A Mystery Dress

Posted on November 12, 2025 by Lynn
Found photo

This was a tiny picture to begin with and making it larger has just made it fuzzier.  Nonetheless, I think you can see the details that fascinate me.  Just what is she wearing?  A short sleeved, many-layered bathrobe with a long-sleeved shirt underneath?  A dress inspired by another culture beyond my ken?  A Google image search turned up nothing similar.

I was drawn to this photo not only by the outfit’s shape, but also by the fabric.  To me this looks like an Art Deco design, a style I love for its geometric structure with elaborate details.  Here are some examples from the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Too bad we can’t see the colors on our lady’s dress.  Is it homemade?  Someone has taken care to match the large pattern across the many panels.

Art Deco got its official start at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris one hundred years ago.  It was a big event in the history of modern design and there is a new exhibit investigating its heritage this year.  Perhaps Art Deco fabric will make a brief comeback.

When was the photo taken?  The shoes could be from the 1920s, but the dress with its unusual structure could have come from any era.  I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Small Prints for Older Women

Posted on November 5, 2025 by americanagefashionco
Found photo

This old woman looks almost regal sitting in a rattan chair in from of her house, at least I imagine it is hers.  She offers familiar markers of age—hair drawn back into a severe bun and a brooch at the high neckline.  Her waistline has also moved up quite a bit to accommodate the menopot that comes with age. 

However, what drew me to this photo were the small white dots on her dark dress—perhaps even a navy blue dress.  Fashion advisors in the early 1900s, when I believe this photo was taken, told older women to stick to dark colors and very small prints so as not to draw attention to a shape that had not changed for the better with age.

At first I assumed that these were polka dots, a perennial favorite. They aren’t. Instead, they are small rice shaped figures set at angles, giving the pattern a little more movement. It just goes to show that even within the narrow strictures set for older women someone could make things a bit more interesting.

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Eleanor Roosevelt’s First Press Conference, 1933

Posted on October 30, 2025 by americanagefashionco
FDR Presidential Library

Since Trump destroyed it, there have been many obituaries for the East Wing of the White House, historically associated most closely with the position of First Lady.  For me the most moving was the one that showed how Eleanor Roosevelt not only had used it to transform the role of that office but also to lift the status of women journalists in the US.  In 1933 she held the first press conference ever given by a First Lady, insisting that only women journalists attend.  That gave her a forum for her own issues—which included racial equality.  It also secured the jobs of women reporters.  If papers wanted to cover the events, they had to hire women to do the job.

Above is a photo of the first event on March 6, 1933.  Everyone except Roosevelt is wearing a hat, many in cloche hats that I associate with the previous decade.  I guess a cloche had the advantage of not blocking out the faces of those behind you.  There are many young faces here, but also several older ones. 

Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive list of the women who attended, although you can find a few well-known names here.  I would love to know more about the life stories of the most seasoned reporters in attendance.  Did they start out writing about recipes, finally crowning their careers covering the White House?

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The Flapper Dress and the Older Body

Posted on October 24, 2025 by americanagefashionco
Found photo

The most famous dress styles of the 1920s either had a dropped waist or no waist at all.  They looked best on young, slim bodies.  When I first started this blog, I lamented how older women looked in the clothes.  The thin, drapey fabric of the most iconic twenties dresses showed every lump and bump.  There was little fashion magic that could create the illusion of thinness for someone who had gained weight around the middle.  Therefore I concluded that twenties styles were not flattering to the older shape.

I’ve changed my mind since I made that conclusion years ago.  The notion of “flattering clothing” is a very restrictive concept. Should the goal of fashion really be to make women look younger and slimmer than they are?  Or is it to embrace current styles if you want, to find clothing you like, and to wear it with joy? It’s easy to conclude that the woman on the right does not fit the fashion silhouette of the twenties. Despite the elongating stripe in the middle of her dress, she certainly does not look slim.  However, it is a beautiful dress as far as we can see from this small photo.  Best of all she looks quite content, which is the best style of all.

Posted in 1920s | Tagged | 2 Comments

What a Grandmother Looks Like, 1920 Edition

Posted on October 17, 2025 by Lynn
Good Housekeeping, November 1920

I played with a lot of paper dolls as a girl and even designed a set for myself and my cousins.  However, it never occurred to me to make paper dolls for or about my grandmother.  Unlike this imaginary one, mine kept up with current styles.

Everything about this older woman says “old fashioned.” Her color choices, gray and lilac, were top among the few recommended to the older set.  Her skirt length is significantly longer than the styles of 1920.  Her necklines are high and several of her outfits show a lot of lace.  For cutting flowers in the garden, this grandmother even donned a bonnet, something that had disappeared from the fashion scene long ago.  Other telltale clues include the tea cup, knitting supplies, and the cat.  The only thing that looks vaguely up to date is the shorter length fur coat with the big shawl collar.

In one 1907 article in Harper’s Bazaar a young woman wondered where all the sweet old ladies had gone.  “They seem to have gone out of fashion along with the dear pretty caps they used to wear, and that they looked so sweet in” (Harper’s Bazaar, April 1907, p. 365).  She only had to wait a few years to find the cap on a paper doll in a rival publication.

Thanks, as always, to Davrie Caro for this discovery.

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A Fur Haori?

Posted on October 10, 2025 by Lynn
Found photo

The fur jacket on the right, with the long dangling sleeves, looks like a garment inspired by the Japanese haori, a short garment with a shape similar to a kimono. In Japan it is used as a coat worn over traditional clothing. 

The design of the jacket above is not exactly the same.  It is quite short, contrasting with the voluminous sleeves.  In that regard, the jacket resembles a furisode, a kimono style popular with young women that has long hanging sleeves. 

