"Our Cover Girl Wears" (Vanity Fair, May 1955)

 Vanity Fair featured a simple dress by "Polly Peck" on the cover of its May 1955 issue.

OUR COVER GIRL WEARS... the shirt dress of the season, to wear on vacation and after you get back—in hyacinth blue and white striped cotton, satin bowed and belted, its skirt a rush of gathers at the waist, by Polly Peck...

Polly Peck was a ready-to-wear firm established in the 1940s by husband and wife time Raymond and Sybil Zelker.  Sybil did the designing, while Raymond managed the business.  It was one of a number of businesses set-up postwar to supply a growing market for good-quality women's ready-to-wear clothing.

Sadly, Polly Peck was the subject of a takeover in the 1970s.  The new majority shareholders were less interested in fashion than in turning a quick profit, expanded into areas far removed from Polly Peck's core business, and went bankrupt after a major share trading scandal in 1991.

"Wedded Perfection" by Cynthia Amneus

 Some of the best fashion histories are published as exhibition catalogues.  Wedded Perfection: Two Centuries of Wedding Gowns was produced for an exhibition held at the Cincinnati Art Museum in 2010.

The interesting thing is, that though the title of this exhibition specifically references “gowns”, traditional white wedding gowns are far from being the only garments included here.   In fact, anything women wore at their weddings is featured in this book, including day dresses, evening dresses and suits!

Peterson's Magazine, May 1875

 This week I've decided to skip back a century from the 1970s to the 1870s.  What a contrast!  The fashions of 1875 are ultra-feminine, trimmed (some would say over-trimmed) with ribbons, ruffles, lace and bows.  Skirts trail on the ground—even on garments described as "walking dress"—and hair is piled high in curls and ringlets.  (Fashionable ladies who didn't have sufficient hair of their own could buy "false hair", either sourced from poorer women or from animals.)

The models in this plate are wearing bustles, but 1875 marks the point when the "first bustle" period was coming to an end.  Bodices are starting to become longer, and will soon become form-fitting "curiass" bodices.  The effect is most pronounced on the figure on the far left.

Fig. I—Walking dress of Havana brown silk
Fig. II—House dress of green silk
Fig. III—House-dress of pale stone colored mohair
Fig. IV—Walking dress
Fig. V—House-dress

GENERAL REMARKS...

MANY LATE-PARIS DRESSES are made with but little or no trimming on the skirt; a deep basque or curiass waist, much trimmed serving for the ornament.  But the ruffled and plaited over-skirts have taken such hold of the fancy of many of the fashionables, that they will be retained, though in a somewhat modified form during summer.

ALL THE SPRING DRESSES, as we have said, show a tendency to less trimming, though the inevitable over-skirt is mostly worn in some shape, but very clinging to the figure.  For the house, some dresses with long, narrow trains, have been made.  The waist has wide revers, is rather short waisted, and, in fact, looks very much like fashions that were worn just after the French Revolution, and before the empire style, with its mongrel classic fashion, was in vogue.

What We Wore in '74: Pantsuits (Lana Lobell, Fall 1974)

 If blue denim jeans were the casual wear chosen by young people, polyester pantsuits were the garments of choice for slightly older women.  Though some venues still insisted on women wearing skirts, pants were becoming acceptable in more and more situations.

DRESSES are out, pantsuits are in at the White House, as the Arab oil embargo accomplished what Women's Lib could not.

To conserve fuel, temperatures at the White House, along with other federal buildings, have been lowered to 20 deg. C., so—President Nixon's expressed disdained of women in pants notwithstanding—the dress-up rule has been changed.

The Australian Women's Weekly, 2 January 1974 

NEWEST LOOKS ON TWO LEGS!

1. DOUBLE DOTS PEEK OUT on the cuffs of a solidtone jacket and from a whole shell of them underneath.  Sleeveless shell returns the favor with a sold-color neckline.  Jacket ties with a self belt in front; flare-leg pants pull on with elastic waist.  All polyester doubleknit.

2.  PAJAMA SET pairs a peplum top that ties in front over wide-legged pants that hang loose from an elastic waist... it's today's newest way to dress up!  Fantastically colorful print on a soft matte jersey of acetate-nylon washes beautifully by hand.