Austin Reed: British menswear company

[Two Types]

Following discussions about the British menswear outfitters Austin Reed in the 'Show Us Your British Suits' thread, I decided to look up advertising images from the company. I will be posting these in this thread. If you have any images of vintage Austin Reed clothing please add it in here.

I will start with advertising from 1931:

The 2 ounce hat:

The 'hat that slimmed':

SHirt sale:

SHirts:

Sports suit:

Grey flannel suits:

Lounge Suits:

Underwear:

 

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More 1931:

1936:

Dressing Gown

Summit Shirts:

Adverts designed to encourage women to buy Xmas presents from Austin Reed:

 

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In 1937 the company ran a series of shirt adverts following a very straight forward formula i.e. if you want food, go to a grocers - if you want a shirt, go to Austin Reed:

I think you get the general idea ...

 

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... but just in case ...

 

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Again from 1937, here are some more general adverts:

This advertises the 'Sylex' brand of sea-island cotton shirts

Tenova socks (with built in sock-suspender)

Casual summer shirts:

Xmas gifts:

grey flannel trousers:

beachwear

 

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1938:

Ulster overcoat with a choice of half or full belt:

Raincoat with a rainproof lining:

Summit shirts:

 

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1939:

 

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1940:

This overcoat is advertised for use in summer - for civilians whose wartime duties call them out at night:

Gift ideas for both soldiers and civilians:

Worsted trousers:

Military uniforms:

Watchcoat for use at sea (approved by the Admiralty):

Winter coats:

Civilian comforts (most likely advertised to appeal to people sleeping out in cold air raid shelters):

Summit shirts:

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Do you have the Austin Reed book, A Touch of Class? It's full of good stuff.

Also, I have a copy of the in-house magazine "Modern Man" which was produced during the era. They are really rather scarce, though I believe the British Library has some. Mine is from 1938, and has an excellent article by Jack Buchanan on, of all things, and - as always - IIRC, clothing required for air travel. I'll scan it when I'm back.

bk

 

[Two Types]

No, I'm not aware of those. Do they have colour images? That's the problem with newspaper ads, they were black and white so you have to rely on the descriptions to find out about the colours.

I like the way these adverts show the importance of striped shirts and also illustrate the variety of collar shapes in favour at the same time - both a spearpoint and a more standard collar.

 

[Two Types]

P.S. I also like the very long collars on the casual shirts and the spearpoint collar worn with a bow tie 'for rendezvous'. This suggests a standard style shirt for more relaxed evening wear - something i would certainly prefer over the stiff shirt front, wing collar, look. I'm also rather keen on the mixing of striped shirt and striped tie - although whenever i try it, I find it a bit too much.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

A Touch of Class has quite a bit of colour illustration. Reed's employed/commissioned some very good artists for their larger poster ads. It can be had rather cheaply on Abebooks, or I'll give you my copy when I get back. I have no use for it really, so I'd like to move it on.

Modern Man doesn't have that many ads as it's an in-house publication, but it's interesting nonetheless.

 

[Two Types]

Cheers. I'll take you up on that.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

The cover of A Touch of Class uses this Tom Purvis (who was probably the artist for several of the ads you posted above) poster:

 

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Here are some advertisements from 1941:

Flannel trousers:

Military clothing:

Summit shirts:

Winter coats:

Summer sports shirt (in lovat, mauve, blue and grey):

and even their womens range:

 

[Baron Kurtz]

There's a great story about Austin Reed's concession on the Queen Mary. When the QM was stranded in New York at the beginning of WWII, Austin Reed decided to cut its losses and sold all their inventory to well known Boston discount store "Filene's Basement", who went on to sell the Sea Island Cotton shirts (I think exclusive to Reed's at the time) at 50 cents a piece or so. This was way below what Austin Reed would be selling them for!

This was quite a coup for Filene's Basement.

 

[herringbonekid]

three lengths of sleeve for every collar size... that's called rubbing it in !

 

[Two Types]

Austin Reed advertisements from 1942: