"Answers to Your Question on Suit Making" (McCall's Style News, April 1953)

 In the early 1950s, women's suits were very fitted and very structured.  This left the average woman who wanted to wear a suit in a bit of a dilemma... buy a ready-to-wear suit in standard sizings (that might or might not fit) or try making her own?  McCall's obviously preferred the latter, and in this issue of McCall's Style News it even offered a few hints on how to make a success of it.

Above: McCALL'S 9248.  The diagonal swing of the jacket closing is something new.  Notch collar, two-piece sleeves, slim skirt.

First was the vexed problem of shoulder pads:

So much is said about natural shoulders.   Should I make my suit jacket without pads?

Definitely no.  Use thin pads.  The new smart shoulder pads are delicate, beautifully shaped and excessively thin.  You need just that amount of padding in the shoulders of your suit.  Don't use any old pads, they are probably all wrong. 

Interfacing was another worry.  It was clear that some dressmakers would prefer to do without it:

Is it necessary to put interfacing into a suit when the material is firm in itself?

Definitely yes.  Especially in the collar, revers and through the shoulders.  Often down the closing.  Your pattern tells you where, and that is expert advice.  Don't make hard work of it.  Hair canvas interfacing is easy to work with—it's a woven material, not stiff or hard and the needle slips through as lightly as through silk.

Wouldn't interfacing make the points of collars and revers bumpy?

No, because you do not carry the interfacing up into the corner.

Keeping everything in place was another problem:

What can I do to keep the waistband of a suit skirt from wrinkling down?

Make a belt of boned belting in the same width as your skirt band is when finished.  Sew hooks and eyes on the ends, and stitch this belting belt to the top edge of your skirt band.

And there in a condensed form you have it—the not-so-simple art of making a woman's suit in 1953.  I suspect less experienced dressmakers would have given up at this point, and turned their attention to making something easier! 

Easy to make... (Elle, 1955)

 

Once again I feel like posting something for the benefit of the dressmakers who read my blog.  The pattern below is from the August 21st 1955 issue of Le Petit Echo de la Mode, and is for an autumn  dress that is "Easy to make, Easy to Wear".

Home Fashions (July 1914)

 Here we are, a couple of months out from the First World War, and looking at these summer blouses it's clear that the process of simplifying women's clothing is already well under way.

Clockwise, from the striped blouse on the left:

Pattern No. 18,998... an example of the newest and simplest shirt blouses.  The smart roll-collar is so arranged that it can be rolled high or low as desired.

Pattern no. 18,999.  The top centre figure represents a pretty crossover blouse, with the sleeve set in.  The collars and cuffs of a contrasting material form a pleasing finish.

Pattern No. 19,101 shows the popular new yoke which is cut in line with the sleeve.  The fronts cross over slightly, while the wide revers add a smart touch to the blouse.

Pattern No. 19,100, a dainty design for embroidery.  Cut all in the one-piece, with added collar and cuffs.

The diagonal closings are novel, but the most noticeable thing about the blouses is that they no longer have the high, boned collars and excessive ornamentation so fashionable only a few years earlier.

"The Maternity Outfit" by Eleanor Chalmers (The Delineator, July 1909)

 

"Last year coming home from Europe," writes Mrs Chalmers,

I crossed on the steamer with an attractive young married woman... a lithe, active figure in a well-cut, well-tailored suit in the daytime and radiantly lovely at night in a black chiffon Empire dress that she had had made in London. 

You can imagine my surprise when I met her, several months later, driving in Central Park with a most bewitching baby.  We had sat at the same table, lain in parallel deck chairs and had really seen quite a bit of each other on the way home, and yet, as I told her, I had never suspected it for a moment.

Once upon a time, "baby bumps" were not for showing off, and maternity clothes not only had to allow for expansion, but also conceal the wearer's condition.  The moderns of 1909 thought this was an improvement on the old way of doing things:

The new maternity garments conceal the figure perfectly and allow women to go about in a sane, natural manner.  The old morbid, recluse-like banishment that women used to accept as their common lot is rapidly becoming one of the antiquated ideas that belong to a less enlightened era.

(Imagine how much time Victorian mothers of large families must have spent hiding themselves from public view!

 

Ideally, maternity wear should be healthy as well as concealing.  Mrs Chalmers continues by discussing some of the latest ideas (1909 style) for "healthful" garments and lifestyles:

The first thing that a woman will need is an every-day out-of-doors dress or suit of some kind, for it is most important that she should keep in the open air at least a couple of hours a day.  Most women use a skirt and shirt-waists—a combination that I do not altogether favor, for, as I said before, a complete dress with the weight resting on the shoulders is a far more healthful sort a of garment than one in which the skirt is supported at the waistline.

"I do not advise," the author continues

a skirt of one color, and waists of another.  It draws a sharper line of division in the figure than a one-color scheme carried out as shown in the first illustration...

The waist has a little fulness at the waistline in the back, which should be drawn into a belt tape that you can fasten around the waist, holding the fulness at the front.  The belt tape is much better than the belt stay, which would have to be altered from time to time.

(The illustration above shows the belt tape.) 

  

For a shirt-waist suit the skirt should be cut in the round length—never shorter, unless you are going to use it merely for rainy days.  A short skirt is awkward in a maternity dress and makes a woman look worse than is at all necessary.   The method of making the skirt is the same as for any gored skirt pattern except that there is no need to fit it to the figure over the hips and at the waist.  It is mounted on an elastic band run into a casing—a sort of self-adjustable affair that takes care of itself quite nicely.

Next comes a suit that is really a maternity dress:

While the shirt-waist suit is very neat and practical I lean toward the maternity dress shown in the second illustration.  At first glance it looks quite a little like a semi-tailored suit.  In reality it is a dress consisting of a seven-gored, high-waistline skirt mounted on a French waist-lining, and a coatee that can be of the same material as the skirt if one uses it for an every-day sort of dress, or of dried lace, net soutached tulle, etc., if one wants it for reception or formal occasions.

It's good to know that pregnant Edwardian women (unlike their Victorian counterparts) were allowed to have a social life.  

A proper maternity outfit, however, did not end with a shirt-waist suit and a maternity dress.  For cooler days:

... one should have some sort of a long coat or wrap for traveling, driving, etc.  I should advise a straight slightly fitted coat made with generous overlapping double-breasted fronts.  (Illustration no. 3)  It is an easy thing to move the buttons, and the coat will always look well.  It is a very simple coat to make, for it is very slightly fitted and extremely severe in cut...

The little house dress in Illustration 4 is a pretty thing and can be put to any number of uses.  Décolleté and with short sleeves, it makes a graceful sort of dress for home dinners in any soft material... High necked it makes an excellent day dress... The skirt, I think, for this particular kind of an outfit, is better gathered, as shown in the illustration, than tucked, though it can be used either way.  The gathers are softer and more disguising.

 

 

Illustrations 5 and 6 are excellent types of wrappers and matinées for maternity needs.  The empire styles are far and away one's wisest choice wherever it is possible to use them, not only because they are pretty and protecting to the figure, but because the weight of the garment falls on the shoulders.  I would make the belt of the dressing-sack about six inches longer than the usual size and draw it in on a ribbon.

If you want to read the article in its entirety, the full magazine is available online at the Hathi Trust.