London via Kid's Books

I may have a knack for turning up the menswear, but Mrs. G. is the undefeated champion when it comes to turning up books for the kids. It's like they have a magnetic attraction to her. She finds a wealth of books that combine both great stories/information with stunning illustration, in all styles and from all points in time. Needless to say, the Boy and the Girl have an outstanding library. Today, she came home with "This Is London", published in 1959. I chose to feature a few choice images from this one because the imagery is menswear related, and just plain cool to look at.

In my dreamland, this is the way that a man dresses. Formal (even to the point of a top hat!!) for the office, casual for "the country". And by casual I mean an ascot, tweed jacket and flannel pants. I'd like to imagine that England is still full of men like this, but I'm probably romanticizing things a bit.

The caption opposite this picture reads: "Children are not allowed inside a pub. But peek inside and see what's going on. Look, the grown-ups are playing darts."...and drinking beer and smoking pipes and wearing tweed caps and boiled wool riding vests. There may be glasses of booze all over the place, but somehow I have a hard time imagining the police arriving to break up a brawl amongst these chaps over their conflicting loyalties to either the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees.

And this guy is just too quaint, a Chelsea Pensioner. Don't you just want to sit in the courtyard of the soldiers home and let this guy beat you at chess repeatedly while you listen to stories involving Wiemar cabaret girls during "The Great War" and drinking a tipple of Bual Madeira? Pip, pip...cheerio!

In other news...Happy Birthday to Me!

An Affordable Wardrobe is a year old today. I started as a lark with a post about a cheap Harris Tweed jacket. In the process I've made a great many "imaginary friends". The whole experience has been informative, fun and even humbling. The fact that 800-1000 people out there care to read my ramblings on a daily basis never ceases to floor me. I thank each and every one of you, most especially my loyal commenters. Here's looking forward to another year of vain self indulgence.