"Pale, Bulky Frocks" (Wamsutta advertisement, 1956)

Sometimes the most telling details can be gleaned from fiction:

 Thrasher had rolled the single sheet of mimeographed paper into a child’s telescope and was sighting  through it.  Far below his office, clearly limned within the paper circle, he watched the summer visitors moving lazily about Rockefeller Plaza.  The men wore white, yellow, and blue sport shirts without ties.  Many of them wore cameras around their necks.  The women were in pale, bulky frocks, patently different from the dark sleekness of dresses worn by the handful of native New Yorkers.

Gerald Green, The Last Angry Man (1957)

 

Our protagonist, an advertising executive, notices the style differences between native New Yorkers and visiting tourists.  And what better way to illustrate them than with a piece of 1950s advertising?  Some of the female tourists no doubt made their own "pale, bulky frocks", hoping to look as pretty and as feminine as the women in the Wamsutta advertisement above.

"How A Girl Should Dress" (Girl's Own Paper, January 20 1904)

 The column is addressed to "girls" (or young ladies) but the fashions depicted below seem rather matronly.  This is the result of the fashionably mature figure of the day, achieved where necessary by a combination of padding and corsetry.  The ironic thing was, the "girls" here, dressing like older women, would reach middle age in an era where youth was everything, and matrons tried to dress like girls!

Though it may not be apparent, fashion was becoming more democratic in the early twentieth century.  The author of this column does not entirely approve:

The more I watch the dressing of the highest and the humblest, the more I am amazed at the way both classes contrive to have every article in the latest style.  Shop-girls and servants, clerks and factory girls, one and all manage somehow to have a cheap imitation of the latest accessories of dress of their wealthy sisters.  There are the really poor who, of course, do not think of dress, but let us look just one step higher, and even the flower-sellers on Sundays have the dyed cat-skin round their shoulders made into the latest shape of stole boa.  I must say I cannot see the class of girls who wish to dress plainly and suitably according to their positions and incomes.  There may be an isolated few, but surely if there were more the fashions given in the penny papers would cater to their tastes.  As it is, in the most popular penny papers we see cheap imitations of extravagant elaborate fashions.  I suppose no girl wishes to look poorer than she is, or any woman older than she is, and therefore most people dress beyond their means.  What a contrast the dressing of to-day is, compared to what it was ten years ago!  The same class of girls give to-day twice at least as much for their dresses as they did then.  In everything we are growing more and more luxurious in our lives.

The "good old days" are always at least ten years ago, no matter when you start from!

Australia's Lost Department Stores II (Hordern Brothers, Spring and Summer 1935)

 Two branches of the Hordern family in Sydney owned department stores: Anthony Hordern's (Anthony Hordern and Sons) and Hordern Brothers.  This catalogue was issued by Hordern Brothers, the younger and smaller of the two stores.  Hordern Brothers ("Drapers and Mercers") was founded towards the end of  1882 by brothers Edward and Alfred Hordern, grandsons of the original Anthony Hordern.  They were still advertising for staff (milliners, drapers, saleswomen and "slop hands") in November that year, but by the 20th of December were able to offer:

YOUR DRESSES FOR CHRISTMAS

If you have left your Dressmaking orders until this week, you may unfortunately, owing to the pressure of orders, be unable to get them made before Xmas.  If so, give us a call for OUR READY-MADE COSTUMES.

While Anthony Hordern's saw itself as a "universal provider", Hordern Brothers specialised mostly in fashions and fabrics.

The cover of their catalogue for Spring and Summer 1935 and 1936 depicts some perfect examples of the lady-like fashions of the mid-1930s.  From left to right:

Summer Frock of Delustred Crepe in Margaret Rose pink, Jubilee blue, Canton green, navy and black.

Frock of Floral Linen in rose/blue/green on natural grounds.

Cape Suit in Check matt Crepe, in Saxe blue, deep coral and Marina green with black over-check.

Figured Marocain Frock, in navy/white and red/white, white/nigger and Lido white in varied assortment of designs.

 Note the references to members of the Royal Family, cashing in on George V's 1935 Silver Jubilee.  Dresses are offered in (Princess) Magaret Rose pink, and Marina (Duchess of Kent) green!

200 Years Ago (Ackermann's repository, April 1823)

 Merriam-Webster defines "morning dress" for women as "a woman's dress suitable for wear around the home; especially: an informal dress for housework".  This dress, made of "Cyprus crepe, of a pale lavender colour" with "nine bands of of gros de Naples, bound with satin" is a far cry from that.   However the "square collar of worked muslin" and the "round cap of sprigged bobbinet" add a domestic touch to the outfit.  

Surviving morning dresses from this era appear to have used much less expensive material and be much simpler in construction.  They run more to printed cotton than crepe and satin.  One suspects that dresses like the one in this print were only ever worn by a minority of the beau monde, if at all!

In this issue, the fashion writers of Ackermann's Repository penned a few observations on the change of seasons:

The heavy garb of winter begins now rapidly to give way to the lighter attire of spring. Cloth pelisses have disappeared; velvet ones are still partially worn, but they are more generally adopted in silk.  Beaver bonnets are seldom seen; Leghorn and silk are very general.  Swans-down muffs and tippets begin to be substituted in carriage dress for ermine and chinchilla.

