A glimpse into the luxurious world of Frost Bros. through the illustrations of Max Jordan
Decades before customers were inundated with mass media ads, shoppers were treated to illustrated fashion advertisements in local papers. The ads were created by talented fashion illustrators and they conveyed a sense of rich style and sophistication, especially when those ads were from Frost Bros., a high-end South Texas department store anchored in San Antonio. Recently, UTSA Special Collections received a donation of the Max Jordan Papers. The collection consists of conceptual drawings, mock-ups, page proofs, and newspaper advertisements. The majority of the items were produced by Jordan during the 1980s for Frost Bros., Jordan’s illustrations were created for men’s and women’s fashion, fragrance, skincare, and cosmetics advertisements. A small sampling of sketches are from his time at I. Magnin in San Francisco.
Mock-ups were part of the production process of creating advertisements. Once perfected, the mock-ups were then used for page proofs, and the final product, newspaper advertisements, such as the full page color ad above. Shown here are mock-ups created by Max Jordan for Fros. Bros. ads.
Conceptual sketches created by Jordan for I. Magnin department store in San Francisco are featured below.
The Top Shelf 
I was the fur buyer at frost I’m 1986 until they closed I still have the fur add that max did for me
I was a staff artist in the ’60’s, then free-lanced from Austin until they closed. Do you know if any of the other buyers—Joyce Barney, __. Harris (who later owned The Pendleton Shop) are still alive and where I might contact them? Thanks so much. Missy Harris
Hello – I’m a great-niece of the actual Frost Brothers, Joe and Will. My mother, Janet Frost, was their niece. Her father, Milton Sr., was also a Frost brother but a pharmacist, also in San Antonio. I have many Frost Bros. artifacts; among them are two hat boxes, iconic ads from the really early days, a full-page advertorial from 1939 that was produced to celebrate a huge (at that time) $100,000 remodel, and a hand-engraved silver plate: “To W.C. Frost, from his friends and co-workers at Joske Bros. Co., as a token of their esteem. San Antonio, Tex., Sept. 6, 1912.” Soon after Will left Joske’s he and his brother Joe opened Frost Bros. I have gloves, a beautiful cashmere sweater, a gorgeous wrap, a mink stole…love keeping all this in the family!