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.

Posted in 1910s | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Sportswear for Curling, 1908

Posted on February 26, 2026 by Lynn
Library of Congress

She might not be fifty yet, and she’s not an American. Nonetheless, I loved this photo of a Canadian woman curling so much that I thought I would share it with you. It’s from one of my favorite sources, the Library of Congress’s weekly photo uploads on Flickr. The clever people who choose the photos often try to match them with current events. Obviously the Winter Olympics inspired this one. It’s good to remember that professionals’ skills were first nurtured by passionate amateurs.

Of course it’s the clothing that drew me to this member of the Montreal Curling Club. She has made some nods to the needs of her sport, especially the very fluffy sweater and the woolen gloves. But her hat! I will yield to the superior knowledge of hat experts, but it looks to me like she could also wear it to church on Sunday. The woman behind her has on an outfit that better fits my idea of serious sports attire for women in the early twentieth century–a menswear inspired outfit complete with tie. Note also her more serious gloves.

Regardless of what she’s wearing, our curler looks like she knows what she’s doing!

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Hand Sewing in Thomastown, 1940

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Lynn
Library of Congress

Unlike many seamstresses, I enjoy hand sewing.  Perhaps that is why I was attracted to this Farm Security Administration photo from 1940.  As is the case with many of these photos available from the Library of Congress, this one comes with quite a bit of information.  The photographer, Marion Post Wolcott, gives the following caption: “Patsy Jordan sewing in the living room of her daughter’s home at La Delta Project. Thomastown, Louisiana.”

This is just one of series of photos documenting the La Delta Project, a New Deal a relocation and housing program for Black cooperative farmers.  Each of the 147 families involved in the program received housing and land, along with a community center and a new school.

Library of Congress

The photo above, also by Wolcott, shows the contrast between old and new housing.

The photo of Patsy Jordan in her daughter’s living room is intended to show the spacious interior of the new housing.  All of the elements of a comfortable middle class life are on display—a carpet on the floor, pictures on the wall, and a cozy sofa.  What is that piece of furniture on her right?  A radio set? A cabinet for keepsakes? Both?  Jordan looks quite content in her cotton house dress, covered with a full apron. She has on thick stockings along with those ubiquitous lace-up oxfords.  I wonder what she is sewing. Or is she just posed for the photographer?

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Quilting in Harlem

Posted on February 11, 2026 by Lynn
Studio Museum of Harlem

I think of African American quilting as a rural activity, probably because of the long legacy of Gee’s Bend quilters.  However, this event at the Studio Museum of Harlem shows that the tradition is alive and well in urban areas, too.  I found the photo while visiting the museum on a recent trip to New York City.  The facility has long functioned as a local school as well as a place to support new artistic talent.

Look how dressed up the women are to practice their craft! I wonder if they learned it before they moved to the city or were taught by their own relatives who made the journey before them. 

The photo was undated (or I missed the date).  However, looking at the clothes and the quilts on display in the background, it might have been taken during an exhibit of quilts in 1984. Showing how the work was done is very much in the tradition of the museum.  Maybe interested onlookers were inspired to try their hands at quilting.

And thinking of urban quilters, it is no surprise that the first quilt made by New York City textile artist, Faith Ringgold, is in the museum’s collection.

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The Last Word on Half Sizes

Posted on February 4, 2026 by Lynn

After at over a decade long fascination with the now forgotten category of half sizes, I think I’ve said my last on the topic. My colleague Carmen Keist and I recently published an article that traces the history of this phenomenon from its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise at the end of the 20th century.  If you would like to read the pdf, contact me at americanagefashion@gmail.com and I will send you a link. 

Initially conceived as an alternative to the standard size range taking shape at the beginning of the twentieth century, the developers of half sizes argued that most women were neither as tall nor as thin as designers and manufactures assumed. But instead of replacing old measurements, half sizes quickly became linked to older women.  Ads like the one above from 1934 were common, implying that half sizes would make an older body shape look young. 

Even efforts to produce celebrity brands by Gloria Swanson and Molly Goldberg in the 1950s only brought a temporary upswing in sales.

In the late 1980s, when the garment industry undertook a major renumbering of the sizing system, half sizes were eliminated from most brands altogether. 

Should we mourn their passing?  I think so.  Their design included features like a higher and wider waist that fit the post-menopausal body better.  These days, though, our sizing system is so confused that numbers and categories have little common meaning.  My advice, as always, is to sew your own clothes!

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