Waistcoat, suit waistcoat

Wool suit, c. 1939. Tailored by Needham & Son , Coram Street, Southampton Row for Max Beerbohm.

Sir Henry Maximilian 'Max' Beerbohm (1872-1954, knighted 1939) was a writer, theatre critic and caricaturist, the son of a German Lithuanian man and an English woman. He portrayed contemporaries like Whistler, Gladstone, Disraeli and Queen Victoria. Beerbohm was a life-long dandy who admired 'Beau' Brummel's 'utter simplicity'. This double breasted waistcoat in brown and cream wool is part of a suit. The waistcoat is lined in cream shantung silk and the back is brown silk.

The Polish writer and journalist, Camille Honig, who met Beerbohm in 1944, was impressed by his appearance. 'He looks as elegant and neat as one of his exquisitely turned-out phrases. He wore a well-cut, double-breasted light grey suit, black socks, black shoes well polished, blue striped shirt (I think), a dark tie with an old-world pearl pin in it.'

At Oxford, Beerbohm was friends with Oscar Wilde, and friends and enemies speculated for years about his sexuality. However, he lived happily in Italy for 41 years with his wife, the American actress Florence Kahn.

A double breasted waistcoat in brown and cream wool fronts and silk back. The fronts have revers, two buttons and two slit pockets with deep facings. The waistcoat is lined in cream shantung silk. The brown silk back is in two panels with a centre seam and a fixed lower belt in two pieces with a metal buckle marked 'PARIS' to adjust the width.