Skirt, Blouse, and Hairstyle, December 1907

Butterick skirt 1624 and blouse-waist 1659 showing several possible versions. Delineator, December 1907 p. 885.

Just a single detailed illustration like this one gives a wealth of information about this blouse and skirt, with back and front views of the clothes and one of the hairstyles. I will break it down into close-ups of the details.

Starting with the skirt:

Front and back views of Butterick skirt 1624, from December 1907. The back view shows it without the band of lace trim.

This is a “circular” skirt, with one seam in front and one in back.

The skirt develops folds (or wrinkles) in front.

I think the folds of fabric in front are a result of the sway-backed posture she is forced into by her corset:

From an ad for a G.D. Corset, Delineator, October 1907.

In the three views of blouse-waist 1659, it is trimmed three different ways. However, the low-necked evening version is not illustrated.

Three views of Butterick 1659. December 1907.

The back view, left, shows ribbon trim on the collar, echoing the geometric pattern on the lace; the back view shows a striped lace or fabric on the foundation lining and scalloped lace trim.

A 1910 French lining similar to the one used under Blouse 1659.

The pattern description says the high neckline and sleeves are attached to the under lining, not to the parts of the blouse we see:

Notice that the armholes are not visibly connected to the sleeves. The sleeves are attached to the under-lining.

Another view of the same blouse, made in a dark color with a sheer, simple fabric filling the neckline. “The short puff sleeves are inserted in the foundation, the large armhole of the blouse being furnished with lace.”

The illustration also gives us back and front views of one (enormous) hairstyle…

… the one for evening is decorated with a roses and a plume on top.

These illustrations were obviously influenced by the work of Charles Dana Gibson. Gibson maintained that he was merely reproducing the women he saw on the streets of America.

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All-American Cooking

I don’t usually talk about where I live, but I do appreciate San Francisco for more than the mild climate and the Silent Film Festival.

My husband, in Texas, late 1940s. Me, in California, about the same time.

I keep being reminded how lucky I am to have grown up in a part of the U.S. which was built and is constantly sustained by immigrants from all over the world. (It’s not just the great food, but sharing a meal is a traditional way of getting to know our neighbors.) My experiences growing up near San Francisco were different from my husband’s, who remembers attending segregated schools in a North Texas town. (My own schools were segregated not by official policy, but by neighborhoods in a “walking distance to school” approach. Definitely not ideal. And California — to our shame — was the leader in many anti-immigrant policies, like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 — an extraordinary example of ingratitude, since it was chiefly Chinese workers who tunneled through the Sierra mountains in the 1860s –making the Union Pacific Railroad that linked California with the rest of the nation possible.)

Recently, I was reminded of one of the things I learned by living here. Our SF neighborhood movie theater showed Harold and Maude for Valentine’s Day. There is a glimpse — just a few seconds — of Maude’s wrist. In the sixties, in San Francisco, one customer of the bank where I worked — an admirable man, a pillar of the community — was an Auschwitz survivor. Whenever he wore a short-sleeved shirt, I saw his concentration camp tattoo; that’s not something you forget.  Maude has row of numbers on her arm, too; it’s a detail you might not understand, if you grew up in a town where most people have the same background, the same churches, the same politics.

My California parents (born in 1904) embraced diversity. They believed in the American “melting pot” idea — that the stew is more delicious if everyone puts something in. Speaking of stew…

Pozole is a sort of stew popular in the American Southwest. It uses many traditional Mexican ingredients. One day at the grocery store, a young woman in line behind me saw the tomatillos, the chiles, and the hominy I was buying. “Are you making pozole?” she asked, clearly surprised. When I said I was, she told me that her mother was born in Mexico, but her husband was from Palestine. Pork shoulder (on sale at $.99 per lb; one recipe makes a huge pot of pozole) is the usual meat for this dish, but her Muslim husband doesn’t eat pork. So she substitutes chicken thighs (which were also on sale at $.99 per lb., although mine weren’t halal.) I tried it and discovered that I much prefer the chicken version! How lucky I am that she spoke to me. That’s what I call All-American(s) cooking.

