"just dash in recklessly"

Did you know hoop skirts were totally en vogue in fall 1938?  These pages are from the September 5, 1938 issue of Life magazine and outline the full range of fall fashions.  The article starts out with a short illustrated history of fashion silhouettes.

I can't say I'm a particular fan of these ruffle-trimmed, giant-hooped dresses...but I do love the hoop skirt-wearing hints given in the margins!  "In crowded elevators you won't be popular, but keep calm."  "Revolving doors are a menace.  Just dash in recklessly."  "Phone booths never bothered great grandmother, but they will you."

The article also says that "notoriously hippy" American women will "pounce upon the bell-shaped silhouette."  Maybe that should be somone's rap name.  The Notorious H.I.P.

"Sports clothes" and shoes.  Now that's more like it.  Check out the spool heel on the oxfords on the left!  Italian-made platforms and wedges by Palter de Liso are the cutting edge in shoes in fall 1938.  Apparently American women hadn't quite yet come to equate Italy with Salvatore Ferragamo and amazing shoe design, as "In the  minds of most Americans, Italians are associated with shoes either as bootblacks or repair men." !!!

Love the oversize handbag shown on the right.

Coats!  That block plaid on the left is my favorite.  The article says Queen Elizabeth and her Scottish heritage are responsible for the trendiness of plaid.  Fancier fur-trimmed coats on the right (and please notice Life getting all goth--photoshoot in a cemetery!).

Day dresses include the "lumberjacket"--a shirtwaist dress with a "mannish" collar--and trendy accents like embossed quilting and modified dolman sleeves.  The dress on the lower right on the left is called a "modified dirndl" and the model sports a $7 pin, "a surrealist horse on lips."  It doesn't say the name of the pin's designer, but it sounds to me like something made--or certainly inspired by--Elsa Schiaparelli!

On the right is the "new fall dinner suit," made of wool with a long, high waisted skirt, by Monteil.

xo

K

fall fashions of 1955

From the September 1955 issue of Women's Home Companion, a fun autumn fashion spread.  Click the photos to make them even bigger.

Love the Vera Maxwell silk dress with the tweed coat, on the left.  The look on the right is by Claire McCardell and is described, most unhelpfully, as a "Wonderful drive-your-own car look."  So...this is what you wear on the days when Jeeves isn't around to drive you?  Anyway.  I love the gloves on the center model, and the yellow gloves shown in the vignette above, which also describes a "black suede pump, high-throated, for elegant afternoons."

Gorgeous raspberry plaid dress and jacket by Claire McCardell--with the pink bow and red gloves!  Fabulous.  The center look is described as having "the afternoon elegance of velvet."  What were these ladies of the 1950s doing in the afternoons?  Nice Arnold Scaasi glen plaid suit with red blouse.  I love a nice glen plaid.  In the afternoon.

I love the layout of this shoe spread, with the shoes on top of the hopscotch game.  I'll take a pair of the black matte pumps and the brown oxfords.

A cute bonus spread from Redbook's August 1962 issue, featuring a couple of McCall patterns.  I particularly love the look on the left, with the plaid skirt and little bolero jacket fastened with a brooch.  And gloves, of course!

xo

K