Joseph Christian Leyendecker was a distinguished American illustrator best known for his advertisement illustrations, covers for The Saturday Evening Post, and the iconic Arrow Collar Man.
In the 1920s Cluett, Peabody & Co. started manufacturing shirts with attached collars. To promote the new style, they started an advertisement campaign which had a series of images of stylish men sporting Arrow shirt. The model in the images, developed by Leyendecker, became a symbol of the fashionable American male. The Arrow Collar Man turned out to be one of the most famous ad campaigns in history.
“Reading is stylish. Knowledge is intelligence. I’m a well read man, an intellectual being, always a step ahead of my smartass competitors.” Is that what The Arrow man seems to be thinking? Continue reading