Tag: Christian Dior

1950s fashion, designers, sewing, sewing patterns, vintage clothing, vintage fashion

Designers Hiding in Plain Sight

Lisa

I was trying to put a date on a Bestway pattern that I recently received, and came across this. Bestway Patterns are British, and the numbering is odd. In the thirties, they seem to have five digit numbers, but it evolved to a lettering and puncuation system later. The one I have is C. 1,019, so it must be around this era. You also have to take into account the years of wartime fabric rationing in Europe, which were much longer than in the US, and much more strict.

The pattern I have is a shirtwaist dress with pleated bodice and skirt, and falls below mid knee. The hairstyle is similar to this one, so it can’t be thirties, and since fabric rationing was throughout the forties in the UK, I figured it was, at earliest, 1950. That’s how I found this one.

This dress ad is dated March of 1950, from a Liverpool newspaper, and as you can see, is plainly noted as a Christian Dior style. Not only that, it is advertised as the first Christian Dior pattern made available to the public, three years after his first collection was seen on the runway. It is not, however, labelled as such anywhere on the envelope. This is how much you have to dig sometimes to realize that it is a designer pattern. There is a set of McCalls patterns from the sixties that are Biba, but not openly marked as such as well. It’s well worth it to see exactly what you may have. The pattern companies did not always make is simple.

1950s fashion, designers, sewing patterns, vintage clothing, vintage fashion

Echoes of the New Look

Lisa

Christian Dior rocked the fashion scene with his 1947, which was ultimately called “The New Look.” Gone was the fabric rationing of the era. The pronouncement that Paris fashion had not only survived the war, but that it was back in new and exciting ways was obvious, as Dior showed his “Corolle” and “Figure 8” styles. These styles were minimalist while over the top, with voluminous skirts, requiring yards of fabric never seen before. He stripped down to the details when showing them, keeping colors deliberately muted and hats very simple. The Bar Jacket is iconic, and seen in museums all overthe world.

Bar Suit, 1947. Photo: Vogue.

Echoes of the Bar Suit are seen throughout the late forties, fifties, and early sixties. It returns in the 80s, and is seen even today. Sewing patterns are reflective of its popularity. Remember, this is a time when sewing pattern companies and fashion designers sent representatives to Paris with their only assignment being to replicate the styles seen in the fashion shows. This brought Paris fashion to housewives in America, making real style attainable. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, designers were not always given attribution, so it would take some deep diving to find which designer matched with which “Paris Fashion” pattern, but they definitely exist.

When I saw this pattern the other day, I saw the echoes, with it’s tiny “flap” (they don’t call it a peplum). It’s a one piece dress, as opposed to the Bar Suit, which is two pieces, but wouldn’t you agree that there is a definite influence here?

Marian Martin 9133, ©1950.

It’s not exact, of course, but it’s like hearing echoes of one musician in another’s music. The influence is definitely there.

1950s fashion, designers, vintage clothing

Fabulous Friday: Goddess

Lisa
Dovima and the Elephants, 1995, by Richard Avedon.

This may be the first post I’ve done about Dovima, but it most likely won’t be the last, because I. Love. Her. She is truly a goddess, to my eye, and the most iconic model in fashion history, with perhaps the exception of Carmen Dell’Orifice. Actually, she is the most iconic, but Carmen has had a longer career, by virtue of living longer and modelling into her 80s. But Dovima. ::sigh::

Dovima hit the fashion scene in the 40s, and worked into the 60s. She came from an era where models brought their own accessories, shoes and makeup, and did things on the fly. They did their own hair, they did their own makeup, and often the photos were done in any location they could find quickly, especially after a fashion show, when all of the photographers were vying for pictures of the same garment. This is why you will see so many photos of that era outside, where they ran to shoot after a show, or in front of a plain backdrop. It’s some of the most recognizable fashion photography ever done.

The models of that era had an elegance you don’t see now. Dovima was especially so. The way she placed her hands and tilted her head could not be replicated. Her relationship with also-iconic Richard Avedon was muse and mentor, as he considered her one of the last elegant models and she trusted him to capture beautiful images. He shot the unforgettable image above, Dovima and the Elephants, shot at a circus in Paris and featured in Harper’s Bazaar in 1955. The original dress was the first one Yves St. Laurent did for Christian Dior, and it is now housed at Newfields Art Museum in Indianapolis. I have stood and stared at it in awe many times, imagining the scene as Dovima created the image of soft and hard, old and new, elegance and animal instinct. It evokes a lot of emotion for me.

Dovima, for all of her elegance, lived a complex life. Married three times, and the face of both Dior and Balenciaga, she ended up broke in Florida, waitressing at a pizza joint. She had a particular affinity for abusive men, and according to other models of the era, would sometimes arrive at their apartments in the middle of the night, crying about what had been done to her. They wanted to help her, but she always fell back into relationships with the wrong men. She retired from modelling as Camelot crumbled and the mod era arrived, never to be seen on camera again. She died from liver cancer in Florida in 1990, but her images will live forever.

Dovima, by Richard Avedon, 1955.