100 Years Ago (The Delineator, February 1922)

 The skirt suit made its way into women's wardrobes at the end of the nineteenth century and has been a staple ever since.  The February 1922 issue of The Delineator  illustrated some of the latest variations on the idea—as available in Butterick patterns, of course.  From left to right we have the classic skirt suit, a dress with matching caped jacket, and a suit with "knickers" for sporting wear.

 

For women looking for information on what kind of suits the fashionable were wearing in Paris and New York, the magazine had the following advice.

On the Subject of Your Spring Suit
By Eleanor Chalmers

Do you think it is too early?  Winter is here to-day and weather that is too warm for Winter clothes is upon us tomorrow.  Now is the moment to choose, to weigh and to decide on what you really need, for if you let the first Spring days come upon you unawares, you are likely to be stampeded into a hasty and unwise  choice.  The smart thing this Spring for the street will be the suit.  There will be dresses worn, of course, but the suit is the first choice of the Parisienne and of American women of fashion.

The skirt can be dismissed with a word.  It is always narrow and always fairly short, though not in the knee-length meaning of that word.  In Paris it is cut straight and in one piece.  In New York many women prefer the two-piece skirt, for this takes away some of the fulness from the waistline.  

When it comes to the coat there are several distinct types.  Three that are typically French are made by those great Paris designers—Jenny, Bernard and Chanel.  Jenny makes the mandarin coat, rather long, very narrow and with her characteristic narrow sleeve.  She also makes many of the box-coats, especially for young girls and younger women, but the Chinese coat is peculiarly her own.  Bernard, one of the master tailors of Paris, makes the classical tailored jacket, fitting the figure smartly, flaring a bit at the hips, with what the English call "the step collar" and which we know as the notched collar.  Chanel, who first made a fashionable success of sports clothes, uses the little soft jacket with a narrow string belt.  The belt had practically disappeared in Paris last Spring but it came back with the short fur jacket this Winter and it is most suitable for jersey materials, crȇpe silks and the new satin suits.

The patch-pocket sports coat is more American and is used a good deal with knickers for golf, riding, etc. in the country.

Satin is the newest material for the Spring suit, but it is only appropriate for costumes of the more elegant type.  The classical tailored suit is always made in wool material, usually a gray or beige mixture, or Oxford, a velours check, the navy serges, and blue or black twills, tricotine repp, poplin or broadcloth.

The patch-pocket coat suit is also made of these wool materials and of wool jersey.  The Chanel and Jenny suits are made for the most part of satin, crȇpe silk or the serges, light-weight velours, repps and occasionally broadcloth, and their colors are pretty well limited to black, dark blue, gray or beige.

The Chanel and Jenny suits are frequently composed of a jacket and dress and when they are made of wool the body of the dress is usually made of satin, crȇpe silk, printed silk etc., to make a more comfortable costume for Spring.  The patch-pocket coat is also used with a jumper dress or rather a jumper skirt as well as with a separate skirt.  Very frequently there is a short cape to match the suit of this type, an excellent arrangement for motoring, travelling, etc., when one needs an extra wrap.

Motoring Modes (The Lady's Realm, February 1904)

 In 1904 "motoring" was still very much a recreation for the well-to-do.  It was also a fairly rugged pastime, as many early automobiles were completely open and roads were mostly unsealed.  Protective clothing was order of the day.  A smart lady motorist would require an all-enveloping dust coat to protect her other clothing—such as this example in moleskin, illustrated in the February 1904 issue of The Lady's Realm.

"Motoring modes have done a great deal for the economical woman who does not motor, for she can avail herself of the cosy fur coats in opossum, pony skin, musquash and several of the lesser furs which have been revived with new and improved dressings, and many of which are quite smart enough for ordinary occasions, as well as for travelling, motoring, driving, etc."

"London and Paris Fashions": The Lady's Realm, December 1904

 

The lady motorist would also need to protect her hair, either with a hood (as illustrated above) or by tying her hat on firmly with a veil (also illustrated above).  

However, problems in staying clean and tidy while motoring apparently had their 'up' side.  An article on the Ladies' Automobile Club appearing in the December 1904 issue of The Lady's Realm actually opined that women were slower and more careful drivers, because "very high speed... destroys a woman's every vestige of beauty and neatness"!

