McCall's, November 1946

"SPRING STYLES FOR WOMEN", McCall's wrote in November 1946:

"may look somewhat different, depending on the ingenuity of designers, but skirts cannot be longer and additional amounts of materials cannot be consumed.  The Civilian Production Adminstration says that fabrics are still too scarce to permit any real changes the basic limitations on women's wartime styles.  It estimates that another inch on women's skirts would consume 50,000,000 yards of fabric within a year."

 Clearly the postwar years were hard on everybody!  However, whatever The Civilian Production Administration decreed, the women of 1946 were still trying to use "additional amounts of materials" in their dress.  It is obvious, even from the McCall's patterns advertised in this very magazine, that skirts and sleeves were widening, and that hemlines were stealthily creeping down.

"To lengthen or not to lengthen the skirt, is the moot question, and if to lengthen, how much?  After listening to the pros and cons of this controversial subject, we come to the conclusion that skirts will go down to midcalf eventually if not now."

"Then there are the sleeves—but you know about the new big sleeves."

"The hipline is now the spot where the trimming should be placed!  And in this connection old fashioned worlds like "pannier" and "bustle" have been creeping back into our vocabularies.  It all adds up to a very new look to a dress, a rather quaint look sometimes—and to a smaller waistline.  With broad shoulders to the north, and round hips to the south, the waistline can't help but shrink inwardly between them."

Smaller waistlines, rounder hips, longer skirts.  It all sounds a bit like Dior's "New Look", doesn't it?