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.