100 Years Ago (The Delineator, November 1922)

 In its November issue The Delineator included a number of patterns for evening dresses.    This would give home dressmakers plenty of time to make their outfits for the upcoming round of Christmas and New Year's parties.

All these dresses seem strangely uniform, though they are in fact different designs.  The key features of these designs are:

• A straight, tubular silhouette
• Very low waists, dropped to hip level, and either draped to one side or emphasised with floating panels
• Skirts falling to the lower calf or just above the ankle, and
• Square or scooped necklines just below the collarbone (bosoms were not fashionable in the 1920s!)

The pattern designers attempted a couple of novel touches with Pattern 3990 (second left, top) being decorated by fabric roses and Pattern 4043 (bottom right) having an open hem-length sleeve.  I can't be sure, but I think these dresses were intended for young and older wearers respectively.

Between Seasons (Beyer Mode, October 1960)

 Spring and Autumn can be a difficult time sartorially.  What do you wear when it's too cold for short sleeves, but too warm for coats?  In October 1960 Beyer Mode made a suggestion.  The slim-skirted dress on the cover of the magazine has a characteristic early-1960s elegance.

 Das schmale Tageskleid mit betont sportlicher Note.  Hemdblusenform - ist ein beliebter Anzug für die Zeit zwischen Sommerkleid und Herbstkostüm.  Breit abgesteppte Passen akzenturien das Oberteil und die Hüftpartie.  Kennzeichen des Herbstes: die halblangen Armel, das krӓftige Material und die aktuelle Farbe.

 [The narrow day dress with a decidedly sporty touch. Shirt-blouse form - is a popular suit for the period between summer dresses and autumn suits. Wide quilted yokes accentuate the upper part and the hip area. Characteristics of autumn: the half-length sleeves, the strong material and the current color.]

"With Or Without Pockets" (New Idea, October 17 1956)

 This was a "Gold Seal Pattern" offered in the New Idea issue of October 17 1956 (just send postal note for 3/6 with your order form).  The pattern was available in sizes 14, 16, 18, 20.

A SMART coat-frock style that is suitable for any time of the day.  Make it in a fabric for Spring, or in a Summer material for the warmer days ahead.  This is a must in your wardrobe, as it is so variable.

I've got to say that I find those big pockets on the left-hand model enviable!

Found Online: Winns Catalogues V (Late 1940s)

Welcome to my second-to-last look at Winns catalogues (as made available by the State Library of New South Wales).  Starting from here we've reached the last days of World War II, and will be moving into the post-war period.

Autumn & Winter 1945

This catalogue would probably have been issued a couple of months before VE Day, and still been current at VJ day.   We really have reached the end of the war!  Winns has decided to showcase some of its more casual styles for women on this cover.  From left to right the models are wearing an all-wool twinset (pairing a short sleeved jumper with a long-sleeved cardigan), a boxy sweater coat in heavy wool ribbed knit paired with "all wool flannel slacks for leisure or labour", and at the right, an all-wool knitted pullover with a polo neck paired with a flannel skirt.

Spring and Summer 1945-6

 It's peace, but alas not yet prosperity.  Clothing is still rationed in Australia (and will be until 1948).  This Winns cover shows fashions for females of every age, from the small girl wearing a "dainty frock and bloomer set" at the far left, to young woman next to her in a floral frock, the "maid" (i.e. teenager) in the insert wearing a "two piece tunic suit in chalk stripe Art Silk Rayon" and her younger sister wearing "an Attractive Frock in the popular peasant style".  At the bottom right is a "Glamorous Shady Brimmed Picture Hat" worn by a mature woman.

Autumn & Winter 1946

One thing about these catalogue covers is you can see what the younger generations were wearing as well as the grown-ups.  The problem is, their clothes are very like their elders'!  Teen subcultures were clearly not yet a Thing, and teenagers were not yet considered worth marketing to in their own right.

Here we have a woman in a double breasted diagonal tweed coat, a teen in a wool two-piece tunic suit, and a little girl in a double-breasted coat cut on princess lines.  Apart from the size of the clothes, what chiefly distinguishes these models are the accessories and details: the grown woman wears her hair above her collar, while the girls wear theirs down, the little girl's hat resembles a bonnet, and the woman wears high-heeled pumps, the teenager flats, while the little girl wears mary-janes and ankle socks.

