Jessie Franklin Turner, an American Original

Posted on May 6, 2026 by Lynn
Fortune magazine, December 1930

In her book American Beauty, author Patricia Mears calls Jessie Franklin Turner (1888-1956) “arguably the first important American couturier of the twentieth century.” Her dresses usually had simple shapes but original fabrics that were inspired by non-Western styles and textiles.  She frequented museums for her inspiration and had textiles copied for her original designs.  As the caption for this 1933 photo states, “Miss Turner proceeds directly to new and exquisite material for an inspiration.”

Although she ran a very successful shop on Park Avenue, Jessie Franklin Turner was shy about putting herself in the public eye—and this Fortune photo is one of the few I found online (and according to the caption, the first ever published). I love the contrast between the models in their fancy dresses and the designer all in black, including a black hat. She looks to be from another time and place entirely.

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The Hat in the Time Capsule

Posted on April 29, 2026 by Lynn
Wikipedia Commons

As a sign of how important hats were to women in the 1930s, the creators of the time capsule at the 1939 New York World’s Fair included a hat by celebrity milliner Lilly Dachẻ.  The above picture shows her placing the hat, packed in cotton, in the cylinder.  It was one of thousands of items, including a Mickey Mouse cup, a copy of Gone with the Wind, and Spalding’s Rules of Baseball, all meant to give humans of the future an idea of American life in the late 1930s.  See a list here.

Vogue magazine via Getty Images

What did the hat look like?  As far as I can tell, there is no extant picture online.  I think the Wikipedia image shows a shovel-like tool rather than a hat.  One millinery site says it was turban made of deep green and purple silk jersey.  Another Dachẻ fan posted a striking photo, but gave no indication that it was the actual hat.  Perhaps the 1936 picture above of a Dache turban gives some idea.

Unless you are a better sleuth than I am, we will have to wait until the year 6939 to see the hat itself.

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House Dress or Street Dress, 1950s

Posted on April 22, 2026 by Lynn
Found photo

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the “house dress” was a literal description.  It was a garment meant to be worn inside the home.  Usually made of cotton, it had an uncomplicated design with few frills and was intended to be easy to wash. (Sometimes they were even called “wash dresses.”)  Although the category has now disappeared, in the fifties when this photo was taken it was still a common descriptor for a kind of woman’s dress. 

As clothing in general became simpler in design, it was harder to distinguish dresses made for inside and those fit for public viewing.  Looking at this threesome here, perhaps three generations in the same family, it is possible that the oldest woman on the left bought her dress as a house dress, something usually sold in the bargain basement of department stores.  It has a very simple design and plain fabric.  The other two dresses have more detail.  The one in the middle has a contrasting belt and the one on the right even includes a matching bolero jacket. 

I’m guessing that the younger women had come to visit and dressed up for the occasion.  No one would catch them at a special event wearing a house dress.

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Signing the Equal Pay Act, 1963

Posted on April 15, 2026 by Lynn

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library

Signed into law by President John F. Kennedy on June 10, 1963, the Equal Pay Act legislated that women receive equal pay to men for equal work. Too bad it couldn’t happen with the stroke of a pen. Sixty years later we still aren’t there yet, but there has been progress. In 1963, women’s pay was 60% of men’s; today it is estimated to be around 83%.

But politics aside, it was the fashion that caught my eye in this photo.  In the early sixties, styles were changing from the shirtwaists and slim suits of the fifties to the boxier sixties shape.  You can see that transition at work here. I’m primarily interested in the four older women on the left.  Certainly the one with the most “fifties” look is Dorothy Height (born 1912), far left, president of the National Council of Negro Women.  She wears a dressy flowered shirtwaist, a flowered hat, pearls, and gloves. Next to her, barely visible, is Mary Anderson (born 1872), former Director of the Women’s Bureau in the Department of Labor. Her flowered hat, gloves, and matching handbag also could have fit into an earlier decade.

Third from the left is Representative Elizabeth Kee of West Virginia (born 1895), wearing what might be a transitional style.  It is hard to see the shape of her dark suit, but the jacket might follow the curve of her waist, a more fifties silhouette. But Representative Edith Green of Oregon (born 1910), in the light colored suit, leaves the earlier decade behind. She is hatless and her jacket has the straight lines and big buttons of the early sixties.

As we move from left to right, you can really see fashion shifting—more geometric prints, fewer hats, boxier cuts. But look at all the gloves! Apparently, they were still de rigueur for a special event at the White House.

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Hemlines in the 1920s

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Lynn
Found photo

It is easy to think of fashion in the 1920s as defined by short skirts and dropped waists.  While the latter was certainly true, stylish skirt lengths went up and down during the decade, surely to the great annoyance of some thrifty women

Fascination Street Vintage

This handy chart from Fascination Street Vintage gives a good sense of the changes.  We can use it to find an approximate date for the photo above, and also to reflect on how older women frequently stuck to older styles.

The youngest (although not young) looking woman on the left wears the shortest dress.  If we compare it to the chart, it was a fashionable length for around 1926—not the shortest of the decade, but close.  The two on the right show their ankles and their lower calves, so most likely their dresses come from the earlier twenties.  And the oldest looking woman, second from the left, wears the longest dress.  Obviously she had no intention of following the trends.  She is also the only one who doesn’t have on those wonderful strappy shoes so popular in the decade.

