Vogue Pattern Magazine, April-May 1953

This issue of Vogue Pattern Magazine is crammed full of amazing dresses, so I'm sure you'll see more of it, and sooner rather than later. Let me just say that 1953? An excellent year for interesting necklines.

But for now, turn your attention to the dress on the left in this scan. It illustrates perfectly one of the problems of buying old pattern magazines: you are then tormented by being unable to find the actual old patterns. (Pattern magazines, for the most part, are just catalogs of the patterns. They do not contain them.) This is one of the many patterns in this issue that I've been looking for for years. The drape at the neckline, the full skirt, the soft gathering under the bust: if I had this pattern I would have made it several times over (pale-blue handkerchief linen, anyone?). But I don't, and I'm too lazy to draft my own pattern for it, so this dress stays on the page instead of hanging in my closet.

(Click on the image to see it full-size in a new window.)

The Feel of It

Sometimes it's not so much the look of the dress (although this one looks, in my opinion, marvelous) but the feel of it. Look at that gathering at the bottom of the back yoke. Made in a heavy enough fabric, this would pull your shoulders back, make you stand straighter. The gathering at the center back of the skirt, so much more than at the front, would feel like a train. How do you feel, if you are standing with your shoulders well back, and if when you move you it seems like you are managing a train? You feel like a queen.

(Click on the image to see it full-size in a new window.)

UFO Pile, No. 1

UFO in this context (for those of you who don't spend all your free time sewing) means "un-finished object." The dress at the left in this picture is a UFO of mine. I made it up in a heavy raw silk, in black, which I think is what led to it descending to the UFO netherworld. The fabric isn't stiff enough (it's heavy but floppy) and, frankly, I find sewing with black fabric boring. (Click on the image to see it full-size in a new window.)

I may yet dig it out and finish it up, though, because the lines are gorgeous. You know the person who designed that went home pleased with herself that day.

Great Dresses of (Mediocre) Literature, Pt. 1

Anne surveyed herself in the mirror of the blue room with girlish satisfaction. She had a particularly pretty gown on. Originally it had been only a simple little slip of cream silk with a chiffon overdress. But Phil had insisted on taking it home with her in the Christmas holidays and embroidering tiny rosebuds all over the chiffon. Phil's fingers were deft, and the result was a dress which was the envy of every Redmond girl. Even Allie Boone, whose frocks came from Paris, was wont to look with longing eyes on that rosebud concoction as Anne trailed up the main staircase at Redmond in it.

from Anne of the Island, L.M. Montgomery, 1915.

Submissions for this recurring feature of A Dress A Day are gratefully accepted.

Ossie Clark for the Hostess

The Ossie Clark exhibit from whence this picture comes is long over, but the nice thing about museums (especially the V&A, which is the spiritual home of The Dress) is that they don't throw stuff away. Heck, they don't even take down old websites! Thus, today's dress. Which makes me wish (and not for the first time) that I were a six-foot-tall glamazon. (Barefoot at the party, of course, and dripping with gypsy gold-coin jewelry ... ) You can see it again, in context, here.

Be sure to scroll down to the dress and coat with big red floral design (Celia Birtwell's "Floating Daisy").

Never say never.

I came across this dress while winnowing through my patterns for ones I wouldn't be too sad to get rid of. This one was an instant grab: I don't do peplums. It's been sitting on my desk for a couple weeks. Every time I see it, though, the "nah ..." reaction diminishes, so much so that now I've reached the point where I'm thinking about what fabric I could possibly make this in. That, perhaps, a cheery yellow gingham would be an ironic counterpoint to the absolute hard-edged cigarette-holder Crawfordishness of this peplumed wonder.

I still wouldn't use the floral embroidery transfer. That's a bridge too far.