Australian Home Journal, September 1955

 The free patterns for Spring "frocks" which came with the September 1955 issue of the Australian Home Journal were so typical of their era that they've almost become cliches.  They are all variations of styles which combine cinched-in waists with bouffant, calf-length skirts.  The artist who illustrated them for the cover of the magazine has accessorised them with hats and white gloves.  The two figures on the right are wearing fashions for younger women: the woman on the left is wearing a "matron's frock" designed for older women.

As usual the Australian Home Journal has lots of fashion news and advice, including some suggestions on how to spark up your accessories!

Full-skirted, sleeveless cotton frocks are featured in teenage styles for the coming season.  In bright prints or soft pastels, many of them have special petticoats or hip stiffening to accent their swirling skirts.  Simplicity of design is combined with trends which characterise the spring silhouette for adults.  The elongated line is seen in long torso dresses and in frock with a hipline emphasis (a band of braid, velvet or ribbon extending extending around the skirt at hip level is one of the ways in which this is achieved).

Coat frocks, buttoning from neck to hem, have established themselves as  a classic which appears in many attractive versions nowadays, from slim sheaths to styles with graceful fullness in the skirt.  Their capacity to look equally dressy when worn on their own or when partnered with a coat makes them a particularly practical style.

Fashion's latest . . . Add a rhinestone buckle to a belt, the bow of a sash, or the centre or side of a scoop neckline: stitch brilliants to the curve of a turn-down collar or add a rose to either corner: pull a pert white organdie bow through slots at the jewel neckline of a dark frock: stitch groups of gay glass beads on to a cinch belt: brighten a round necked sweater with a collar of vivid felt flowers sewn on to a foundation.

Australian Home Journal, July 1946

 What were postwar fashions like?  As you can see from the picture below, in the short term very little changed for the average woman.  Perhaps they were  allowed an embellishment or two (like the peplum worn by the figure on the left) but rationing was still in force in most countries, and economy was still the order of the day.

So what were the emerging fashion trends of 1946?  Oddly, for this date, there was very little information in the July issue of the Australian Home Journal as the magazine's fashion correspondent appears to have gone missing in action.  Fortunately for us, there were lots of interesting snippits of information in other publications.

Australian Home Journal, April 1935

 Here we have reached the mid-point of the 1930s.  It's worth stopping here to look back at how the fashions of the decade developed, and forward to see how they're progressing.

In 1930, fashions were ladylike and—dare I say it?—a little bit droopy, with skirts falling softly in godets from a yoke beneath the hips.  A couple of years later, and fashions start to get intensely feminine, with frills and ruffles decorating the necklines and shoulders of women's garments.  In 1935 we can see the start of a shift in styles, with skirts becoming straight and shoulders squared.  Frills haven't been entirely abandoned, but they have been moderated.  Eventually this silhouette would evolve into the square "military" look prevalent in World War II.

The Australian Home Journal, as usual, noticed these changes and communicated them to its readers:

Fashion's Dress Decrees
Figures are to be rather more statuesque, waists a little larger, less fussiness about the neck and shoulders and not so many detachable parts...

The Slim Sihouette
The line remains slim, long and simple, occasionally accentuating the bust with trimmings...

 More detailed and specific suggestions were made for different types of garment.

In Brief
Dark blouses worn with lighter coloured skirts are again shown in the season to come...

Fashion Pointers
Buttons of wood or metal are as fashionable as those covered with material...

A New Suit
You can make your last year's brown tweed suit into a perfectly new and up-to-date morning and country outfit if you add to it a bright green velveteen shirt-blouse with wide cuffs that go outside your coat.

However, in 1935, Hollywood was not only enjoying its Golden Age, but had become a major (if not THE major) source of fashion information for the general public.  Women wanted to know what the stars were wearing, both on and off the screen.  Australian Home Journal was willing to oblige.

Furs Too
Furs dyed to match your gown is one of the new fancies of designers, and Myrna Loy introduced one of the first ensembles of this type.
Her royal blue dinner gown, worn at at recent function, was trimmed with a large cape of royal blue fox.

Joan's Novelty Bag
An evening bag, eighteen inches long and twelve inches wide, has been designed for Joan Crawford's use in her new M-G-M starring production, "Forsaking All Others."
The bag is fashioned of black velvet.  It is an envelope style and features two three-inch cuffs of white pique on either side...