At a potluck party last year I met a woman who is active in a Jewish genealogy group. She has had amazing success exchanging information and photos with people around the world. [From a picture she posted, a stranger in Europe recognized the house her ancestors once lived in — it was next door to his ancestors’ home. In the 1920s, those close neighbors had exchanged photos — so he had photographs of her family that her own ancestors had lost in the Holocaust. Now she has copies.] In addition to being very helpful with genealogy advice,  she had brought to the party the best kugel (a noodle and dairy dish) I have ever tasted. I confess, I had three helpings over five hours! She said, “I like to experiment with Italian dairy products — sometimes I use ricotta, or mascarpone. This time, as I was putting in the spices, I added some cardamom.” Wow! It was exceptional. (When I told a Muslim friend whose father was born in India about the cardamom, she laughed with delight.) Another example of All-American(s) cooking.

From the food truck at a farmer’s market, I ordered a sort of soft taco: barbecued pork, plus a dash of Asian plum sauce (the kind you spread on your rice pancake with mu shu chicken or pork,) plus a handful of baby greens, rolled in a warm corn tortilla. Southern barbecue, Chinese sauce, wrapped in a corn tortilla: fabulous All-American(s) cooking.

San Franciscans sharing food, sharing stories: Just a few reasons why I love this town.

Two book critics at my breakfast table.

In the Swim, 1907 (Without a Skirt!)

Butterick bathing suit pattern 1245 is a one-piece, without a skirt.

This Butterick pattern from Delineator, July 1907, came as a surprise to me. “Where is the skirt illustration?” I was thinking. And then I read the text:

Pattern description, Butterick 1245, Delineator, July 1907.

This is a “swimming suit” rather than a “bathing suit.” Nice distinction!

Here is the bottom part of the description in bigger print:

The dress-like bathing suit in this story illustration [also from the July 1907 issue] is more typical (I think).

Story illustration from Delineator, July 1907. Page 56.

Love her beach shoes…. And what does his hat tell us about that character??? Looks like a college boy to me…. Or a guy who leaned forward to look in a store window and forgot he was wearing a hat. I wish I’d had time to read the story.

Happy Mothers’ Day 2019

This mother and baby illustration graced the cover of Delineator magazine for December, 1907. Unsigned.

Happy Mothers’ Day to all caregivers — mothers and others.

Christmas issue cover, Delineator, December 1907.

In addition to supplying readers with the latest fashions from Butterick, Delineator often campaigned for better child and infant care, marriage equality, and other “women’s issues.”

Time Traveling Again

This week I’ve been attending the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (seeing movies from the 1920s in a theater that opened in 1922!) and also visiting the Bound Periodicals collection at SF Main Library. Their earliest copies of Butterick’s Delineator magazine are July to December 1907.

One pleasant surprise: a 1907 monthly feature illustrated by fashion photos instead of drawings!

Shirt-waists and blouses (called waists) photographed for Delineator, July 1907. The article is from a series called “Dressing on Dimes.”

I’m also “visiting 1912” at the moment.

Butterick patterns from Delineator, July 1912, p. 23.

I’m trying to prioritize photographing color images, since color is what was lost when so many magazines were microfilmed (and then discarded by libraries) years ago. Even issues that have been scanned by Google and made available online lose a lot of information, because these old magazines used very small type with a serif font on very large pages; automated scanners have to make a choice between legible text, legible drawings, and accurate color illustrations — not always very successfully. [Link added 5/6/19] (Nevertheless, Hathi Trust makes many issues available that would otherwise be very rare and hard to find.) When I visit the bound copies of Delineator, I usually take 3 or 4 photos of each fashion page: whole page, top half, bottom half, and closeups of images. That allows a different camera exposure for text and images, but it’s not a fast process…. Even photographing a small ad requires an “establishing shot” with the page number on it, then a close-up.

I’m finding wonderful color illustrations…

Butterick pattern illustration, Delineator, April 1907, p. 27.

Butterick illustration for waist [bodice] 5188 and [separate] skirt 5189. Delineator, February 1912, p. 105.

… accompanied by useful line drawings…

Line drawings like these are easier to “figure out” for reproduction than full color paintings. Butterick waist 5514 with skirt 5515, showing front and back views. (Hard to realize this is not a dress! Bodice and skirt do not necessarily open in the same place.)  Delineator, July 1912, p. 24.

…and I photograph those (to me) irresistible ads for corsets, bust improvers, hip padding (!) and other products for women.

W.B. Corsets ad for the Reduso corset. Delineator, September, 1907.

Just looking at that corset makes my back ache! It seems that advertisers always think women are either too fat or too thin, and in need of “improvement:”

Ad for H & H Pneumatic Bust Forms, Delineator, July 1907, page 147.

