Bayadere Cotton Dress (Myer, Spring-Summer 1954)

 Real life™ prevented me from posting last week.  This week I thought I'd post something cheerful, summery, and very, very 1950s.

Bayadere Cotton Dress

So casual . . . eye-catching . . .

Such value, too!  319HA: Cleverly fashioned to highlight a striking bayadere print.  Cool square neckline, cap sleeves and skirt of unpressed pleats.  Enchantment in royal blue, green, grey, carnation ruby.

"Bayadere" derived its name (though a number of steps) from Hindu temple dancers in southern India.  It has come to mean a fabric of brightly contrasting horizontal stripes.  This version is a printed cotton, though any material could be used.

Crimes in Crochet V (McCall's Needlework and Crafts, Spring-Summer 1972)

 I haven't done one of these in ages.  The pictures really speak for themselves, so let's just say that this is what happened when the "do it yourself" and the "do your own thing" crazes of the late sixties were combined.

Take this little number.  The summer dress in linen-orlon is OK, but the designer has paired it with a beanie.  Wouldn't a sunhat make more sense?

These two young ladies look as if they've cut up granny's table mats to convert into tabards.  Stylish, they are not.

... And these two ladies look as if they've been cutting up her bedding!  

These shorts are giving me a rash just looking at them!

Still more granny squares, outlining this—ahem!—interesting little evening creation.  I hope to God that anyone who made this little number also wore something underneath it.  Unless she was going to one of those swinging "key parties" we were told were the in thing in the 1970s!

(A number of other fashion disasters from this magazine—yes, this very issue—were featured in The Museum of Kitschy Stitches by Stitchy McYarnpants.)

Styles of '65: Spring dresses (Australian Home Journal, September 1965)

 Spring has sprung, and the Australian Home Journal of September 1965 celebrated by offering free patterns for these light-hearted dresses.

It's time to think of spring, and all the gaiety this season always brings.  We help you to greet it with our Free Patterns for a spring-into-summer wardrobe.  The theme is very feminine and just a little romantic, and we've chosen floral, completely drip-dry fabrics.

By 1965 Australian Home Journal had stopped offering fashion advice, so I'm going to The Australian Women's Weekly to look at their advice on dressing to please husbands (or at least so as not to offend them):

If a new fashion comes in and you intend to wear it, bide your time and break him in by a little wifely cunning.  Any major fashion change almost certainly give rise to cries of, "Isn't that awful!  Don't ever let me see you in one of those!"

Wait until the fashion has modified a little, and he's used to seeing it on girls in the office.  Then he'll be ready to admire it on his wife.

This brings up another point: the fact that your man may admire a dress on another woman that he'd hate on you, even if you'd look just as good in it.

Dresses with decollete necklines are at the top of the list.  It's said to be because he's afraid you'll go Attracting Other Men.  Take it as a compliment.

The Australian Women's Weekly, August 4 1965

Fashion changes came fast and furious in the 1960s, though possessive husbands might find themselves more worried about hemlines than necklines!

La Mode (26 Septembre 1915)

From World War II to World War I: let's take a look what was happening to fashion in the waning days of 1915.

And the most startling innovation is—skirts have now risen above the wearers' ankles!  Adult women's ankles had been hidden in ordinary wear for centuries.  (There were exceptions, of course, for certain kinds of working dress and costumes worn by entertainers.)  However, nice middle class ladies like the ones depicted below, would never have appeared in public wearing skirts as shockingly short as these.

What they probably didn't realise as yet was that the days when skirts for day wear would trail on the ground were over.  Skirts would have their ups and downs in the coming decades, but as far as length goes, this would be as low as it got.

1. Robe d'enfant — Cétte robe trés simple á attache par des boutons boules et se ferme avec une large ceinture.

[1.  Children's dress — This very simple dress fastens with ball buttons and closes with a wide belt.]

2. Robe habilitée en taffetas — Jupe froncée, blouson de mousseline gris recouverte de bretelles de taffetas.
[2. Taffeta dress — Gathered skirt, gray chiffon jacket covered with taffeta straps.]

3. Costume genre tailleur — Jupe découpée sur un panneau plissé, petit boléro blousé devant.
[3. Tailored-style costume — Skirt cut on a pleated panel, small bolero bloused in front.]

