"In this joyous June we are to celebrate an historic event with which the whole world is ringing,"
Weldon's Ladies' Journal was referring to the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Naturally the readers of the Journal would want a pretty outfit to wear to the celebrations, and the magazine was happy to oblige with a selection of patterns for dainty, ultra-feminine garments. (Ironically, most of the fashions featured originated in Paris.) Below are a couple examples:
Last (southern) spring I paused a series of posts I was writing about coats, saying that I'd pick it up once the weather turned cold again. Well winter has well and truly arrived. I'm picking up the narrative thread in the 1940s.
With the first half of the decade dominated by war, practicality and economy were the fashionable watchwords. |
| Farmers, Autumn-Winter 1940 |
A lot of magazines published sewing patterns for garments that their readers could make at home, but this issue of Flair included instructions for making a circle skirt without a pattern.
The instructions are fairly simple. A modern dressmaker's main problem would be finding a suitable substitute for the fabric recommended in 1958!
On page 24 and 25 we showed you the dual personality skirt made from Comspring's "Can Can" bonded cloth, which is 72" wide. We made our skirt in a reversible black and marbled grey . . . and incidentally made it in a matter of minutes. It's easy! All that has to be done is to buy a piece which is twice the length of your skirt length measurement, plus twelve inches, which is the diameter of the circle you will cut out for your waist. Then double the fabric lengthwise, and fold in half across the width. This gives four layers of fabric from which, at the corner that has all the folds of fabric, you cut a quarter circle, by measuring six inches down from the corner and tracing an arc from point to point in tailor's chalk. Next step is to measure down from the waist arc, the length of your skirt and again cut in an arc. When the fabric is opened out, there is your skirt in a full circle with the waist opening in the centre (this should measure approximately 37 inches).
To gather in the waist without a placket (necessary if your skirt is to be reversible without a lot of bother with zips and hidden fastenings), buy a length of soft 1" wide elastic (black in our example) which is the same measurement as your waist is. Then, stretching the elastic as you work, proceed with very loose stitches, to hand-sew the cloth to the elastic. The stitches must be loose to enable them to expand with the elastic when the skirt is pulled on and off. So there is your skirt — made with a minimum of cutting, a minimum of sewing, and no seams or hems to bother with. Wonderful!
The fashions of the 1970s often inspire mockery (I've made my share of jokes) but these coats are classics. I'd happily wear any of them today.
WOOL WOVEN AND WARM — Lean racy lines, accent on camel. Trimmed and terrific. All cut to really swing.
A. Donegal tweed, belted, detailed. A go-anywhere style in winter's fabulous camel, black brown, green and red. 8 to 16. $60
B. Classic over pants — elegant, comfortable. Easy-tie belt. Saddle stitching features. In camel only. 8 to 18. $60
C. Camel again, flattering double breasted, half-belt back. Notice the superb cut. Sizes 8 to 18. $60.
ALL OURS ALONE BY DOMINEX
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.
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!
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.