Pneumatic seems to mean “inflated”– “For bathers at the sea-shore they are indispensable; … acts as a buoy to the bather and makes swimming easy.” [Unless you want to swim face-down?

Hats are always tempting me to photograph them:

Butterick waist 5312 with skirt 5313 and a hat that would keep people at arm’s length…. Delineator, April 1912.

Hat featured in fashion article for December 1907. I think it resembles the foliage from a Christmas Cactus….

Don’t sit behind her at the movies.

I do try not to photograph everything that captures my attention, but limiting myself to color images is not easy.

A suit photographed for the “Dress for Dimes” series. Delineator, October 1907.

Being able to see clothing, accurately dated, without the distorted proportions of fashion illustrations is a treat. Delineator‘s fashion photos from the 1920s were not as good as the ones from 1907.

On the other hand, this story illustration is lovely, and I’m surprised by that low-backed gown at left.

Painting illustrating fiction in Delineator, August 1912. Men in white tie: maximum formality.

Edited  5/7/19: A closer look at that low-backed blue-green evening dress hints that a layer of whitish lace was visible above the deep V.

Detail; I think / expect that sheer white or ecru lace covers her camisole and is visible above the deep V back. I also see ermine tails on the white-haired lady.

After seeing that [illustration], I’m thinking maybe 1912 would be a good year for My Fair Lady / Pygmalion.

Ladies’ coat and jacket outfits, Delineator, April 1912, p. 297.

As usual, it’s astonishing to see how rapidly fashions changed. Just two years later:

Butterick patterns from May 1914. The slender lines of 1912 are gone.

Once I have five or six hundred photos downloaded, I have to label them all (year, month, page, pattern numbers,) which takes quite a while. Of course I want to post as many as possible right away, but an orderly process is absolutely necessary to keep images and their information together. So I may be taking a week or so off from posting blogs!

Back soon!

Butterick Wedding Dress, May 1910

Butterick 3784 illustrated as a wedding gown. Delineator, May 1910. Page 384.

The editors of Butterick’s Delineator magazine featured this pattern on at least three pages; a very illustration shows it not being used as a wedding dress:

The woman seated at right is wearing Butterick “princess dress” 3784, made with black lace and a burnt-orange fabric [described as tan.]  Delineator, May 1910. Page 385.

Butterick 3784 is a good example of the “princess” dresses that were so popular in 1910. When you consider how many Butterick illustrations from this era actually showed a separate, matching waist [i.e., bodice / blouse] and skirt (rather than a dress,) the one-piece princess dress that continued to the hem without any seam at the waist was distinctive. (A bodice/blouse that continued past the waist was often called “semi-princess,” like pattern 3843 at the left of the color illustration.)

Butterick 3784 is shaped by the vertical seams from bodice to hem which are still described as “princess seams.” (The princess-seamed dresses below are from the 1920s:)

But the topic today is princess dress 3784, in its bridal and evening versions:

Butterick princess-seamed bridal gown 3784, shown with a long train. Delineator, May 1910, page 384.

Butterick 3784 illustrated as part of a bridal trousseau article, May 1910, page 441. Here, it has a shorter train.

The black and “tan” version of 3784 is shown with a minimal (or no) train when worn as a day or evening dress. Page 385.

Below: Front and back views of 3784 show (left) “medium sweep or round train,” (center) a long or medium train, plus a very different bodice variation, with V-neck and decorative buttons. In this illustration, the sleeves reach just below the elbows.

Front and back views of 3784, showing an extreme train (90 inches from the waist) and a very different bodice variation with V-neck and decorative buttons. May 1910, page 384.

It could be made with long or short sleeves, with a high neck, a round neck or a square neck, and with or without the “bolero” of white or black lace.

Pattern description for Butterick bridal dress, evening dress, or day dress 3784, Delineator, May 1910.

The longer sleeves and high neck in the bridal version are probably part of an under lining, sometimes called a guimpe, which could be worn under other blouses. Butterick blouse 3647 illustrates how this works:

Butterick waist (blouse) 3647 has a scoop neck and open sleeves which end above the elbow. It is worn over a body-lining with long sleeves and a high collar. March 1910.

Here is the bridal version of 3784 with covered throat, covered arms, and a medium train (72 0r 63 inches from the waist.)

Butterick 3784 illustrated as part of a bridal trousseau article, May 1910, page 441.