Mauve for the New Season
Most conspicuous amongst Hollywood's winter fashions is the choice of mauve material...  Appealing particularly, is a gown worn by Sylvia Sidney, star of Paramount's "Behold My Wife."  It is a dinner ensemble of wool and metal cloth.  The skirt is the new shade of violet or mauve with a decided bluish cast.  The top of the dress is of the same hue in metal cloth.  Huge epaulettes of beaver, dyed to the same tone, trim the little jacket.

This last is interesting, because Miss Sidney's gown would most certainly have been shown in black and white on the silver screen!  Some Hollywood publicist must have decided that women would be really interested in the details of colour and fabrics for this dress.

Australian Home Journal, November 1949

 We're nearly at the end of the 1940s at this point, and the fashions foreshadow the 1950s.  The Australian Home Journal still reports on Hollywood fashions, but in this issue is very much focused on the latest collections from Paris.

The way that women look will not have greatly changed due to the Paris Spring dress collections...

Shoulders, despite a move to square them, remain on the slope.  And there are still plenty of princess, beltless dresses although we have said goodbye to the difficult Empire lines which rose so high under the bust...

Necklines
Necklines are styled this year.  For example, there are star-pointed collars, a mandarin neckline which develops from a bib-yoke of contrast stitch, a button-opening neckline with small Peter Pan collar and bodice-pocket flaps repeating the curve of the collar.

Pattern 7452 (the centre one on the cover) shows how a more "styled" neckline could be adapted to meet the needs of a home dressmaker. 

Styles of '65: Spring dresses (Australian Home Journal, September 1965)

 Spring has sprung, and the Australian Home Journal of September 1965 celebrated by offering free patterns for these light-hearted dresses.

It's time to think of spring, and all the gaiety this season always brings.  We help you to greet it with our Free Patterns for a spring-into-summer wardrobe.  The theme is very feminine and just a little romantic, and we've chosen floral, completely drip-dry fabrics.

By 1965 Australian Home Journal had stopped offering fashion advice, so I'm going to The Australian Women's Weekly to look at their advice on dressing to please husbands (or at least so as not to offend them):

If a new fashion comes in and you intend to wear it, bide your time and break him in by a little wifely cunning.  Any major fashion change almost certainly give rise to cries of, "Isn't that awful!  Don't ever let me see you in one of those!"

Wait until the fashion has modified a little, and he's used to seeing it on girls in the office.  Then he'll be ready to admire it on his wife.

This brings up another point: the fact that your man may admire a dress on another woman that he'd hate on you, even if you'd look just as good in it.

Dresses with decollete necklines are at the top of the list.  It's said to be because he's afraid you'll go Attracting Other Men.  Take it as a compliment.

The Australian Women's Weekly, August 4 1965

Fashion changes came fast and furious in the 1960s, though possessive husbands might find themselves more worried about hemlines than necklines!

Australian Home Journal (September 1940)

 If Woman's Journal looked to Paris for its fashion news, the Australian Home Journal sought inspiration from Paris.

First up: costume jewellery as worn by the stars:

The Stars' Glamour Gadgets
Glamorous gadgets are favourites in the costume jewellery field, and unlimited variety is suggested to Miss and Mrs. movie fan who follows the style leadership of film favourites.  Bracelets, necklaces, clips and boutonnieres rival each other in originality and imagination, with dressmaker trimmings equally decorative.

Australian Home Journal was always happy to turn to designers for advice— in this case, a film costume designer.  Dolly Tree's credits for 1940 included Young Tom Edison and Strike Up the Band.

"Shorts" for Sports
"No matter what the sport—who the girl—the shortest route to smartness in sports is by way of shorts," says Dolly Tree, M-G-M fashion designer.  1940 finds shorts in top place.  Shoulders may be covered, waists nipped in, but legs remain uncovered for the athletic Miss.

For more mundane use, the magazine suggested some popular dressmaking materials. 

Floral patterns are in the front line of dress ideas; spots will be seen everywhere, and checks, while not so prominent as last season, will still have a good following. 

... And of course, some suggestions for things to make with those materials:

Skirts and Blouses
For all-round practical wear, skirts and blouses have come into their own again, and for simple day clothes they are just the thing.
It is to the diversity of changes that the different combining of several blouses and a skirt give that make these garments so popular.

Practicality and making a little go a long way some to be the watchwords here!

Australian Home Journal, August 1958

Are the two dresss illustrated on the right hand mother-daughter fashions—or older sister-younger sister outfits?  Either way, the artist has emphasised the similarity of the designs by drawing them as if they were made up in the same material.

