Wakes, Winter 1942

Japan entered the war in 1942, and for the first time Australia had the enemy on their doorstep.  However, Australian manufacturers were still capable of turning out stylish outfits like the coat and muff (with matching hat) illustrated on the cover of the catalogue below.

COAT AND MUFF, 5 GNS.

A three piece ensemble (the hat sells separately) with furrier-made tawny luxurious leopard-dyed coney fur, mounted on a brilliant Loyal Blue English all wool coating.  Seven panel, slim as a whistle princess with new lines in every inch from moulded, semi-extended, immaculate shoulders to flared full hem.  British rayon lined throughout.  Matched skins and material in the zip closing muff purse.

Australia's Lost Department Stores IX: McDowells (Spring & Summer 1941-42)

McDowells was one of Sydney's smaller department stores, and like so many others, began as a drapery in the 19th century.  It was founded as John McDowell and Partners in 1889, and became McDowell and Coogan in 1893 when one of the original partners dropped out.  In 1895 it became McDowell and Hughes, when Hughes bought out Coogan, finally becoming McDowells Ltd in 1917.  

McDowells prided itself of old-fashioned service and providing value for money.  Staff often spent their whole careers there, and discipline was considered to be firm, but fair.  (That didn't stop one enterprising manager stealing 70 dozen pairs of stockings from his employer in the early 1920s!)  Notably, McDowells refused to reduce the pay of its employees during the Great Depression.

McDowells did a lot of business via mail-order catalogue, which brings me to this publication from 1941.

The front cover hopes "for a brighter year!" but history tells us that they would be disappointed.  Meanwhile they were advertising a "FROCK you will love to wear to any function" in "SHEER GEORGETTE", a "FLORAL FROCK" in crepe with a silhouette "emphasised by the drama of a WHIRL OF PLEATS", a "WASHING FROCK attractively styled in ... a good quality LINEN LIKE FABRIC" and lastly, a dress cut with "9 complete Gores" in a "Flower-splashed distinctive SUEDE CREPE".

It's a fairly good selection of early wartime fashions, but as wartime economies bit clothes would become less generous in their use of materials.  Tucks, pleats and 9-gored skirts would no longer be allowed.

Vogue Pattern Book (June 1940)

 War or no war, Vogue Patterns was still capable of producing glamorous and sophisticated patterns.  Illustrated on the cover of the June 1940 Vogue Pattern Book is pattern S-4189 for a skirt, a blouse and a jacket.

S-4189——RIDING HABIT JACKETS will make your town suit look crisply English and pay homage to the flared-hip silhouette above a slim skirt.

Suits and separates would remain staples during the war years, though as time went on the cut of this jacket would be seen as wasteful.

This is the British edition of Vogue Pattern Book.  It would have gone to press around the time of Dunkirk, and subsequent issues during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.  Though the patterns would have been the same as the ones in the American edition, the war crept in via the editorial content.  This issue warns readers of possible fabric shortages as British manufactures are exported to pay for the war effort. The October issue warns readers of a possible purchase tax on paper patterns (a tax had been imposed on clothes that month) while the December issue exhorts them to be economical.

Eventually, due to paper shortages, the British edition of Vogue Pattern Book would cease publication as a separate magazine, and would not resume until some years after the war.

"What the Parisienne is Wearing" (Woman's Journal, May 1939)

 I'm going to have one last fling with the frivolities of Haute Couture, before I settle down to the years of austerity, rationing and "make do and mend".  And it seems that the designers of 1939 were also having a last fling in the shadow of war.  Moma Clarke wrote in the May issue of Woman's Journal:

All the Paris dressmakers have "gone" womanly in the most feminine sense of the word... Schiaparelli announces that "women are ladies again".  One dares not reflect on the interim.  Better not...

It's one of the minor what-ifs of history: if there had been no Second World War, would fashion have given us a "New Look" a decade earlier than it did?

On to the designers—and we have some familiar names at this point.

Summer fashion plans have turned topsey-turvey. Instead of a plain suit with a figured blouse it is the other way about, and a gaily flowered tailor-made is the order of the going.  Jean Patou makes this delectable suit of brown and white figured crêpe with a white crêpe blouse, and the blue flowered ensemble of glazed cotton with a white piqué waistcoat.  Never have pastel shades been so loved.  A dress and coat matching in a pastel coloured crêpe is as chic as anything can be—especially when trimmed with scalloping, as in this lovely pastel blue dress and coat by Patou.

Patou died in 1936, but the house he founded lived on.  I have no information on who actually designed these dresses. 

New Fashions For You and Your Home (Singer, Fall-Winter 1938)

 Shown below is part of Vogue Pattern No. 8129, an evening dress "with a redingote over an independent slip-dress".  This is clearly the "slip dress"part of the design.  A small illustration of the "redingote", made up in lace, is inside the magazine.

Back in my very first post for this year I mentioned the introduction of the first backless evening dresses during World War I.  In they 1930s they were almost de rigueur in formal evening gowns, though they could be covered up by garments like the redingote included with this pattern.

All in all, there seems to have been quite a variety in evening fashions in 1938!  The Australian Home Journal reports:

In the evening we see princess dresses with drapings that stress the wearer's slenderness; further, there come dresses which cling till the knees and then start into greater width; some skirts are slit and somewhat cut away in front, trailing at the back in a line, and there are also reminiscences of the Empire, the Directoire and the 1889 style.

Australian Home Journal, May 1938

Hats For Summer (Le Petit Echo de la Mode, 13 juin 1937)

What smart outfit doesn't need a hat to complete it?

A few posts ago I showed you a typical hat from the beginning of the decade: close fitting and brimless.  These hats from 1937 seem to have gone to the opposite extreme, with wide brims and very shallow crowns.  (The crowns are so shallow that the artist depicting these hats makes it look as if the models have had the tops of their heads sliced off!)

The hats are worn tilted over one eye, and as we can see from the right-hand figure, held on by a band passing around the back of the head.

POUR L'ÉTÉ

Grande CAPELINE de paille fine, avec calotte basse ceinturée d'un ruban.  Bouquet de petite fleurs multicolores.

CANOTIER avec cache-peigne en fleurs de velours.  Voiletts posée un arrière.

[FOR SUMMER

Large straw hat with a low crown tied with a ribbon. Bouquet of small multicolored flowers.

Boater hat with a velvet floral comb cover. Veil draped at the back.]

Straw was the most popular material for summer hats, with felt being more commonly worn in winter.

 

Woman's Journal, March 1936

 In 1936, Woman's Journal introduced their Model Pattern Service.  The magazine boasted that 

Every design is now made up in fabric by an expert cutter and fitted on a living mannequin... Only when it is perfect in every detail is it made into a paper pattern...

 Of course this would be reflected in the price of the patterns! 

A TRIO FOR AFTERNOON

Finely pleated and stitched part of the way, are the front and back panels of the slate blue dress.  It has touches of white at the neck, slit front and belt.  The rust-red crêpe dress has unusual shaped inlets in the Raglan sleeves, outlined with black silk braid, while a waist length jabot, mongrammed and buttoned, gives a touch of distinction to the grass-green woollen dress.