Man-Made Fibres V: 'Ban-Lon' and 'Helanca' (Vanity Fair, May 1962)

 Picking up where we left off a couple of months ago, we come to the fibres trademarked under the names Ban-Lon and Helanca.

Ban-Lon, 1962

"'Ban-Lon' and 'Helanca' are both stretch yarns made from specially processed Nylon which becomes soft and bulky.

"They can be used on their own but they also blend very well with wool and other fibres.

"Used for stretch pants, socks, underwear, swimwear, jersey fabrics and knitwear.  Have all the easy-care quality plus super-fit."

Bargains! (Walter Field, Fall-Winter 1942)

 Walter Field of Chicago specialised in low-budget clothing, so can be taken for granted that the clothes advertised in their catalogues weren't made of the highest quality materials.  The snazzy suit on the left, for example, was made of "18% reused wool, 12% cotton, 70% rayon".  The "shag" sweater in the middle was made of cotton, and the coat on the right was "50% reused wool, 20% rayon, 30% cotton".

However, in wartime America the quality of consumer goods at any price level slipped.  One historian writes: "Woolen clothes, rugs, and blankets disappeared from department stores as production of wool for civilian use virtually ceased", and continues

"Fifty-five percent of the respondents to an American Home Economics Association survey complained about the deterioration of clothing and shoes.  New dresses pulled out at the seams, shoes would not stand up under heavy wear, and stockings came with shorter leg lengths and tore out at the top.  One shopper purchased a white rayon blouse that on the first wearing pulled out at the seams, and on the first washing shrunk and had to be given away to a friend.  Housewives spent extra time sewing simply because the material wore out so quickly."

D'Ann Campbell.  Women at war with America: private lives in a patriotic era  (1984)

There was no clothes rationing in the United States during World War II, but apparently no quality control either.  This was in contrast to its ally Britain, which combined strict clothes rationing with stringent quality control

 

Cottons for Summer (Hordern Brothers, Spring and Summer 1952-53)

 Two young ladies go for a picnic in their new summer dresses—courtesy, I think, of the 1950s equivalent of Photoshop.

The dress on the left appears to be the more casual of the two.  Brightly patterned and with a low neckline it would have not been considered suitable to wear at work or in the city (in those days you dressed up to head into town).  The model on the right is wearing gloves with her outfit, so it's fairly safe to say that it was intended for more formal wear.

On the left: "ELASTICISED COTTON... Wing sleeves can be worn on or off the shoulder, bodice fits like a glove, pockets are stiffened and like the neckline, trimmed with embroidered Swiss lace."

On the right: "HAIRCORD AND PIQUE... An exotic print used for a tailored dressed buttoned from neck to hemline, salted with white pique.  In crisp haircord, this dress looks lovelier after each soap-and-iron treatment."

I can find various definitions of "haircord", but most say it was a kind of cotton with a fine rib woven in the warp direction of the cloth.

Modes & Travaux (15 August 1930)

 The weather is hot and sticky, so this "création de CYBER en toile bleue brodée de pois blancs" ("creation of CYBER in blue canvas embroidered with white polka dots")  seems refreshingly cool and simple.

One of the pleasures of reading old magazines is discovering forgotten fashion houses and designers: flourishing in their day, but now seldom mentioned by historians or exhibitors.  Unfortunately, "Cyber" is so forgotten I cannot find any information about the house or designer!

100 Years Ago (The Delineator, January 1922)

 I'm kicking off the New Year by taking a look at what women were wearing 100 years ago—in this case in the form of lingerie.  Though these petticoats, chemises, nightgowns and pajamas look fairly substantial to modern eyes, they were daringly up-to-date by the standards of 1922.

 

Some women were still learning how to wear the the new fashions of the 1920s.  The long skirts and petticoats of the Edwardians may have been unwieldy, but the shorter and scantier dresses of 1922 could lead to indecent exposure:

 "There is much to be said for the comfort and convenience of the short skirt and properly worn it is delightful.  It should always be worn over knickers or bloomers, however.  A slip or petticoat, no matter how substantial or impervious to the light, is not sufficient protection.  Many women do not realize the almost unlimited perspective offered by the short skirt a dozen times a day, and would be profoundly shocked if they knew the exposure they were making."

(The complete issue of the January 1922 Delineator is available on the Internet Archive.)