The Australian Home Journal still offered fashion advice to its readers in 1958, though its suggestions were far less detailed than they had been earlier in its history.

Now that Spring is "just around the corner", you'll find a frock in fine wool, crepe or silk indispensible.  Give it "top interest with a crossover fill-in, diagonal bands, an eye catching bow, or three or four small buttons placed one above the other on each side of a V neckline.  You'll be in the mode, too, if you cover up with a jacket-cardigan when the air turns chilly, for the dressy character of much of todays knitwear puts it into the fashion class...

Among current styles, the dress which looks like a suit with a scalloped jacket is one of the best investments a teenager can make.  For a "fashion extra," make a little handbag of the same fabric as your hat; or—if you like to go hatless, and prefer skirts and blouses to frocks—add matching touches to your separates to give them that smooth, ensembled look which spells smartness.

Australian Home Journal, July 1962

 In 1962 the Australian Home Journal was on its last legs as an independent pattern magazine.  In a few years it would start promoting McCall's patterns, and a few years after that it would switch its focus to interior decorating.  Meanwhile in July 1962 the magazine offered three free patterns: a blouse (in two views, both with ruffles), a simple shirtwaister with a slim skirt, and a skirt and jerkin sized for a 10-year old girl.

Unfortunately, by the early sixties Australian Home Journal was no longer offering fashion news and advice to its readers.  Fortunately there were plenty of other magazines taking up the slack.

Australian Home Journal, June 1939

 Unusually, the June 1939 issue of Australian Home Journal included an evening dress among its free patterns:

Evening Frock, 4921
Evening frocks look smart in bouffant effect from the hips, and the bodice moulded to the figure, a la early Victorian models.  Skirt is six-gored and gathered round the waist.

More typically, the magazine contained its usual assortment of fashion tips and tricks.  Reversible coats were coming into vogue:

Hard Wearing Coats
The most important place is presented to the hard-wearing warm coat worn for morning, sports and travelling purposes.  Here one notes the new supple winter tissues with reversible wrongside, held in some contrasting tone or having checked or plaid pattern...

Small waistlines were the latest thing.  If war hadn't intervened, we might have got a "New Look" a full ten years earlier than we did. 

How is Your Waistline?
If it is small, exaggerate it with a full bodice, wide, tight waistband, and an extremely full skirt.  That is the fashion advice of Robert Kalloch, noted Hollywood designer for Columbia studios.

Velvet? Very glamorous, very Hollywood.

Velvet Popular
Go in for velvet in a big way, and if it's black, so much the better.

 And a brief look at the shape(s) of things to come:

 Boleros and Tunics
Practical garments for winter wear!  Among the favourites are simple street dresses, besides suits and ensembles...
Bolero, tunic, jumper and tightly-fitting princess dresses come in many interpretations and are very different in cut, colour, fabrics and finish.

Australian Home Journal, May 1948

 In May 1948, the Australian Home Journal offered its readers patterns for three "frocks" (depicted below) and its usual budget of fashion tips and news.  As you can see from the cover, the patterns were for dresses that were longer and fuller than their wartime predecessors, but still a long way from Dior's "New Look".

Here and There.
High rising necklines are accepted on day-dresses but are not particularly liked because they are not comfortable.  They are not wanted for wear after five.  It is felt the lower neckline is more appealing.

Everybody loves long sleeves, and hates capes because they expose the sometimes unattractive underarm and layers of underclothing.  Long sleeves are wanted on everything because they add to the long slim look of this season's favourite line.

Longer hemlines are selling well; in fact they started selling last season and are going well now.  They are popular on all type dresses because they are felt to be fashionable and make the wearer look slimmer.

Customers do not especially like dressed-up wool dresses.  They are buying jerseys and wools with sequin trim and detail because they can find nothing else.

It would appear that many women weren't satisfied with the clothes available in the shops!  Perhaps the magazine was hinting that they would be better off buying an Australian Home Journal pattern instead.

Australian Home Journal, April 1956

Let's look at some of  the ladylike fashions of the mid-1950s, as depicted on the cover of the Australian Home Journal.  In Paris, couturiers produced an endless succession of "lines" and "looks" each season.  In the towns and suburbs of Australia, however, fashion in the 1950s took a more "steady as she goes", approach.  