Spring and Summer 1946-7

Though the artist has posed his models on a beach, he's dressed them in outfits more suitable for a trip to town than a stroll by the shore.  On the right we have a dress made in imitation silk linen, trimmed with Cornelli stitching.  On the left is a "smart two piece costume of crease-resisting Imitation Knop Linen" by Adelyn.  

Autumn and winter 1947

Judging by these covers, women were dressing less formally than they did before the war.  While we have a woman in a "Smartly Designed Dressmaker Suit... attractively trimmed with fur" in the middle of this group, at the left we see a model more casually dressed in an "All Wool Ribbed Twinset" and an "All Wool Tartan Skirt".  Page 2 of the catalogue makes this postwar informality even clearer, with a colour picture of a woman in a sports jacket and flannel slacks.  Earlier in the decade outfits like that were relegated the middle pages of the catalogue and illustrated in black and white!

Though clothes rationing has about a year to run in Australia, the coupon price of clothes is starting to come down.  The suit is now available for 11 coupons, the skirt for a mere 4, while the twin set requires no coupons at all!

Spring and Summer 1947-48

Dior had launched his "New Look" earlier in the year, and while it was yet to be adopted by the world at large, elements of the style were creeping into popular fashion.  In this picture it's clear that ready-to-wear clothes manufacturers have adopted the narrower waists and fuller skirts of the New Look.  However, shoulders are still broad and skirt lengths still moderate.

Left: "Smartly Tailored Two Piece Jacket Suit in a Rayon Like Linen... Jacket is elaborately trimmed with Cornelli."  Right: "Style and Value in this Attractive Frock in "Marveloon"... Bodice opens to waist and is effectively trimmed with drawn thread and Cornelli."

Autumn & Winter 1948

In April 1948—mid-Autumn in Australia—a reader wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald:

Sir—Recent visits to a large number of inland retail businesses revealed that a very serious clothing and coupon problem exists. 

The stock of frocks at the end of the summer season is, in the aggregate, enormous, caused by two successive unfavourable seasons.

The Government belatedly recognised this, and reduced the coupon rating from 8 to 5 until April 30.  This is inadequate to shift the accumulated frocks stocks, and especially so with the advent of the "New Look" styles, and winter frocks coming in.

The solution may be to abandon all clothes rationing, to help the sale of the abundant stocks and new manufactures, then to review the other articles of cotton (which is definitely scarce in and from most world markets, though the garment trade offers a substantial second choice).  Rationing of the other articles essentially of cotton could, perhaps, be reviewed every six months until rationing can be entirely abandoned.

E.C. BRUCE MIDLANE. Sydney.

Meanwhile the clothes featured on Winns Autumn and Winter Catalogue for 1948 are very like the clothes on the cover of their 1947 catalogue.

Spring and summer 1948-1949

Histories of high fashion in the late 1940s make it seem as if styles changed in an instant.  Looking at publications like this, however, it becomes clear that fashions worn by ordinary women were only changing by increments.  Once again, Winns has decided to illustrate its summer catalogue with a "Smartly Cut Frock in Marveloon" and a "New Look Rayon-like Linen Two Piece Jacket Suit".

What has changed, however, is that these clothes are no longer valued in "coupons".  After six years, Australian clothes are no longer rationed!

Autumn and Winter 1949

For once there were no fashions illustrated on the cover of Winns catalogue—the store decided to use the space to sell bedspreads and curtains instead!   I took this picture from one of the three coloured pages at the beginning of the catalogue instead (the other two advertised lingerie and hats respectively).  The formal coats and suits have been banished to the black and white pages a bit further on.  By this stage the look is decidedly early fifties, even for casual wear!

Spring and Summer 1949-50

And so we reach the end of another decade.  Once again Winns chose to feature a "frock" and a "jacket suit" on the cover of its summer catalogue, but one only has to look back a year to see how popular fashions have changed.  Waists are nipped in and skirts flare out and fall to calf-length in these grown-up and ladylike outfits.

This Charming Frock is a "Hodgson" production garment... featuring the latest in new pleated back and bow belt... Smartly cut square neck line with embroidered trimming on collar...

SNAPPY JACKET SUIT... that you will be proud to wear.  The snappy little Jacket is effectively trimmed with White Collar and Cuffs; a generously cut skirt swings from the waist.