This is text describing Butterick 3784:

Pattern descriptions for Butterick bridal dress or day dress 3784, Delineator, May 1910. The writer is Eleanor Chalmers.

A very practical (or economy-minded) bride might cut the train off of her wedding dress (“It should be made as simply as possible and in such a way that it may be worn with perfect propriety for other occasions which may come up after the wedding….”) and have the gown dyed, so that she could wear it for afternoon or evening — without the under-lining sleeves and high collar.

P.S. A gown like this would have boning along the torso seams, but it wouldn’t look historically accurate without one of these under it:

Kabo corset ad, detail, Delineator, March 19910 p. 262.

Ad for Kabo corsets, Delineator, March 1910, page 262.

 

 

 

 

 

Butterick Patterns for Children, 1930

Each of these schoolgirls wears an outfit with matching jacket. Butterick patterns in Delineator, April 1930.

I’m struck by how grown up these schoolgirls would look in their suits. (Farther down,  I’ll show school clothes for girls that really echoed the clothes women would have worn to the office.)

The alternate view, left, shows a miniature 1920’s cardigan suit. Butterick 3169 for girls 4 to 10.

The details of the sleeveless blouse are rather sophisticated. [I remember having to wear a skirt like this, held up by matching suspenders, in first grade…. It’s incredible that I once had no hips!]

Butterick 6135 is very like an adult’s dress, with a deep back tied with a bow. For ages 8 to 15. Delineator, April 1930.

If the little girl’s suit (3169 looked) “1920s,” clothes for her older sister (above) show the higher waist of the Thirties.

This little boy is too young to object to ruffles, according to the description, and the girl wears a 1920s’ style that still looks charming to me; it also suggests an outfit for the office, with its bib front and prim little bow!

Butterick patterns for children: 3150 and 3364 from August 1930, Delineator.

Some clothes really were child-sized copies of adult clothing:

The sleeveless dress with cape-collared jacket (3226) isn’t an exact copy of an adult style, but the jumper outfit (3234) is very similar to an adult version. Delineator, May 1930.

Butterick 3234 is for girls 8 to 15; Butterick 3239 is for women in a full range of sizes up to 44″ bust.

I wish this explained how you got into this top; the fitted waist, front and back, implies an opening somewhere. (Probably a side seam opening closed with snap fasteners.)

The coat shown below must have been out of the budget for most children’s wardrobes.

Butterick 3448 has a flared skirt; girls’ coat 3467 has a capelet and fur trim — very grown-up. October 1930.

Proportioned for girls 8 to 15, coat 3467 mimics the woman’s coat at right (Butterick 3491.) Both from autumn, 1930. Delineator.

From a page of fashions for working women [!] Delineator, October 1930. Right, women’s coat 3491.

Left, for girls 8 to 15, Butterick coat 3422 and dress 3414, from September 1930. Delineator. Even the little girl’s caped coat (3434) has a fur collar and capelet like 3491, above.

The dress above (3414) has a false bolero, just like the adult dress (3529) below:

Left, for girls 8 to 15; right, for women. Fall 1930, Delineator.

Left, a bolero jacket over a dress with a light-colored top. July 1930. Women wore them , too.

This bolero suit came in versions for very little girls and their bigger sisters. Delineator, August 1930.

(The girl’s skirt stays up because it is buttoned to the blouse, like the little boy’s outfit, below.)

Right, another bolero suit. The girl’s dress in the middle is quite a departure from the usual 1930’s styles for women, however. It pre-dates the Letty Lynton fad.

The image above is from a page of party fashions for girls; frilly dresses for little girls allowed for departures from the “miniature woman” look.

These party dresses for little girls (age 4 to 10) are nothing like the body-hugging adult fashions of the 1930s. Delineator, November, 1930.

For very young girls, a shapeless dress with fantasy trim (right, Butterick 3529.) Girls in their teens, however, might prefer to wear a dress with a waist — like 3532, in the middle. November 1930.

These dresses for girls from 8 to 15 look like 1920s’ styles, except that they are belted at the waist instead of the hip. Delineator, August 1930.

It’s almost a relief to see that girls were not necessarily expected to grow up overnight in 1930, although many must have joined the workforce in their early teens. [Depression Era film recommendation: Wild Boys of the Road, 1933 . Click here for Plot summary. A teen-aged girl is among the desperate children riding the rails. Louise Brooks made a similar picture in 1928, before the stock market crash: Beggars of Life.]