Thoughts of what to wear in the coming months, as Autumn deepens into Winter, are uppermost in the minds of most of us just now.  Although there are no revolutionary changes in line, the new season's styles offer infinite variety to the home dressmaker.  The slender silhouette is a fashion leader.  Other styles, by concentrating attention on the hips, achieve the longer line which is so flattering to those who lack height...

The use of tabs for ornamentation as well as practical purposes is a feature of many autumn styles.  Artfully used at focal points they add importance to the line of a frock or coat.

Australian Home Journal, March 1940

 Let's take a look at another issue of Australian Home Journal—this time from the war years.  As usual it's full of advice for women who are both fashion-conscious and budget-aware.

Dearer Materials.
Quite a number of mothers are wondering if the dress materials will be dearer this season.  Yes, they will be dearer, there is no question of that, and they must remain dear for a long time.  Exchange, freights and war risks have added to the cost of all imported goods, and Australian-made materials are also advancing in price.

 World War II is only a few months old, but it's already having an effect on prices.  Things will only get worse in the coming years. 

"These Patterns..." (Australian Home Journal, February 1949)

 Fashion can sometimes offer a window onto social and technological change.  For example, the February 1949 issue of the Australian Home Journal advises readers on what to pack for one of those exciting new aeroplane flights. 

Don't Overload
If you are flying—and this is a popular form of travel to-day—you have to whittle your luggage down to essentials because you are only allowed 44 lbs. of luggage—and excess luggage becomes an expensive proposition.
If you plan interchangeable clothes, you'll have less luggage to carry and the right things for the time and the place.

The perennial problem of keeping within one's luggage allowance has arrived!  There are still a few years before our intrepid travellers have to worry about flying "cattle class" or airport security scans, however.  

"These Patterns Enclosed" (Australian Home Journal, January 1952)

 The Australian Home Journal's free patterns for January were for three summer "frocks".  The magazine gives instructions for making them up, but no suggestions for materials—and come to think of it, no sizes, either.  However, most of the patterns given away in other issues of the Australian Home Journal were sized for a 36 inch bust, and the cover illustration would indicate that printed cottons would be the most likely fabric to be used.

Cool Cottons.
Summer cottons, streamlined for sports, cool for casual wear and becomingly attractive when you feel like dressing up, lend themselves to unlimited variety of designs.  With florals, stripes or plain grounds, they are equally attractive for all ages...

Australian Home Journal, July 1963

 The editors of this issue of the Australian Home Journal offered their readers patterns for two staples of the mid-1960s: an overblouse and a lightly belted shift.

Overblouses were versatile garments.  A quick look at the fashion magazines of 1963 show them being worn with everything from beach shorts to cocktail suits.  Materials could range from gingham to lace to fake leopard-skin print.  In short, overblouses were considered suitable for every occasion from a beach picnic to meeting royalty.

The pattern illustrated on the cover of this magazine has long sleeves and a collar, so it was clearly intended for day wear.  Depending on what it was made of and what it was paired with, it could have been worn at work or for housework.

"Wool" (Australian Home Journal, April 1948)

As Australian recovered in the postwar years, the Australian Home Journal was there to offer free dress patterns and fashion advice.  If the magazine was to be believed, wool was the fabric to be wearing in April 1948.

Wool Sweaters
It is but a step from wool jersey to knitwear and, with a considerable increase in supplies recently, pure wool sweaters in all colours of the rainbow have pride of place in many shops.  However, first favourite is black, often heavily embroidered with wool, like one which had a yoke worked in a closely-packed floral design in mauve.

Wool in Paris Theatres
Wool takes the stage in Paris theatres, for leading actresses are wearing wool frocks created by famous designers at present, states a special message to the Australian Wool Board.  Maggy Rouff, who dresses many stars, has just designed a frock in lime-green wool for Simone Renaud to wear in "Liberte Provisoire", one of the successful stage hits of the moment.  Made with ruched-up elbow-length sleeves, it has a novel hipline belt which comes from a low line at the back to edge slanting hip pockts and finally buckle in front at the natural waistline.

From France
Revelling in the return of fine woollens, French milliners are using them lavishly for draping turbans and even to cover brimmed shapes, while wool jerseys are being stretched or draped into beret and muffin toque shapes to match winter suits and coats.

Jersey Frocks
Perfect styling in jersey frocks depends on simplicity, and Pierre Balmain shows many models with slim skirts, perhaps with a hint of back interest.

Of course the wool industry was the mainstay of the Australian economy at the time, so perhaps the Australian Home Journal had a patriotic interest in ensuring that women used as much wool as possible!

