TAILORING.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Fall & Winter 1917-18. Rare Browning, King & Company's custom tailoring catalogue, focusing on "sacks" and overcoats. Likely displayed in one of the stores of this "national institution", this catalogue helped customers visualize different styles and includes recommendations of specific models "for stout" and "corpulent men". Well-dressed women are also depicted. Operating between 1868 and 1934, the company was once the largest wholesale manufacturer of clothing in the world and sold practically all its output directly through its store branches. It was built on the historic legacy of its founder, John Hazard Browning (1801-1877), who outfitted the gold rush of 1849 and supplied federal government soldiers with uniforms during the American Civil War. The company's immense cultural reach was later encapsulated by Time Magazine as "To Harvard, Yale and Princeton men, Browning, King & Co. means college clothes. To railroad conductors, bell hops and steamship officers, Browning, King means uniforms".WorldCat records only one institutional holding (Florida International University) with 98 pages, which reflects the customization of sales catalogues for different markets.

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