Men's Fashions in Technicolor (1952)

If you've the vision, you'll look on the Victoria and Albert Museum as something more than a treasure house of the past, certainly as more than just a doorway to outworn ideas. For it enables you to match your own streamlined century to what has gone before, to see progress against a background of romance. To stroll with James Laver, the author, down centuries of men's fashions is to quicken your understanding of the past. In the 18th century, for example, embroidered waistcoats were going out, now they're coming in again. But does that make them a habit? Could we wear many such fineries in place of our sober herringbone worsteds? Or were temperaments more in tune with surface trimmings in those days? How they loved their plumage. Such a ruffle must have given any man that superior feeling, as with elegant thumb and forefinger he took his pinch of snuff. But for all their painstaking stitching, those 18th century tailors were bad by modern standards. They could neither make a collar stand up unaided, nor a lapel lie down. The finery of the past would be out of place in this practical age. Since the early 19th century, silks and satins have given way to wool. Note champion miler Roger Bannister's suit, for instance. It has a sporting look which sets him at his ease. It shows how, with this change in fabrics, there's been an advance in tailoring skill. It's Arthur Lacey, the golfer, who wears the plus twos, but Angola has won the toss for Tottenham Hotspur's manager Arthur Rowe, and tweeds for rugby international Wilfrid Wooler. Cricketer Godfrey Evans reminds us that the apparel still proclaims the man, a point backed up by the darted shoulders and waist of Arthur Lacey's tweeds. What has the 20th century shown so far? That it has one distinct advantage over the 18th, its tailors have not only mastered the art of cutting, but have better cloths to serve that art. A medium weight diagonal worsted enables Dennis Compton to leave crease problems where they belong. He thinks turnback cuff should make a hit. But John Arlott broadcasts his view that turnbacks of any sort are out. Sport and drama have long had close associations, and it's no surprise to find actor T.B. Kyle dressed for the kill. Slanting pockets safeguard the casual note of his hacking jacket in tweed, while he admires the fine lines of a vintage sporting rifle. From drama to light comedy, with Harold Warrander cast for Ascot, a traditional role which is nicely to his taste. The coat of finely woven wool moulds well with its square shoulders and one button fastening. All topped off, very properly of course, by the hat. And now three familiar figures dressed for an evening out, Guy Middleton, Richard Murdoch and Eamon Andrews. And again, those turnback cuffs. But whether they're a clue to their preoccupations is a point on which none of them can be drawn. Where Eamon is one up is in his frilly shirt front, quite like Bo Brummel of long ago. Incidentally, whichever of the three holds the trumps for elegance, they're surprisingly lifelike. Eh, madam? Immaculate in full evening dress, with a midnight blue worsted opera cloak, Derrick Bond sums the whole thing up. They needed that feminine touch to prove they were anything but dummies.