Snow is a funny thing. It looks pretty but it doesn’t play pretty. Unless you sport. Then it has a whole other use for you. Obviously, though, the fashion aspect of sport is interesting to Shelf Appeal.
Moss Bros were always the middle men of high street fashion. A lot of wedding hire suits, a lot of safe office suits. I hadn’t known they also hired sports gear. This 1961 brochure advises early arrangements should be made – that sartorial bookings for a January holiday could be made from the previous August onward. My history of Moss Bros tells me that hiring ski wear was still a newish game for the company in 1961. And apparently customers often bought up outfits they had hired, quickly making it a profitable arm of the company.
The 1950s had seen an expansion and promotion of affordable package holidays. And in the 1960s resort construction for winter sports holidays followed suit. Moss Bros was there to make sure those young families (and this brochure is aimed at them) made their first tentative steps abroad suitably attired.
The signature on the cover illustration here is ‘Douglas’. I was wondering why that rang bells when I realised he also illustrated a magazine cover I wrote about a while back. That was a 1933 drawing, but the signature here is the same. Sadly I still couldn’t turn up anything on the artist.
Lastly, I rather liked the photo (below) in the brochure for 3 styles of ski googles. There is something of the smiling fashionable fly about the women, in particular.
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