Die neue Mode bringt Op! (Burda Moden, February 1966)

 Art and fashion are related.  Sometimes they are very closely related.

Op Art (not to be confused with Pop Art) 

exploits the functional relationship between the eye’s retina (the organ that ‘sees’ patterns) and the brain (the organ that interprets patterns). Certain visual stimuli can cause confusion between these two organs, resulting in the perception of irrational optical phenomena, something the Op Artists used to full effect.¹

 In the mid-sixties, the cutting edge of fashion was young and futuristic, and geometric styles and patterns were In.  It's' no surprise, then, that Op Art crossed over into fashion almost as soon as it was born.  The optical effects that looked good hanging on a gallery wall looked smashing when printed on fabric and made into short shift dresses.  Designers in all the fashion capitals picked up the idea and ran with it.

Verzerrte Perspektiven!

4679  Aufgesetzte Balkenblenden verstärken den geometrischen Effekt dieses langärmeligen Modells aus Op-Art-Imprimé.  Weil es so gut zum neuen Stil paß: Das Knie darf freizügig gezeit werden.

[Distorted perspectives!

4679 Appliquéd stripes reinforce the geometric effect of this Op Art printed long-sleeved model. Because it goes so well with the new style: the knee can be exposed freely.]

4680  Op-Art-Kleid aus Baumwolle, mit Blendenkragen in Schwarz-Weiß.  Der Gürtel is echt, under den Längsblenden verbergen sich Schlitztaschen.

[4680 Black and White Op Art Cotton Dress with Placket Collar. The belt is real, slit pockets are hidden under the longitudinal panels.]

 Burda only supplied the patterns for these dresses, not the materials, so it's entirely probable that some cautious souls made these dresses up in less dazzling fabrics.  However I still like to think that a few young women startled the world in these vibrant dresses!

¹ Op Art History Part III - http://www.op-art.co.uk/history/op-art-history-part-iii/

100 Years Ago (The Delineator, October 1922)

 Through this series I've been looking at the fashions of 1922 through the medium of Butterick patterns.  These fashions were everyday fashions, available to anyone with a bit of know-how and the money to buy the pattern and some material.  However, at this date the clothes worn by ordinary women ultimately derived from High Fashion, or Haute Couture, which was only worn by an elite few.  During the 1920s, and for some decades afterwards, fashion was set in Paris. Anyone who aspired to be in the least fashionable kept an eye on what was coming out of the great ateliers of France, which is why The Delineator dedicated a few pages each issue to fashion reportage.

Here are a few Paris designs as described in The Delineator in October 1922.

A narrow skirt of the new length wrapped around the figure, a bloused coat with a belt that rests upon the hip, a chin collar and a pair of excessively smart top boots of fine wrinkled leather and you have Drecoll's idea of a winter costume á la mode.  It is of beige poplatrefine, with a collar of mole.

Drecoll embroiders a primrose yellow velvet with arabesques of white porcelain and dull crystal beads.  A black chiffon scarf falls and flutters in a cascade held at the hip with great ornaments of black jet.  The body makes its own sleeve and the décolletage is the familiar Grecian line.

Patou's dresses are exceedingly simple, but they have an extraordinary cachet from their hand-work, often in the form of insertions of crochet silk that looks like fagotting, of braid or embroidery or of fabric trimming.  On a dress of velveteen he simulates bretelles on the blouse and a tablier on the skirt with insertions of narrow braid and hand embroidery.

With that nicety of design, Patou follows the lines of a plaited skirt with a tablier of narrow tucks in the lower part of the jacket of a Winter suit.  The coat blouses a little at the low waistline, the skirt is longer than last year, and the material is beige velours de laine trimmed with astrakan.

A coat that might be taken as the definition of the coat silhouette of the year is wide through the body, deep through the arm and narrow, but of the same width from its hip to the hem.  It is made of beige buracotta and is trimmed in cape effect at the back with bands of castorette.  From Béchoff.

Russian in line and color and a magnificence that stops just short of the barbaric is an evening cloak of red cloth lined with blue crêpe and embroidered with blue and silver tinsel thread.  The waistcoat and edging are of a brown fur called "mundel" or marmot and the coat is from Béchoff.