Whatever the inspiration, I think this jacket looks both elegant and highly impractical.  Personally I would rather have more warmth in the length and slimmer sleeves.  Wouldn’t these get slammed in car doors?  But if her intent was to convey wealth and leisure, this jacket does the trick. 

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Vogue’s First Age Issue–March 15, 1948

Posted on October 2, 2025 by Lynn

From 2004 to 2011, Vogue magazine published an “age issue” that featured accomplished older women, from novelist Judith Krantz to designer Muccia Prada.  The focus was on women with great style.

However, in what I am calling Vogue’s first “age issue” in 1948, the focus was different.  In an editorial called “Vogue’s Eye View of the New Majority,” the magazine drew attention to the potential political and social power of women over 45.  New census data had revealed that for the first time since record keeping began, women outnumbered men in the United States.  Moreover, women over 45 outnumbered men of the same age group by a whopping 800,000.  “The New Majority is a group of women with money, authority, and experience in living” (103). There follows a list of things these women should turn their attention to, including child poverty, teachers’ pay, and government priorities for health. 

Throughout the magazine, influential women in philanthropy and the arts get small cameos.  Although it is not explicitly mentioned, the cover model was famous hat designer Tatiana du Plessix, then aged 42.

Of course, fashion is not forgotten with nine pages focusing on “new fashions, adult and becoming.”  The first example is a green evening dress worn by a gray-haired woman.

Doesn’t she look a lot like Vogue’s older icon, Mrs. Exeter, who will make her first appearance in the magazine just a few months later?

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The Work Dress, 1930

Posted on September 26, 2025 by Lynn
Montgomery Ward catalog, 1930

I’ve been collecting the names that consumers, stores, and manufacturers used for the humble dresses that most American women wore in their daily activities well into the 1960s.  “House dress” is a common one, as are “wash dress” or the similar “tub dress.”  However, this ad in a 1930 Montgomery Ward catalog is the first time I’ve seen the term “work dress.” Today, we might assume that a work dress was meant for work outside the home, but that was obviously not the case in 1930.

The ad shows the kind of work this dress was made to handle, including scrubbing on your hands and knees. The ad promotes its special, sturdy design. Made of exclusive “Home Tex” cotton, with strong seams and roomy features, the dress was guaranteed for a full six months of wear. However, I wonder why a mention of Mississippi plantations was considered a selling feature.  Although the price seems ridiculously cheap us today, there were even cheaper house dresses in the catalog—so buyers were paying for the construction details. 

It is no surprise that the drawing depicts a young, slim woman, but note that the sizes go up to a 53 inch bust.  This dress was built for young and old, thick and thin, although larger women had to pay more for their “extra” sizes.    

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Book Review—Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

Posted on September 18, 2025 by Lynn
Simon and Schuster

Designer Claire McCardell is having something of a moment these days, since she served as the main example of fresh American style in the book The Empresses of Seventh Avenue.  Although this book is a biography and focuses on only one person, it makes a similar point.  By the 1940s, the New York fashion industry had developed a network of stores, manufacturing sites, and supportive institutions that raised American fashion to a higher level.  Behind it all were innovative designers with new ideas like McCardell.

Author Dickenson has access to new sources, including a treasure trove of letters written by McCardell to her family, which put flesh on the bare bones outline of her life.  Although this is a serious historical study, it takes some liberties with the facts, imagining times, places, and conversations that are not directly documented.  This makes the book a lively read, more novel-like than monograph.  On the other hand, it sets up expectations that are not met.  If we know so much about her private thoughts, why do we learn so little about her husband, who lurks around so ominously in the background? 

The premise of the book is simple.  McCardell was frustrated by the limitations of women’s clothes, like their fussy fabrics and movement restricting designs.  She came up with solutions that changed American women’s fashion forever, inserting pockets everywhere, focusing on easy use, and employing sturdy fabrics that would hold up over time.  Although Dickinson acknowledges that her ultimate success came with a heavy lift from retailers, publicists, and shifts in international fashion, I think the book leaves out other designers all over the country who were experimenting with similar ideas.  For example, Dickinson contends that McCardell invented the idea of separates.  This ignores the fact that many other designers, especially in California, came up with their versions at the same time.  Would it take away from McCardell’s brilliance to recognize her as the most visible and successful example of broader trends in American fashion?

This is a book in the tradition of the “great man” theory of history—only in this case the man is a woman.  It’s an interesting story, though, and certainly worth a look.  And for those of you who would just like to see the clothes, the Met has a wonderful collection.     

Posted in 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, General | Tagged , | 4 Comments

“Me and Molly”–A Play about Half Sizes

Posted on September 11, 2025 by Lynn
Playbill.com

If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you will know my fascination with half sizes, a no longer existing size range invented in the 1920s and killed off by the 1980s.  The real-life inventors of half sizes are obscure, since many different dress companies claimed credit.  However, that did not stop popular entertainer Gertrude Berg from writing a play in which her alter ego, radio and TV character Molly Goldberg, invented the size range all by herself. The play premiered on Broadway in 1948 and played for over four months to decent reviews.  It even had a revival in 1980. 

In the play, Molly comes up with the new system by measuring the women in her Bronx apartment building. “Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Bloom—you’re not a forty-four anymore; you’re a twenty-two and a half,” she proclaims to one of her neighbors.  She enlists the help of a pattern maker, and soon her acquaintances have dresses that fit perfectly. By the end of the play, the Goldbergs start their own manufacturing company.

Did life imitate art? Perhaps the play is what inspired Gertrude Berg to start her own clothing line.

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