Men's fashion in fashion plates 1938-1942

The Library owns a number of fashion plate portfolios published between 1938 and 1942, all focusing on menswear. In this exhibition, we are showing a small selection.

It is a time of growing unrest and the beginning of the Second World War. A cosmopolitan pre‑war Europe is increasingly marked by nationalism and chauvinism. Yet portfolios with titles such as English Fashion or The Tailor are still being published by an Austrian publisher that, after Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938, is forced to become part of the German propaganda machinery.

We have German portfolios that, only a few years earlier, were published with English titles and clearly aimed at an international audience, but which during the war had to switch their language to German. Who would want to be inspired by English fashion from plates printed in Berlin a year or two into the 1940s?

As a counterpoint, we present Nic Kowarsky, who was born in Riga under Russian imperial rule, fled to Germany during the Russian Revolution, and then to Sweden at the time of the Nazi takeover in 1933. He went on to become a frequently commissioned illustrator in Sweden during the post‑war period.

The complete portfolios with posters can be requested and viewed on site in the library.