Little Black Frock (Woman and Home, January 1945)

 Woman and Home was a magazine targeted towards British housewives.  It contained the usual mix of recipes, household advice, knitting patterns, fiction—and of course, fashion.

By January 1945, however, fashion was pretty thin on the ground.  Even if the magazine's readers had the coupons to buy new clothes, there was very little in the shops for them to purchase.  In this article, Woman and Home comes to the rescue with an article with suggesting ways of making over a worn dress.  All you need is a few sewing skills and a shabby little black frock!

You could alter the neckline and add trimming in worn spots:

Sketch No. 1 shows it with the high neck cut in a "V", the worn underarms covered with curved bands of black satin and a satin tie-belt with a soft bow.  The bands are outside-stitched on to the frock at each side, with the upper bands lapped over the lower ones, and the back the same as the front.

"The Charleston Slip-Ons" (Modern Weekly, October 23, 1926)

 Modern Weekly was, as it's name suggested, a magazine for aspiring flappers.  It contained fiction, beauty tips, guides to the latest dance steps, fashionable gossip, and of course, fashion.

How to be slim though petticoated!  That's quite a problem, with our new dancing frocks demanding a frilly skirt beneath them and a slim outline above them.  But here it is—a solution for you—a petticoat of four fluttering, picot-edged panels, joined with evening knicks to a long bodice, and made from our Free Pattern of the "Charleston Slip-ons."

Petit Courrier des Dames, March 15, 1856

 Here we have an engraving of a couple of fashionable, very Victorian, outfits.  The wearers are swathed in yards of expensive and  heavily ornamented fabrics, and are covered almost entirely except for their faces.  It's clear that they can neither work nor exercise in such garments.  Their main function appears to be showing of their (husbands') wealth!

Ironically, it was the Industrial Revolution that made such retrograde fashions possible.  Mechanisation meant that fabrics could be produced in more abundance than ever before, and the mass production of hoop skirts meant that they could be sold cheaply and move from the salon to the streets in record time.  Our two well-to-do ladies would have work to do to keep ahead of the hoi polloi.  At this stage that meant wearing more of the most expensive fabrics, and hiding them beneath layers of labour-intensive decoration.

Two more important technological innovations took place in 1856.  The first was the invention of the first aniline dye, and the second was the formation of the Singer Sewing Machine Combination.  Fashion would become louder, faster, and more excessive in future decades.

 

TOILETTES DE VILLE

Chapeau orné de trois plumes sur la passe.—Robe de taffetas à deux jupes ornée d'une greque formée par trois velours.  Sur le corsage, une berthe ornée comme les jupes.  Manches formées par un gros bouillonné d'étoff, terminées par un large pagode.  Cols et manches en dentelles.

Chepeau en étoff et blonde orné de deaux plumes sur la passe, et un large nœd dont les bouts retombent sur le bavolet.  — Basquine en velours garnie le haute dentelle.— Robe en taffetas à trois volants et dispositions de velours. — Col, manchettes et mouchoir, en guipure.

[TOWN COSTUMES

Hat decorated with three feathers on the side. — Taffeta dress with two skirts decorated with a Greek key pattern made in three velvets.  On the bodice, a berthe decorated like the skirts.  Sleeves formed by a large bubble of fabric, ending in a large pagoda.  Lace collars and undersleeves.

Hat in fabric and blonde decorated with two feathers and a large bow whose ends fall on the flap. — Velvet basquine trimmed with fashionable lace. — Taffeta dress with three ruffles and velvet arrangements. — Collars, cuffs and handkerchief, in guipure.]

New Hats For Easter (Ladies' Home Journal, April 1934)

 NEW HATS—NEW THOUGHTS FOR SPRING: Easter means a new hat so take your choice from the cover...

The Ladies' Home Journal doesn't give you any information as to where you can find these oh-so-stylish hats.  However, the back view of the hat on the cover does show the modern reader how the wearers of those shallow, fashionably tilted hats managed to keep them on their heads.  The smaller hat at the bottom left is also dipped over the wearer's right eye: clearly it was the most up-to-date way of wearing one's hat in 1934!