1915
1918
1918
Kuppenheimer Style Book advertising, Fall/Winter 1918-1919
Ad from Literary Digest, October 1921
1924
Bernard Kuppenheimer founded his retail clothing and manufacturing firm in 1876 in Chicago, Illinois. By 1906, “The House of Kuppenheimer” had branches in Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. In 1910 the company employed nearly 2,000 men and women at shops in Chicago.
During World War I, the firm was the manufacturer of all U.S. Army uniforms. Kuppenheimer’s was a leading producer of men’s clothing for many years and the business changed hands several times. The company filed bankruptcy in the mid-1990s due to poor sales and many of their stores closed. In 1997 the Men’s Wearhouse bought the bankrupt company, closed more Kuppenheimer stores and liquidated the remaining assets. After 121 years in business, the Kuppenheimer brand is no more.
The artist of most if not all these attractive ads is Joseph Christian Leyendecker. If his work looks familiar to you, there’s a good reason. He painted more than 400 magazine covers; 322 covers were for the Saturday Evening Post. Leyendecker also did many of the advertisements inside the magazines. Some of his most notable clients were the Arrow Shirt Company, Boy Scouts of America, Chesterfield Cigarettes, Ivory Soap, Kellogg’s, Pierce Arrow Automobile and Proctor & Gamble.
The men look very sharp. Except the US Army 1918 second picture, he looks more like a scary SS officer.
You’re right about that picture – he does remind me of an SS officer!