Australian Home Journal, April 1935

 Here we have reached the mid-point of the 1930s.  It's worth stopping here to look back at how the fashions of the decade developed, and forward to see how they're progressing.

In 1930, fashions were ladylike and—dare I say it?—a little bit droopy, with skirts falling softly in godets from a yoke beneath the hips.  A couple of years later, and fashions start to get intensely feminine, with frills and ruffles decorating the necklines and shoulders of women's garments.  In 1935 we can see the start of a shift in styles, with skirts becoming straight and shoulders squared.  Frills haven't been entirely abandoned, but they have been moderated.  Eventually this silhouette would evolve into the square "military" look prevalent in World War II.

The Australian Home Journal, as usual, noticed these changes and communicated them to its readers:

Fashion's Dress Decrees
Figures are to be rather more statuesque, waists a little larger, less fussiness about the neck and shoulders and not so many detachable parts...

The Slim Sihouette
The line remains slim, long and simple, occasionally accentuating the bust with trimmings...

 More detailed and specific suggestions were made for different types of garment.

In Brief
Dark blouses worn with lighter coloured skirts are again shown in the season to come...

Fashion Pointers
Buttons of wood or metal are as fashionable as those covered with material...

A New Suit
You can make your last year's brown tweed suit into a perfectly new and up-to-date morning and country outfit if you add to it a bright green velveteen shirt-blouse with wide cuffs that go outside your coat.

However, in 1935, Hollywood was not only enjoying its Golden Age, but had become a major (if not THE major) source of fashion information for the general public.  Women wanted to know what the stars were wearing, both on and off the screen.  Australian Home Journal was willing to oblige.

Furs Too
Furs dyed to match your gown is one of the new fancies of designers, and Myrna Loy introduced one of the first ensembles of this type.
Her royal blue dinner gown, worn at at recent function, was trimmed with a large cape of royal blue fox.

Joan's Novelty Bag
An evening bag, eighteen inches long and twelve inches wide, has been designed for Joan Crawford's use in her new M-G-M starring production, "Forsaking All Others."
The bag is fashioned of black velvet.  It is an envelope style and features two three-inch cuffs of white pique on either side...

Mauve for the New Season
Most conspicuous amongst Hollywood's winter fashions is the choice of mauve material...  Appealing particularly, is a gown worn by Sylvia Sidney, star of Paramount's "Behold My Wife."  It is a dinner ensemble of wool and metal cloth.  The skirt is the new shade of violet or mauve with a decided bluish cast.  The top of the dress is of the same hue in metal cloth.  Huge epaulettes of beaver, dyed to the same tone, trim the little jacket.

This last is interesting, because Miss Sidney's gown would most certainly have been shown in black and white on the silver screen!  Some Hollywood publicist must have decided that women would be really interested in the details of colour and fabrics for this dress.

"Make It From A Pattern" (Fashion, February 1947)

 In the late forties, Hollywood films were still a great source of fashion inspiration for the world's women.  In 1947 Fashion, a Sydney-based publication, offered its readers sewing patterns to make fashions as worn by their favourite movie stars.

I must admit I'm a bit puzzled as to the source of these patterns as the magazine doesn't tell us. Were they authentic patterns for the garments in question, or patterns for clothes resembling the ones worn by the stars?  The studios were generous in handing out publicity stills of their stars and starlets, but would they make a deal regarding patterns with an obscure Australian publication?  Or did Fashion make an arrangement with one of the pattern manufacturers authorised to make Hollywood copies?  

"COCKTAIL SUIT of heavy black satin (New York's current love for cocktail wear).  The deep pocket flaps give a peplum effect... the sleeves are bracelet length... the top a collarless edge-to-edge line.  Eve Arden, of Warner Bros.' Mildred Pierce, wears it."

(Re-reading this caption I'm not sure whether it's saying Eve Arden wore this suit in Mildred Pierce, or Eve Arden wears this suit and she was in Mildred Pierce.  If it was worn in the film, Milo Anderson was the designer.)

"TWO-PIECE BLACK, with a one-piece look!  The slim skirt is topped by a diagonally draped blouse.  The surplice front closing ends in a short drape, caught at the waist by a jeweled and embroidered buckle.  Warner's star, Jane Wyman, wears it in Cheyanne."

Oops!  This one looks like a mistake.  Cheyanne was a Western, and the cast didn't wear contemporary dress.  The designer for Cheyanne  was Milo Anderson, but I don't know who designed this dress.

"This white crepe blouse is a highly styled adaption of the tailored shirt.  Voluminous sleeves and shirring from the yoke cut a swagger over a dark shirt.  Ingrid Bergman wears this one in the RKO film, "Notorious"."

Here's a star—and a film—from the "A" list.  Cary Grant co-starred and Hitchcock directed.  The costume designer was Edith Head.

"Eye-compelling gown of starchy white pique (just as lovely in taffeta).  The slim skirt is slit to the knees; the bouffant peplum is removeable, and makes for versatility.  Paramount starlet, Audrey Young, designed this dress, and wears it in Trouble With Women."