Australian Home Journal "Winter Fashions" (1960)

 

I was looking at my files the other day, and realised that if I wanted to I had enough materials from the 1960s to post about nothing else for the next ten years!  While I'm not going to go that far, I thought it was time I revisited the decade.  Here, then, are some illustrations from the Australian Home Journal's winter pattern catalogue from 1960.

The catalogue has a minimum of information about each pattern illustrated—you are given a one or two-word description of the garment, and the amount of material needed to to make up the pattern sized for a 36-inch bust.

Fortunately the patterns themselves would have contained more information, including an instruction sheet and some general hints on the back of the pattern envelope.  However, we can only guess at what kinds of materials would have been used to make up these patterns.  (Some of the dressmaking guides of the time suggest that some of the "new synthetics" were hard to sew, so it's possible that home dressmakers used a lot of natural fibres!)

There seems to be an equal mix of slim and bouffant skirts depicted here.  On the whole, fashions are more formal and more fitted than they would become later in the decade.

There are two evening "frocks" on this page (one very formal), but the others are accessorised in a way that hints they may have been worn to cocktail parties or to a restaurant.

... And some more smart "frocks" on the back page.  Though there are four models in the illustration, in fact only two patterns are depicted here.  Dressmakers had choices in how they adapted the patterns for their own use: different waistlines, different necklines and wide or slim skirts.

"The Correct Corset" (Australian Home Journal, October 1921)

 To corset or not to corset—that was the question in 1921.  The answer was yes... and no.

American Lady Corsets, 1921

The Corect Corset

Girls in general, says a writer, are divided to-day into two classes—those who wear corsets and those who don't!

Both, I think, are wrong, or rather, both are sometimes right and sometimes wrong, for corsets are like all other garments—there's a time to wear them and a time to take them off—even in the daytime.  Everyone should wear them in the daytime, and, this, for two reasons—if you don't you lose the support they give and therefore get twice as tired.  And also if you don't you will—whatever you like to say—get bigger, I mean, of course, bigger round the waist.

But—don't wear the terrible arrangements which some misguided people fasten themselves into.

Your corset should be short as possible, and above the waist be made of only a narrow band of elastic.  They should, when on, come barely above the waist.

And below it they should be very, very short.  As short as possible.

When evening comes and you get back from business, dress for dinner, go to the pictures, or do whatever you do of an evening, take them off.  Never wear corsets with an evening dress.

It's perfectly true that corsets, in reality, should be made of muscle—your own muscles—and not of whalebone, so, if your muscles are in proper working condition, you'll see no difference in your silhouette.  Which strikes me as a rather a nice way of putting it.

If you do see a difference—for the worse—it means that you haven't been doing those daily exercises you swore you would do—and so it serves you right.

National Style Book, Spring-Summer 1921

Also, upon reading this, it becomes very clear that the "corset" of 1921 was a very different beast from its Victorian predecessor.  It was well on its way to becoming the "girdle" of the mid-twentieth century.

Australian Home Journal Summer Fashions, 1946-47

 Since summer is almost here in the Southern hemisphere (though the weather sometimes makes that hard to believe) I thought I'd treat myself to some "frocks" from the Australian Home Journal.

World War II ended just over a year earlier, and the general outline is still very "wartime".  Maybe there is a little more leeway allowed in the way of gathers and skirt widths. 

Rationing was still in effect in Australia, so dressmakers had to be careful with their materials.  The dresses on the right and left look as if they could be made up from a mixture of smaller lengths.  The peplum on the dress in the centre is a nice postwar touch.  The dress on the left sports a some  embroidery: a touch that would have been thought extravagant during wartime.

The fashions are similar on this page, including a two-toned dress on the left, and a dress with a peplum on the right.  

The dresses on this cover range from the fairly plain (the coat frock, centre) to the quite fancy (the dress decorated with shirring and bows at right).

"Winter Fashions" (Australian Home Journal, 1953)

 From the cover of the Australian Home Journal's winter catalogue of 1953, two "frocks" and a suit.   The suit is depicted here made up in a plaid for the skirt with a matching plain colour for the jacket, but presumably home dressmakers could mix and match as they pleased.

In 1953 women's fashions were still very fitted and formal and obviously influenced by Dior's "New Look" of the late 1940s.  The return of Chanel to design and the birth of the new rock n' roll youth culture would loosen things up (literally as well as figuratively) later in the decade.  Meanwhile the look was decidedly grownup and ladylike, and just a bit old-fashioned.