Duchess of Windsor Patterns

Perhaps you have not heard of the Spadea Pattern Company, which put out patterns by the likes of Claire McCardell and Mollie Parnis from the 1950s to the 1970s. Read about its fascinating history in Lizzie Bramlett’s Vintage Traveler blog. Along with famous designers, the company also encouraged celebrities to contribute their ideas. One was the Duchess of Windsor, aka American born Wallis Simpson, who had gained a reputation as a well-dressed older woman.

In the fall of 1959, advertisments for Duchess of Windsor patterns began appearing in newspapers. The first offerings were a set of six rather fancy styles—three cocktail dresses, one day dress, one Chanel-esqe cardigan suit, and a coat. They featured drawings that looked like the Duchess—a very slim, no-longer-young woman with dark hair and big pearls.  The last pattern I found was dated 1972.

The pattern line made good newspaper copy. Interviews made clear that Simpson did not do the technical work herself. “Endowed with taste, although lacking technical skills, the Duchess communicates her designs verbally to the company’s owner, James Spadea, and his wife,” reported the New York Times. “Sample suggestions: why not try buttoning a Chanel suit on the side, like a dentist’s jacket.” (“Windsors to Celebrate Silver Anniversary, NYT June 1, 1962) Perhaps the pattern below was the result. Note that the drawing now featured a younger looking woman.

Sometime in the mid 1960s, Spadea published a catalog featuring 58 of Simpson’s designs.
They were all on the dressed-up side of the sixties fashion panoply–no wild cut outs, no pants suits, no short skirts. It was as if she were offering her own answer to one dilemma of the decade: what should older women wear during the “youth quake”?

It would be wonderful to get our hands on the sales figures for the Spadea company. Did the Duchess “brand” attract more buyers than the patterns of designers like Claire McCardell? Certainly the company’s ad copy cashed in her title. “The ladies adjusted their lorgnettes to see what the Duchess was wearing as she slipped off her coat… It was this beautifully shaped two piece dress.” (The Duchess of Windsor Patterns, Spadea Patterns, no date).  References to the Duchess’s “aristocratic” taste and long term standing on the Best Dressed list suffuse these descriptions. There was absolutely no hint that the Duchess was just a very lucky lady from Baltimore