JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

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...

December 1972. You're producing a weekly show about finance for PBS . The final episode of the calendar year is upon you. How can you spice things up to mark the upcoming new year?  Throw a party on-air of course! Pop a few corks, encourage your guests to wear their snazziest socializing threads, and encourage the host to go into full lounge lizard mode. Because, when you cross the financial markets in New York with Playboy After Dark , how can you lose? (Though, sadly, you aren't able to hire any groovy rock bands.) Foreign Affairs, Spring 1985. Wall Street Week was one of those shows whose opening credits fascinated me as a kid. Something about the energetic music and (even by the early 1980s) retro graphics, coupled with a few moments of Louis Rukeyser's soothing voice. Never mind that I no idea how financial markets worked, or that I'd flip the channel within a few minutes.  Financial Post, May 13, 1978. A piece on a Wall Street Week taping in Toronto, profiling ...

Source: Family Circle , July 29, 1969. With the current heat wave slamming Toronto, it's tempting to run to the nearest beach to keep cool. But when even a dip in the lake isn't enough to cool you down, yet you want to remain outdoors, desperate measures are called for. Which brings us to this beach beauty's innovation: the human spinning top. As you spin in your preferred direction (I prefer clockwise), air flowing through the portholes will keep you cool as a cucumber. Spinning might make you dizzy, but who says that keeping cool and stylish doesn't come without costs?

At first I laughed at the absurdity of this ad’s claims: turning into a misanthropic wretch because of an ill-fitting shirt. Then I remembered I’ve been guilty of yelling in anger or cursing my physical shape whenever a shirt that fit well on its first wearing shrank after being washed. This is especially true if the shirt cost more than my usual apparel budget. There have been times where I’ve been ultra-paranoid about purchasing clothes out of fear they would shrink by 50% or, if it was a type of garment I knew was prone to a water-induced diet, remain in an enlarged state suitable for a clown costume. In other words, the man in the ad deserves his moment of cheerfulness. Source: the Toronto Daily Mail , January 23, 1892

This window was an attention-grabber - several fellow bypassers marvelled in disbelief at the fashions on display. As I placed my camera back in its case, a couple stopped for a second, exchanged stares, then uttered in unison " Herb Tarlek !" Photo taken along Boylston Street in Boston on June 11, 2011 - JB

A lesson in how to make a retailer's leftovers sound attractive. Question: were there any special, unprinted deals for regulars of the mission across the street (say, very special odd pants or suits to help somebody down on their luck climb back up the ladder of life)? Source: The Toronto Star , July 6, 1928. - JB

A spacey, slightly creepy Bicentennial-era clothing aimed to make you smile at A. Smile. If the facial hair on the dude in the front fused into one strand, and his ponytail(s) were repositioned, he'd resemble 1970s comic book character Man-Thing . Source: Rolling Stone , May 20, 1976. Cover to Man-Thing #1 (January 1974) by Frank Brunner. - JB

Attention Warehouse shoppers: we have a two-for-one deal today in the shirt department...all styles courtesy of the classified pages of Rolling Stone magazine... If the 1970s were the "me decade" then this shirt was right for its time—and it's 100% polyester to boot! The perfect gift for anyone whose philosophy was "it's all about me." Tired of preppies and their crocodile shirts? Not content to wear a knockoff like Fox or the Sears dragon (like I did in elementary school)? Show your scorn for preppie scum by wearing a dead croc! Your impatience will be rewarded... In a shocking development, shirt producer Mad Dog Productions was sued by Izod Lacoste over copyright infringement. According to Wikipedia, the matter was settled out of court and Mad Dog was allowed to sell the shirts for an additional year. Sources: Rolling Stone , May 20, 1976 (Me-T), April 16, 1981 (Croc O'Shirt) - JB

This ad for a popular 1950s swimwear designer delighted quite a few websurfers when it was posted on Flickr. Chalk it up to the simple, classy style the ad designer used, or the hints of mischief emanating from the model's face. As for what a New York shopper could have done to amuse themselves after purchasing a "jewel of the sea," let's consult the "Goings on About Town" section (or, as it was subtitled in '58, "a conscientious calendar of events of interest"). If they were in a theatrical mood, productions in first run on Broadway included Look Back in Anger , The Music Man , Sunrise at Campobello and West Side Story . Under "Night Life", the "Big and Brassy" section might have caught their eye. At the Copacabana, " Ella Fitzgerald , as oracle of many voices, many moods, many tempos, can range from the romantic to the abstract as quick as a wink. She's the one good deed in a very long night." Use...

" Fashions by Botany 500 ." For years, this acknowledgement was a staple of the end credits for game shows. While other clothiers provided wear for emcees, Botany 500 remains the butt of most jokes. Today's ad was originally shot during auditions for a failed ABC game show, Masterpiece , with neither of these two gentlemen becoming the next Bob Barker or Bill Cullen. The set featured mod colours with a Jackson Pollock-inspired flair. Two teams competed, each consisting of a contestant and celebrity (the pilot featured Vincent Price and Alastair Cooke). Two rounds of questions revolved around the arts. The winning team moved on to the final round, which featured an obscure piece of art or classical music by a well-known artist, presented by a leggy model. Audience testing revealed the show was too highbrow for network television, though a version with Ivy League professors as the "celebrities" briefly aired on PBS in 1970. Not wanting their model shots to go...