"What the Parisienne is Wearing" (Woman's Journal, May 1939)

 I'm going to have one last fling with the frivolities of Haute Couture, before I settle down to the years of austerity, rationing and "make do and mend".  And it seems that the designers of 1939 were also having a last fling in the shadow of war.  Moma Clarke wrote in the May issue of Woman's Journal:

All the Paris dressmakers have "gone" womanly in the most feminine sense of the word... Schiaparelli announces that "women are ladies again".  One dares not reflect on the interim.  Better not...

It's one of the minor what-ifs of history: if there had been no Second World War, would fashion have given us a "New Look" a decade earlier than it did?

On to the designers—and we have some familiar names at this point.

Summer fashion plans have turned topsey-turvey. Instead of a plain suit with a figured blouse it is the other way about, and a gaily flowered tailor-made is the order of the going.  Jean Patou makes this delectable suit of brown and white figured crêpe with a white crêpe blouse, and the blue flowered ensemble of glazed cotton with a white piqué waistcoat.  Never have pastel shades been so loved.  A dress and coat matching in a pastel coloured crêpe is as chic as anything can be—especially when trimmed with scalloping, as in this lovely pastel blue dress and coat by Patou.

Patou died in 1936, but the house he founded lived on.  I have no information on who actually designed these dresses. 

New Fashions For You and Your Home (Singer, Fall-Winter 1938)

 Shown below is part of Vogue Pattern No. 8129, an evening dress "with a redingote over an independent slip-dress".  This is clearly the "slip dress"part of the design.  A small illustration of the "redingote", made up in lace, is inside the magazine.

Back in my very first post for this year I mentioned the introduction of the first backless evening dresses during World War I.  In they 1930s they were almost de rigueur in formal evening gowns, though they could be covered up by garments like the redingote included with this pattern.

All in all, there seems to have been quite a variety in evening fashions in 1938!  The Australian Home Journal reports:

In the evening we see princess dresses with drapings that stress the wearer's slenderness; further, there come dresses which cling till the knees and then start into greater width; some skirts are slit and somewhat cut away in front, trailing at the back in a line, and there are also reminiscences of the Empire, the Directoire and the 1889 style.

Australian Home Journal, May 1938

Hats For Summer (Le Petit Echo de la Mode, 13 juin 1937)

What smart outfit doesn't need a hat to complete it?

A few posts ago I showed you a typical hat from the beginning of the decade: close fitting and brimless.  These hats from 1937 seem to have gone to the opposite extreme, with wide brims and very shallow crowns.  (The crowns are so shallow that the artist depicting these hats makes it look as if the models have had the tops of their heads sliced off!)

The hats are worn tilted over one eye, and as we can see from the right-hand figure, held on by a band passing around the back of the head.

POUR L'ÉTÉ

Grande CAPELINE de paille fine, avec calotte basse ceinturée d'un ruban.  Bouquet de petite fleurs multicolores.

CANOTIER avec cache-peigne en fleurs de velours.  Voiletts posée un arrière.

[FOR SUMMER

Large straw hat with a low crown tied with a ribbon. Bouquet of small multicolored flowers.

Boater hat with a velvet floral comb cover. Veil draped at the back.]

Straw was the most popular material for summer hats, with felt being more commonly worn in winter.