained scientifically

At the start of the prohibition era, prior to the spread of speakeasies and black market liquor, well-to-do young men found a new vice: sucking helium. Unfortunately, it had the dramatic side-effect of inflating their dandy little heads to immense proportions. Imagine what this must have done to the hat industry at the time!

Those who fathered male offspring at this time found the helium also caused genetic damage, resulting in boys who grew up with totally out-of-proportion shoulders and chests. Here we see the results in 1941, the next generation of Puffy Men. The hat industry was safe by now, but the rag trade was in all sorts of trouble catering for these husky fellows!

The moral of the story: next time you're at a party with helium balloons, and feel tempted to sing a silly song in a high-pitched voice, remember your hat collection and think of your future offspring, and refrain! lol

 

[AdmiralTofu]

At the start of the prohibition era, prior to the spread of speakeasies and black market liquor, well-to-do young men found a new vice: sucking helium. Unfortunately, it had the dramatic side-effect of inflating their dandy little heads to immense proportions. Imagine what this must have done to the hat industry at the time!

Those who fathered male offspring at this time found the helium also caused genetic damage, resulting in boys who grew up with totally out-of-proportion shoulders and chests. Here we see the results in 1941, the next generation of Puffy Men. The hat industry was safe by now, but the rag trade was in all sorts of trouble catering for these husky fellows!

The moral of the story: next time you're at a party with helium balloons, and feel tempted to sing a silly song in a high-pitched voice, remember your hat collection and think of your future offspring, and refrain! lol

lol lol lol :eusa_clap

 

[Matt Deckard]

Was a time it was all about getting that pear shape.

 

[Rooster]

I'm happy to say I more resemble the "Top Trio of Today's Trend" except for my pot gut of course.lol

 

[Feraud]

It appears every era has their unrealistic body image type.

 

[herringbonekid]

reetpleet are you taking notes ?

that top left 40s jacket looks like it has the open-top waist darts that you recently posted a photo of.


(you can just make out in the text the phrase 'open pleats')

 

[Baron Kurtz]

and the one ablo' it

bk

 

[Orgetorix]

reetpleet are you taking notes ?

that top left 40s jacket looks like it has the open-top waist darts that you recently posted a photo of.

You have to do something with all that cloth if you're going to go from a massive chest to a fitted waist and skirt like that. It's hard to tell, but that top left coat might even have a waist seam, something that survives today only on morning coats and tailcoats but was standard in the 19th and early 20th centuries when the pinched-waist look was popular:

That illustration is from 1906. If the '40s coat above does have a waist seam, it's an interesting use of that technique to achieve almost the inverse effect from its earlier incarnation--big, draped chest with narrow waist and fitted skirt, rather than the fitted chest and flared skirt of the previous century.

 

[erikb02809]

At the museum where I work, I am in charge of managing the archives, among other things. The museum specializes in American Illustration from the 1870's through to the 1960's, and the paintings used as ads for men's and women's clothing account for a good number of pieces in the collection.

I've seen too many advertisements for men's clothing dating from the late teens through to the mid 20's to go along with the hypothesis that the first ad posted is indicitave of the stereotypical men's silhouette in fashion from that era. While ads in the 40's perhaps placed a bit more emphasis on the broad shouldered physique than in the 20's, based on what I've seen I have to disagree with the assertation that the typical depiction of men's physique in fashion ads of the 20's can be accurately summed up as "Peter-Pan pixie armed waifs with childishly large heads".

The majority of ads that I have seen from the era in question depict the male form in what I would guess we in the modern era have been brought up to recognize as the classic ideal. Broad shouldered, thin wasted, and strong jawed. The skinny-big-heads in the first ad appear to me to be more of a sign of the particular artist's (who created that ad) sense of proportion, in this case, an atypical one. This is bound to vary from artist to artist, but the extremes in thin-ness and head size in the first ad I would be hesitant to attribute as being representative of or indicative of a larger, nationwide trend.

 

[herringbonekid]

You have to do something with all that cloth if you're going to go from a massive chest to a fitted waist and skirt like that.

i'm pretty certain that jacket doesn't have a waist seam. but i see your point.

 

[herringbonekid]

This is bound to vary from artist to artist, but the extremes in thin-ness and head size in the first ad I would be hesitant to attribute as being representative of or indicative of a larger, nationwide trend.

we should also mention that these illustrations are deliberately exaggerating the cut of the suits to hammer the point home to the visually illiterate reader.
i think that is more the reason for these bizarre proportions, rather than 'this is the physical ideal'.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

yes, i've always wondered about those people who went into their tailors and said "make me look just like that!" while pointing at such a 40s illustration. I suspect no tailor would do that to a customer.

I have, however, found one pair of trousers that does look awfully like the ones below; though not quite so pegged they are very, very baggy through the thigh and knee and taper quite dramatically to the cuffs . . .

I

bk

 

[Orgetorix]

i'm pretty certain that jacket doesn't have a waist seam. but i see your point.

Ok. I thought I saw the ghost of one on the back illustration, but I guess I could be seeing things.

 

[jake_fink]

ased on what I've seen I have to disagree with the assertation that the typical depiction of men's physique in fashion ads of the 20's can be accurately summed up as "Peter-Pan pixie armed waifs with childishly large heads".

lol
I was going to sum it up as "Kermit the frog-bodied bubble heads", but I thought that would be anachronistic.

Lyendecker's Arrow Collar man is probably one of the first images that come to mind for men's apparel imagery of the 20s, and the AC man is as square jawed and well-proportioned as a man may be. The image I posted does, I think, represent a particular ineptitude on the artist's part, but it is also an early 20s image designed to sell clothes. The pipe cleaner look was clearly desired by some and to this small degree at least it was idealized. Take a look at this image of the jazz suit which also represents men as scrawney little weeds, though not as hilariously as in the previously posted image:

 

[herringbonekid]

the 'scrawny little weed' look is very popular at the moment too (see any trendy fashion supplement).