4. Robe de fillette — Jupe foncée à volants, corsage blousé garni d'une cravate de satin d'un col de dentelle.
[4. Girl's dress — Dark ruffled skirt, bloused bodice trimmed with a satin tie and a lace collar.]

Australian Home Journal (September 1940)

 If Woman's Journal looked to Paris for its fashion news, the Australian Home Journal sought inspiration from Paris.

First up: costume jewellery as worn by the stars:

The Stars' Glamour Gadgets
Glamorous gadgets are favourites in the costume jewellery field, and unlimited variety is suggested to Miss and Mrs. movie fan who follows the style leadership of film favourites.  Bracelets, necklaces, clips and boutonnieres rival each other in originality and imagination, with dressmaker trimmings equally decorative.

Australian Home Journal was always happy to turn to designers for advice— in this case, a film costume designer.  Dolly Tree's credits for 1940 included Young Tom Edison and Strike Up the Band.

"Shorts" for Sports
"No matter what the sport—who the girl—the shortest route to smartness in sports is by way of shorts," says Dolly Tree, M-G-M fashion designer.  1940 finds shorts in top place.  Shoulders may be covered, waists nipped in, but legs remain uncovered for the athletic Miss.

For more mundane use, the magazine suggested some popular dressmaking materials. 

Floral patterns are in the front line of dress ideas; spots will be seen everywhere, and checks, while not so prominent as last season, will still have a good following. 

... And of course, some suggestions for things to make with those materials:

Skirts and Blouses
For all-round practical wear, skirts and blouses have come into their own again, and for simple day clothes they are just the thing.
It is to the diversity of changes that the different combining of several blouses and a skirt give that make these garments so popular.

Practicality and making a little go a long way some to be the watchwords here!

"In France, Poise Counts" (Woman's Journal, January 1939)

 "It is with a sigh of real gratitude I register the passing of ugly hats", opines Moma Clarke in the January 1939 issue of Woman's Journal.

The danger of the hour lies in the short, tight skirt.  If a girl has legs too sturdy and hips at all broad, a very short, tight skirt can be unsightly.  A good many flared skirts are worn and as many pleated ones. Coloured dresses look cheerful at a tea or bridge party, high necks persist, and long, tight sleeves are worn more than any others.  They give a nice slender line to the figure and admit of a good splash of brightness in a bracelet at the wrist...

As discipline is the mot d'ordre of the day for all of us, I make no excuse for bringing it to the fore in such things as dress and fashion.  You simply cannot be well dressed if you are not disciplined...

Little did she know just how much discipline would be required in the near future, and how little fashion would count in the great scheme of things!

But back to 1939.

Alix, better known for her postwar label of "Madame Grès" was once described as a "columnar" designer, who used pleats and draping to create vertical effects reminiscent of Ancient Greece.  Here she is in a more conventional mode, but still using pleats to create a slender effect.

A skirt which sways like a willow in the wind is Alix's tribute to grace, and so she puts her fullness in the front of her skirts to make them swing gently in movement.  This grey duvetyn model is perfect in its simplicity and slim line.  The ideal background-to-accessories dress.  The rust coloured woollen frock has a skirt as straight at the back as the front is full, a kindergarten bib, and a Scotch belt—delightful mixture!  More tartan comes in the unusual full gathered blouse, which goes beneath a black suit, and has its basque front pulled through a slot in the jacket.

Bridal Couple (Between 1883 and 1886)

This photograph has a connection to one of Australia's lost department stores!

Inscribed on the back is the name and address of the studio where the photograph was taken:

 GEORGE & GEORGE'S

FEDERAL STUDIO

11, 13, 15 & 17 Collins St East

MELBOURNE

George and George's Federal Emporium was located at this address between 1883 and 1888.  The photographic studio was one of the services they offered, along with products such as "Dress goods, Manchester goods, soft goods, &c, &c".  George & George's Federal Emporium became simply "George's" sometime after the turn of the century, and it remained Melbourne's most fashionable high-end department store until it closed in 1995.

The back of the photograph also gives us the name of the photographer:

F.E. ELLIOTT

PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST

F.E. Elliott was Florence Elliott, a photographer who worked at the Federal Studio between 1883 and 1886.

I don't know if the bridal couple are wearing anything bought at George's (the lace? the veil? gloves? the outsize bouquet?) but it would be nice to think that they did!