"In the Rose Garden" (Peterson's Magazine, 1875)

It's Winter here in the Southern Hemisphere, and the days are short and the nights are cold.  So, in order to remind myself that the days will be long and warm again, I present the colour fashion plate from the June 1875 issue of Peterson's Magazine (captioned "In the Rose Garden").

To tell the truth, none of these clothes look suitable for a garden—at least not if you wish to stray off the neatly graveled paths.  They certainly look unsuitable for gardening!  However they are just right for posing daintily in a garden.  Women's clothes in the 1870s were liberally covered in feathers, flowers and flounces, and the wearers were further encumbered by bustles, corsets and trains.  The fashions of the decade reached a peak of fussy Victorian femininity that has never been seen since.  

"A Folder of Fashion Finds" (Woman and Beauty, October 1948)

The October 1948 issue of Woman and Beauty had a little fold-out section containing two suggested wardrobes.   (Drawings were by Francis Marshall, photograph by John French.)

First, a hat (to be worn with both outfits).

Second, coats to go over the outfits.  On the left, a "big topper" to be worn by women who like colour and mostly wear suits.  On the right, a belted coat for women who like wearing black dresses.

 

Next—on the left, a suit by Harella to be worn under the big topper.  On the right, a dress by Frederick Starke to be worn underneath the belted coat.

Next, a change of clothing.  On the left, a "jumper suit" made out of grey jersey to go under the red topper.  On the right, a shirtwaist "that is always perfect for the office" to go under the belted coat.

And lastly a raincoat and fur-lined boots for those cold wet days!

National Bellas Hess catalogue, Spring and Summer 1970

The cover blurb invites you to "swing into the 70's", but the model, in her brightly coloured mini-dress, looks as if she belongs in the 60's.  What's more, she is wearing it with white, wrist-length gloves—accessories that really didn't belong into anybody's wardrobe by 1970.

However, it's only fitting that she's entering the new decade in an outfit made entirely of polyester crepe!

Dressing the Elite by Susan Vincent

This is a study of dress in the context of a society that is very alien to us.  Early Modern England was extremely hierarchical and status conscious, with rank and wealth being seen as a divinely ordered reflection of the "Great Chain of Being".   As a consequence, clothing was rigidly segmented on the basis of class, age and sex, with the differences being enforced by law if necessary.

Of course all these things intersected in interesting (and to modern eyes unexpected) ways.  For example infants and small children had their own special clothing (seen as appropriate for their age) but tiny boys and girls were dressed identically to each other until around the age of seven.  Gender roles were things to be grown into—unlike today where even newborns are dressed in colour-coded onesies. 

Where adults were concerned the clothes of each sex were supposed to be quite distinct, with swords and breeches reserved for men, and skirts and corsets for women.  This didn't prevent people from crossing the boundaries, however.  Moralists were particularly incensed by women borrowing items (such as hats and doublets) from the male wardrobe.  Much rarer was full-on cross-dressing, which was usually done for specific purposes.  People caught wearing the clothes of the opposite sex could expect to be punished, but—need I add?—the punishments were usually harsher for lower-class women than upper-class men.

The hierarchies of class were were laid down by England's sumptuary laws, designed to prevent people from wearing the clothes of their "betters".  Rank was the concern here, not wealth. Unsurprisingly the laws were not a success and the lawmakers struggled to keep up with both fashion and society in each succeeding piece of legislation.  From the modern point of view the interesting thing is that fashion was considered to be a largely male interest, so women hardly figured in the sumptuary laws until fairly late in the struggle.

Vincent, Susan
Dressing the elite: clothes in early modern England
185973751X
Oxford: Berg, 2003

Found Online: "Toilettes", 1910-1912

One of the things I most love about living in the 21st century is the number of fascinating things available on the Internet.  Obscure publications that were once buried deep in the stacks of libraries and were only available to people who lived nearby, have now been scanned and are available to anyone who takes the trouble to enter a few keystrokes into a search engine. It doesn't really matter what your interests are: there's something out there for you.

So in pursuit of one of my interests, I give you Toilettes, available to read at the Hathi Trust Digital Library.   Toilettes was a magazine devoted to advertising fashionable sewing patterns produced by "Toilettes Fashions Inc." of Fifth Avenue New York.  The volumes digitised here cover the years 1910 to 1912, and are filled with charming line drawings of women and children in fashionable attire—along with editorial comment and advertising that helps put that attire into context.

"Life's Dress" (Life, April 12 1943)

I've often wondered why nobody has ever written a biography of Hattie Carnegie (1886-1956).  She was not only one of America's first "name" fashion designers and a successful businesswoman, but as she started from the bottom and worked her way up her life was a true rags-to-riches story as well. 

Born in Vienna as Hattie Kanengeiser she immigrated to Manhattan's Lower East Side with her family as a child.  Her career began when she left school at the age of eleven to take a job at Macy's.  In 1909 she set up her first business—a hat shop—with a partner, whom she later bought out.  By the 1940s she was producing three ready-to-wear lines: Hattie Carnegie Originals, Spectator Sports and Hatnegie, as well as custom made fashions for individual clients.

A number of well-known fashion designers worked for her before striking out on their own.  These include Norman Norrell, Pauline Trigérie, and Galanos.

She specialised in simple dresses and neat suits, so it's not surprising that the United States Government hired her to design the uniform for the WAC in World War II.

She was also sufficiently well known to the general public for Life to commission her to design this dress for home dressmakers in 1943.  In the wake of World War II do-it-yourself dressmaking suddenly became very popular on the home front!

Though clothing wasn't rationed in the United States as it was in Great Britain and other countries, economy was the word of the day.  You'll notice that this pattern is laid out in a way that makes use of ever scrap of material!  You'll also notice that though the design is stylish, it doesn't have any extraneous details.

Life pointed out that it would cost $175 to have this dress made up at Hattie Carnegie's workshop (that is about $2,500 today) as opposed to as little as $5 (that is around $72) at home!

Vanity Fair, February 1953

There's a Royal wedding happening today!  So it's only appropriate that I post a picture of a wedding dress.  The description reads: 

From Paris, wedding separates by Jacques Heim.  Surprise: the train is attatched to the spencer, not the strapless dress.  Lipstick: Charles of the Ritz new Bright Pink.