"New Clothing and How It Should Be Made" (Girl's Own Paper, December 31, 1881)

 The important news for the would-be fashionable young lady of 1881 is that dresses are getting shorter:

It is a great pleasure to believe that the fashion for wearing short dresses, morning, noon and night, will not alter, and long trains show no signs of coming in again, and are not worn except on very special occasions, by elderly matrons, who prefer not to cut up a very handsome dress.  Short skirts are wider and though equally tight in the front, the advent of the tournure has made the sides and back much wider and more graceful for slight figures, because not so tight and clinging.

Enter "the second bustle"!  It's interesting in this context that "short" means "without a train", though skirts still trail on the floor.

The latest winter furs are discussed:

The lighter-coloured furs seem to have slipped out of fashion this winter, and the taste leans to dark browns and black.  The principal furs are—stone marten, seal, musquash, skunk, coney, opossum, black fox, and what is called Russian cat.  These are all moderate in price, and our illustration, "On the Ice", will show how they are worn.  The first figure wears a brown poke bonnet, a mantle of plush, trimmed with black fox, brown cashmere dress, brown velvet and fur muff, and a bunch of yellow crocuses.  The central figure wears a skating costume of plum-coloured, with a fur or feather border.  A wide lining of velvet on the tunic, which is caught up on one side.

Australia's Lost Department Stores I (Craven's, Spring-Summer 1928-1929)

 Back in the twentieth century, each capital city in Australia had a city centre filled with locally owned and run department stores.  Shoppers were spoiled for choice, and a visit to "town" was not only a shopping expedition, but a day's entertainment as well.  However, all good things come to an end.  The growth of suburban shopping malls, the spread of credit cards (as opposed to store-based credit) and the beginning of online shopping meant that many department stores were no long economically viable.  One by one the stores closed down or were absorbed by more flourishing concerns.

Today, only a few department store chains remain in Australia.  Every city centre has the same selection of shops and stores, all selling the same goods at the same prices.  All that remains of the old department stores are a few photographs, advertising and articles in yellowing newspapers, and people's memories.  And, of course, the surviving store catalogues.

Over the years I've collected a few of these catalogues.  Though I don't have a full set (by a long shot!) I do have a fair sample.  I'd like to take a look at some of these stores—and the fashions they sold to their customers!

I'm going to start with Craven's of Adelaide.  This  is the oldest Australian store catalogue in my collection, and also one of the rarest.   Craven's was originally established in 1886 as Craven and Armstrong.  Upon the death of Armstrong in 1912, Craven turned the store into a limited liability company and expanded the premises on the corner of Pultney and Rundle streets.  Craven's developed a reputation for offering "value for money" as John Craven was a shrewd buyer of merchandise.    

Up to the early 1950s advertisements promoting Craven's appear in all the Adelaide newspapers.  Things fall oddly silent after that, though Craven's was still in business.  Possibly it was already past its best, but the store in Adelaide hung on until 1965, when it was burnt down during a burglary.  The burglars got away with around £3,000 in cash, while the fire did around £250,000 worth of damage!  Craven's was apparently of so little importance by 1965 that the fire and the burglary weren't even mentioned in the local papers.  Instead it was reported in the Canberra Times.

The image above is from the inside front cover of one of J. Craven & Co.'s catalogues (the cover itself being damaged).  It's from the store's heyday, and illustrates some delightfully "twenties" voile frocks on the left, and cotton dresses with matching bloomers for little girls on the right.

La Mode (March 1839)

 

Like many nineteenth century fashion plates, this one was separated from of the magazine where it was originally published.  This means it has no context.  We can hazard a guess that it was published in a French magazine and happily it has a date printed on it, but otherwise we can't know what types of outfits these ladies are wearing (morning dress? promenade dress? afternoon dress?) or what their garments are made of.  Chances were that their garments were made of silk, plain (on the left) and figured (on the right) both being favoured:

Some of the dresses are decorated with fancy trimming, others with folds... but in whatever manner the skirt is trimmed, the sleeves must always be decorated to correspond.  Silks are upon the whole the materials most in request for promenade robes, for though white muslin begins to appear, it is but slowly, and mousselines de laine though enjoying a certain vogue, are not so distingué as silk.

The New Monthly Belle Assemblee, June 1839.

The Court and Ladies' Magazine of March 1839 announces that:

The newest mousselines de laine and de soie, are striped, two, three and four colours... Striped silks and satins are likewise coming in, so that striped dresses will be de rigeur this season.

Court and Ladies' Magazine, March 1839

Nearly two centuries later, what seems most evident is the way in which the fashionable silhouette of the 1830s has almost become that of the 1840s.  Skirts are now bell-shaped and reach the ground, while the full sleeves, modish in the earlier part of the decade, have shrunk and slid down to the lower half of the arm.  The bonnets our models are wearing are not quite as small and enclosing as the "poke" bonnets of the 1840s, but they're getting there.