Simplicity Fashion News, 1970

Fresh from eBay - eight issues of Simplicity Fashion News from 1970.  These were little pamphlets produced by Simplicity patterns and given away at fabric stores to promote the manufacturer's designs.   Taken together they give a fairly good idea of what was In at the beginning of the seventies.

In January - a mini-skirt worn by a model with big sixties hair.  

February - a midi-length skirt.  The beige and brown colours of this outfit are very seventies, but the new skirt length didn't really take - in spite of designers' attempts to promote it - at least not in 1970.  Women thought the look was "ageing" and preferred minis and pants.

Back to the mini - this time with a fringed shawl (a very early seventies touch) for May.  So was the brightly patterned fabric this pattern is made up in.

June brings his n' hers "beach togs" made up in terrycloth.

July's cover features another classic mini - though it's only fair to add that some midi-length fashions were featured inside.

August tries to have a bet each way, with a mini, a midi and a combined mini-skirt with midi-length vest all featured on the cover.  Is it just me, or does the vest on the model on the right resemble a tablecloth?

October's cover features a vest in an animal-print fabric worn over a turtleneck with trousers.  Though there are a lot of patterns for pants (mostly in pants-tunic combinations) in these pamphlets, this is the only time they are pictured on the cover.

And lastly, for December - a dress to wear to parties.  Would people think me too weird if I say I rather like this design?

Woman and Beauty, May 1948

More spring hat silliness, once again from Woman and Beauty.  Clothes were still being rationed in Britain in 1948 when this cover was published, so a frivolous (unrationed) hat would have been one of the few ways of brightening up a shabby spring outfit.

Woman and Beauty, April 1954

Spring is here! (Though sometimes winter comes back and elbows it aside.)  Never mind - it's still a cause for celebration.  And what better way to do that than with a new spring hat?



Vanity Fair, September 1962

September is here, and what better way to mark it than by posting this scan of a magazine that was published exactly fifty years ago?  This is one of a number of issues of Vanity Fair I acquired recently thanks to a friend of the sister of a friend of mine who found a bundle of magazines stashed in her roof space.