COOLEST Menswear Pamphlet Ever Printed

[Tomasso]

Rodgers Peet & Company closed their last remaining store at 16 E. 42 St. in the mid 80's.




In its early years Rogers, Peet introduced several innovations into the men's wear business: they attached tags to garments giving fabric composition, they marked garments with price tags (the established practice was to haggle), they offered customers their money back if not satisfied, and they used illustrations of specific merchandise in their advertising. They also used cartoons in their advertisements, a rarity at the time. For some time during these early years Frank Chambers personally wrote the advertising copy. The actor John Barrymore, at that time a young artist, was hired to draw humorous cartoons for the advertising.



In the song "Marry the Man Today" from Guys and Dolls, Rogers Peet is mentioned as one of the finer things in life:

(Adelaide): Slowly introduce him to the better things; respectable, conservative, and clean
(Sarah): Readers Digest!
(Adelaide):Guy Lombardo!
(Sarah): Rogers Peet!
(Adelaide): Golf!
(Sarah): Galoshes!
(Adelaide): Ovaltine!

[Marc Chevalier]

And Rogers Peet was the clothier that gave a publishing duo the impetus to create Apparel Arts Quarterly. It was Rogers Peet that requested such a publication to keep in their stores and show to customers. For this reason, one of the first issues of Apparel Arts contained a long article about Rogers Peet.

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[Undertow]

Thanks for the excellent pamphlet!

[Mid-fogey]

...thanks so much for sharing.

[PADDY]

I've really enjoyed this Marc, thanks! Any more things like this lurking in your home? just fascinating.

[carter]

And Rogers Peet was the clothier that gave a publishing duo the impetus to create Apparel Arts Quarterly. It was Rogers Peet that requested such a publication to keep in their stores and show to customers. For this reason, one of the first issues of Apparel Arts contained a long article about Rogers Peet.
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Thanks for sharing this Marc. I really enjoyed the writing and the illustrations.

Does anyone know if a compendium of Apparel Arts Quarterly content has ever been published in either hardcover or softcover?

[Baron Kurtz]

No, Apparel Arts has never been reprinted in any systematic way. There was a two volume Italian set celebrating the magazine, and discussing its impact/importance etc, but that's all. This set included a number of pages culled from various editions of Apparel Arts. I believe ghos7a55assin owns these, or one of his relatives does.


I'm working on it. (just don't tell Condé Nast )

bk

[Matt Deckard]

Insanely cool... I actually have some clothes from them.

[imoldfashioned]

I'm tempted to toodle over to Tremont and Bromfield to see if there's any evidence of their Boston outpost left.