Laurence Fellows, Another Look

Over the weekend Derek posted a link at Put This On to a few dozen Laurence Fellows illustrations. The standards were all there, the ones that get tossed around all the time, but there were also a few I had never seen before. As usual, there are lessons to be learned.

This illustration carries a lot more information than you might initially think. First of all, being dated in the 1940s, that double-breasted suit is probably intended to be more than a few years old. Cloth rations, both institutional and fashionable rations, would have had most men buying single breasted suits. Turn-ups on the trousers would also have been a war-time no-no. Further contrasting it from the military uniform to the right is the hefty amount of drape you can see around the armholes. It’s amazing that an illustrator could capture that so naturally.

Speaking of double breasted, these two tan db sport coats are very interesting. On the left is a model from 1933 and on the right a depiction from the 1940s. Both are worn casually in a nautical context, but the flap pockets have given way open patch pockets and the accessories are completely different. Patterned trousers have turned plain and the boater is being phased out by the 1940s. Great example of similar get-ups changing over time.

These two illustrations, though of very different types of clothes (both from 1934), perfectly displays the principle I mentioned in The Logic of Drape of creating a long line from shoulder to floor. You can see how the width of both gents’ trouser legs are similar to the bottom hems of their coats. This lengthens their overall silhouette and flatters their frames. The illustration on the left does this particularly effectively due to the angle and pose of the man being depicted. Well done Laurence Fellows, well done.