From A List to unknown... though Audrey Young appeared to have a knack for design.  She later married Billy Wilder and acted as costume consultant on his films Some Like It Hot and The Apartment.

Butterick Goes Hollywood ("The Delineator" 1933)

Between the wars readers of Vogue got their fashion inspiration from the great Paris couturiers.  More ordinary women, however, got their fashion ideas from Hollywood.  The big studios had workrooms and designers on contract to create glamorous fashions for their larger-than-life leading ladies, and audiences lapped it all up.

Clothing manufacturers would do knockoffs of film fashions (and clothes inspired by film fashions) but there was still room for home dressmakers who wanted to try and make that movie star look for themselves.  Thus we come to these licensed patterns issued by Butterick and appearing in issues of The Delineator in 1933.

Here we start in May 1933 with a costume worn by Katherine Hepburn in Christopher Strong:

The Delineator, May 1933

It was her first starring role, but the editors of The Delineator were more interested in the way she wore her clothes:

"DELINEATOR is especially interested in Katherine Hepburn because of the way she wears clothes.  She has that thing called chic.  There are only about ten motion picture actresses who have, by the way, and Miss Hepburn is one of the most chic of them all, and what she wears in a picture to-day has a good chance of being what Young America
is going to wear tomorrow."

Butterick reproduced the pattern for her "plaid-blouse frock" (Pattern 5156).  The original was designed by Howard Greer.  Also designed by Greer for the same movie was this "organdy evening gown" worn by Helen Chandler.  The Delineator assured home sewers that the pattern (no. 5154)  "didn't represent lots and lots of work for that lace is sewed along the edge only." 

The Delineator, May 1933

June saw The Delineator promoting fashions from a Bette Davis film: The Working Man.  This time the designer was Orry-Kelly, working for Warner Brothers.  The magazine was happy to assure its readers that "Butterick is the only pattern company which has the right to reproduce these Bette Davis costumes in patterns."

The Delineator, June 1933

She's seen in the still above wearing a plaid gingham bathing suit—reproduced below in pattern 5216:

We're assured that this suit is "fashion news, for the cotton suit is the suit of the summer—much, much smarter than the wool one."

The Delineator, June 1933

We're told that the "two-color" dress above (Pattern 5214 below)

"tends to reduce a "Boss" to a state where he will eat out of one's hand.  That dress might be just the thing for any girl who is about to ease in some advanced ideas on the subject of an extra week's vacation this summer—with pay."

The still below shows Bette Davis in a four-pocket frock that is "a grand dress to be fired in!"

The Delineator, June 1933

Reproduced below as Pattern 5204:

 

Lastly, an illustration for Pattern 5212.  We aren't shown it as worn by Bette Davis in The Working Man, but we are told it would make "the best possible "Saturday dress"".

The editors of The Delineator note that 

"the patterns differ from the "movie frocks" only in the sleeves—the two long-sleeved frocks are reproduced in the pattern sketches here with short sleeves to suit the season.  However, the patterns are made with long sleeves, too, so you can make the frocks either way."

August 1933 showed us costumes worn by Helen Twelvetrees in Disgraced, and designed by Travis Banton "who is Somebody among Hollywood designers."  (He is best known today for having designed Marlene Dietrich's costumes for her early American movies.)  But back to Miss Twelvetrees and Disgraced. It seems that the clothes were one of the main selling points of this movie:

The Delineator, August 1933

 "As Gay, the beautiful mannequin who causes all the turmoil in this picture, Miss Twelvetrees wears lots of smart things... And modelling being her job, you get plenty of time to look at them to your heart's content.  In fact, so pleased were we to have a chance to look at the clothes in this film calmly—without having them whisked in and out in the usual manner—that we're thinking of starting a movement for all future heroines to be cast as models—for our benefit."

 
 Above is one of the costumes reproduced in pattern 5297. 

"Its role in the picture is in navy blue twill and navy and white gingham.  A perfect combination, just that way, for a campus frock for the college-bound wardrobe this fall."

The Delineator, August 1933

The highlight of this picture was a wedding gown:

"Miss Twelvetrees wears a wedding gown that is our idea of a wedding gown.  It had us practically in a swoon.  All  that blond loveliness of course helped, but even a plainer girl, we imagine, would look pretty glamourous in such a gown.  It's a satin affair, with a yoke of fine net, and a tulle veil that is like a cape and quite the most lovely one we've seen in years of weddings on- and off-stage."

Here it is, reproduced in Butterick pattern 5299.

 There was no way the home sewers of 1933 could ever reproduce these fashion exactly—to begin with, the movies were made in black and white, and our seamstresses would be sewing in colour!  What's more, the studios of the time dressed the stars of their 'A' pictures in the best of materials: supporting actresses and leads in 'B' movies could wear cotton, rayon and rabbit fur, but the stars had to wear real silk, satin and mink.  It's unlikely that the budget of the average home dressmaker in the Depression years would run to such extravagances.  Still, anyone could dream, and it's nice to think of the women of the 1930s trying to live their movie star fantasies through their sewing machines.