What The Man Will Wear: Field Waistcoat

From the May, 1923 Ritz Theatre program:

Evening

Is the recently introduced practice of wearing the top hat with the dining (Tuxedo) jacket on the gain in this country?  In the vernacular of profanum Valgus-not so that you can notice it.  To Americans, there is something so drolly incongruous about pairing off the elongated hat with the abbreviated coat, that our sense of the fitness of things steps in and steps on the fad.

In London, the traditional bourne whence all fashions flow, the top hat, silk and Opera, had suffered a melancholy lapse from flavor.  In an effort to refurbish the stately beaver, the fashion arbiters gazetted a pronouncement that you could wear it with the evening jacket without being boiled in oil and fed to the lions. 

Englishmen promptly embraced the opportunity, but Americans are still flirting with it.

Afternoon

Opinions concerning the most practical golf shoe differ as widely as opinions about lie, length, shaft and weight of golf clubs.  Every player has his own idea and is prepared to argue till Gabriel blows his trumpet in defense of his pet preference.

Cleats, calks, hobnails and metallic attachments to shoes have been pretty well dropped for all except the roughest sports, such as deer stalking and Alpine climbing.  Latterly, the corrugated or washboard sole has enjoyed uncommon favor as a golf shoe, because it gives firm stance.  The newest is the shoe with the crepe rubber sole, an English idea.  This fabric is lighter than leather; more flexible than a moccasin and cannot slip under any condition of balance, ground or weather.

Portrayed in the foregoing sketch is a field waistcoat of plaid cashmere wool.  It has a low-notch collar, blunt lapels, flapped lower pockets and rounded bottom corners.  Worn with a dark-colored jacket and bright-colored knickers such a waistcoat looks no end spruce.

Morning

Crossing from London, the soft felt hat with no crease except the lengthwise centre groove is now a familiar fashion.  It has been befriended by men who like the set effect of the English hat as distinguished from "ragging" which Americans give theirs.  Such a style is symptomatic of the general and gradual return to the more formal and less individual standards of dress.

The soft felt, illustrated here, shows the tall, tapering crown and the brim of fairish width, well scooped fore-and-aft, which characterized some of the newest and smartest Springtime hats.  Pearl-gray has taken a sudden and wholly unexpected spurt.

Bright-hued foulard silks, bandannas and madder prints are coming into vogue in bow-knot ties to accompany the wing collar, as shown alongside.  These may be had with either square or pointed ends.

C.H.

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