introducing apparel arts, 1931
Was the holiday season of 1931 a good moment to launch a pricey magazine for the men's fashion trade? The backers of Apparel Arts felt so. "We prefer not to brag about the expensive character of Apparel Arts ," editor Arnold Gingrich noted in the magazine's debut editorial. "You all know, by now, what a photograph costs. You can guess, when it comes to drawings, paintings and sculpture. The Depression still being officially on, we're rather ashamed to admit payment to the piper. To dwell on this aspect of Apparel Arts , quite apart from considerations of modesty, would be, it seems to us, to elucidate the obvious." Apparel Arts was distributed to clothing salesmen, and included swatches attached to pages that could be shown to clients. "Our only hope," Gingrich declared," is that each issue may contain some one page, at least, that you may find it impossible to ignore, or to forget." The magazine's mission would be "to fi...