This photo is also even more proof that the dropped waist, straight up and down style of the twenties did no favors to the older body.   They do look comfortable, though.

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Party Time, 1950s

Posted on April 1, 2026 by Lynn
Found by Joe LaFalce

Here is another treasure from the Facebook group Mid-Century in Color.  I wonder how much time star contributor Joe LaFalce spends tracking down his finds.

Anyway, it is certainly party time in this photo.  Is this a small diner specializing in alcohol?  One of those basement dens so popular in the fifties?  There is what looks like a pile of presents on the small table in the background, so maybe we can forgive them for their excessive alcohol consumption.  The lady on the left looks to be drinking coffee, so that’s a lot of bottles for the rest of the guests. 

What caught my eye, besides the number of bottles, is the notable difference in the women’s clothes.  The one on the left wears an ordinary-looking shirtwaist dress, perhaps with sneakers or some other kind of sensible shoe.  She has her feet up as if it had been a long day.  Note her very elaborate hairdo that looks like something from the 1930s.  Her companion on the right side is much more dressed up.  The dress is fancy fit and flair style.  She also wears jewelry and dress up shoes.  Although we can’t see much of what the woman in the back wears, her clothes appear to be on the plainer side.

Help me make up a story that explains this strange congregation.  At least some of them are having a very good time!

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At the Movies, 1915

Posted on March 25, 2026 by Lynn
Library of Congress

Super sleuth Davrie Caro sent me this film showing customers leaving the Claremont Theater in New York City after the showing of the film On the Stroke of Twelve in 1915.  The weather is transitional, since some patrons are bundled up and others are not.  Perhaps it is late March, like now.

The short clip shows a remarkable variety of people coming out of the theater—young mothers with children, shop girls, young boys, what look like married couples and groups of women friends.  I wondered about the pair above.  Is it perhaps a wealthy woman with her paid companion?

It is fun to watch the clip just to see the variety of clothes.  Let me take a stab at a few generalizations.

The older women wear a lot of fur–coats, hats, scarves and muffs. 

They also prefer elaborate hats.  I’m hoping the women took them off in the theater so others could see the show.

I counted more older women than younger ones in attendance. Did they have more time on their hands?  They appear to be more prosperous as well, although maybe they felt going to the movies counted as a special occasion.

There were also some older attendees who didn’t look quite so prosperous.  Neither of these two women wears a coat that fits very well and the fur quotient is low compared to others.  But they do look like they had a good time.

Take a look! Let me know what you see.

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Mamie Eisenhower–Older Icon for the 1950s

Posted on March 18, 2026 by Lynn
Official Portrait by Thomas Edgar Stephens, 1959

It’s been a long time since I have done a post about an “older icon,” an older woman who changed ideas about how to dress during a crucial time period.  Not much remembered today, Mamie Eisenhower was an extremely popular First Lady during her tenure from 1953-1961.  Born in 1896, she was in her mid fifties when she came to the White House.  She was also something of a fashion icon for the era, appearing on many Best Dressed Lists. 

According to Karla Ann Marling in her book As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s, Mamie openly rejected many ideas about what older women should wear.  In an expose for the magazine Colliers, she was photographed in a halter top sun dress, showing off a lot of skin.  As can be seen in the official portrait above, she was not shy about revealing her arms, an area of great concern for Vogue magazine’s older fashion advisor, Mrs. Exeter.  She also adored pink, long considered a young woman’s color.  In fact, some credit her with the “Think Pink” craze of the era. 

She openly expressed her disdain for “old lady clothes.” According to a leading designer of the era, Molly Parnis, “Mrs. Eisenhower brings a new viewpoint on clothes to the White House.  She’s proving that a grandmother needn’t be an old lady. She’s making maturity glamorous.”(Marling, 26). 

Lucky for her she was out of the public eye before the youth quake started.

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In Living Color

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Lynn
Found photo

There is no date on this brilliantly colored photograph, but my best guess is that it comes from the 1970s. That is the decade when older women started wearing pants in large numbers.  It is also the time when natural hairstyles gained a large following in the African American community. 

If you look carefully, you’ll see that this is an unusual garment.  It appears to be a one piece jump suit with a flounce at the neck. The bold print incorporates yellow, orange, brown, green, white, and turquoise.  She also has on bright turquoise hoop earrings.  At first I thought that the jumpsuit might be made of African fabric.  On closer inspection, those wave shapes look more hippie than African. With her bold pose she is perhaps modeling her own original clothing design. This is obviously a woman who wasn’t afraid to stand out!

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Dressed for the Photographer

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Lynn
Found photo

This is a real photo postcard, never sent. Although skilled photographers learned how to made these postcards themselves, this one looks like the photo was taken and the postcard created in a professional studio. From the design of the company logo on the back, Kruxo, I can tell that it was made between 1911 to 1922.  The clothes tell the same story, v-neck dresses and shoes showing.  Given the very wide hem on the dress on the right, perhaps the woman shortened it to stay in style.

I’m most interested in the woman on the left, though.  She is clearly dressed up for the photo, with her flowered hat and long gloves.  Note the many markers of the well-dressed older woman—a brooch at her neck, a big lace collar. She is even wearing polka dots, a print often recommended to the older set. 

Are they relatives? Friends? This card let acquaintances know that they were happy to be together.

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