Two-piece dresses from Butterick, Delineator, February 1926. These are for teens and small women.
Iin 1926, as far as Butterick patterns were concerned, a dress could be either one piece or a separate top and matching skirt. In fact, some one-piece dresses were made to look like they were two-piece!
The dress on the right, Butterick 6575, has a deep band near the hip (with buttons), simulating the look of a separate blouse and skirt.
“Many slip over one-piece frocks give the effect of a two-piece costume….” Delineator magazine, February 1926.
The pattern on the right, Butterick 6637, is another dress pretending to be a skirt and blouse. Notice the line of stitching that marks a deep tuck at the hip.
Left: one-piece dress 6533 pretends to be a two-piece. Both these dresses make good use of use border prints.
Real two-piece dresses were available for all ages, from pre-teen to adult.
On the right, Butterick two-piece dress pattern 6582. The separate skirt has a lively flare. (6605 is a one-piece dress.)
“The circular skirt is attached to an underbody.” The underbody (also called a “camisole body or yoke”) was one of the tricks of making a Twenties’ skirt and top work well together. I’m going to re-show the two outfits that started this post so you can compare them easily with two very similar skirt patterns that have underbodies:
Two-piece dresses from Butterick, Delineator, February 1926. Left, Butterick 6545; right, Butterick 6562. For misses 15 to 20 and small women.
If you could see through their blouses, you’d see that the skirts have no waistband. They hang from the shoulders, like this:
Butterick skirt patterns 6601 and 6658, also from the February issue of Delineator.
The circular skirt (6588) “may be worn under blouses or as a slip under frocks.” It’s for ladies 35 to 52 inch hip –quite large.
Alternate views of Butterick skirts 6601 and 6588 show a “hanging from the waist” option, with the underbody option shown in dotted lines.
Although some nineteen-twenties’ skirts did have a waistband, the skirt with underbody didn’t need darts or other shaping for a natural waist that might be ten inches smaller than the hips. In fact, the woman aiming for a boyish figure tried to pretend that she had no waist.
Foundation garments (or corselets) designed to minimize the difference between waist and hip. Delineator, February 1926, p. 24.
Obviously, if you turn your figure into a tube shape, any skirt which hangs from your waist will tend to slide down. (And twist around as you sit and walk.) The underbody solved this problem by making the skirt and top move independently of each other. However, as seen above, pattern illustrations did show a waistband option for those who still had a waist….
Alternate views of Butterick skirts 6601 and 6588. Feb. 1926. These are skirt patterns, but 6588 has several lines of stitching at the hem, which would make it stiffer when used as a petticoat.
I’ve been looking for a good underbody illustration for some time. Making a Twenties’ costume this way means that the actors’ clothes will fall neatly into place when they stand after sitting.
Now for some more Twenties’ two-piece dresses:
Butterick 6522 is simple and charming (don’t forget those important long ribbon ties!) Designed for a youthful wearer, 15 or under, the skirt is shorter than for a mature woman — giving it the knee-length proportions that look “right” to modern eyes. The skirt looks much like No. 6601 (and dress 6545.)
The use of the word “juniors” surprised me.
The dress featured with this girl’s coat is pattern 6582, illustrated in blue above.
You could make this entire outfit from Butterick patterns: Coat 6609, two-piece dress 6582, and hat 5952. February 1926. Butterick also sold the embroidery transfer, No. 10383.
A closer look at that coat and hat:
Butterick coat pattern 6609 with hat embroidered to match.
Butterick two-piece “dress” 6577 uses double-sided, reversible fabric:
Butterick two-piece dress pattern 6577, from February 1926. “The straight skirt, with its inverted plait at each side front and at the center back, is attached to an underbody with a camisole top.” For teens and small women.
Having grown up wearing cotton flannel pajamas, I have to remind myself that flannel can mean wool.
Right, two-piece dress 6597. Left, a simple one-piece dress that uses a border print for impact. February 1926.
Butterick two-piece dress 6581. The stripes are probably a border print. For teens and small women.
“Its straight skirt, attached to an underbody,” has inverted pleats. This particular skirt style keeps reappearing. Dress skirts from the early 1920’s often had all the pleats or fullness in the front, with a perfectly “plain back,” but now the back of the skirt is also pleated or gathered.
Right, the two-piece dress for average-sized women is shown a few inches longer than dresses for under-twenties. These stripes are definitely a border print (See description of its color illustration, below.) Butterick 6608, February 1926, p 32.
The same pattern was illustrated in color on page 29, and without the stripes:
Butterick 6608 from page 29. “The straight skirt, gathered at the front, is attached to an underbody.”
It has a plain back:
Oops: I never supplied the pattern descriptions for these dresses. Back views of other patterns appear at the end of the post.
Butterick 6545 and 6562 from February 1926. You might not want to include the cutesy animal embroidery, but those decorative pocket hankies appear constantly in fashion illustrations from 1925 and 1926, including several shown in this post.
Bois de rose (rosewood) was a popular color introduced in couture; it’s a neutralized, slightly tan, rose pink — hard to photograph!
Back views of dresses for girls 15 or under. 1926. 658s is a girl’s version of 6562, above.
Back views of one-piece dresses pretending to be separates. Delineator, February 1926.
witness2fashion 
What a lovely long post, thank you. The information about the underbodies to prevent twisting and improve the hang of the skirt, is very interesting.
I like these drop waist styles. They made a brief comeback in the 1980’s.
Those little animal embroideries are so charming! Lovely.
This gives lots more ideas actually of how to get a ’20s look by using a blouse or sweater over a dress to hide the waist. Very interesting to see those ‘underneath’ illustrations of how it all worked.
Thank you, as always, for these pictures!
A problem with the skirt being attached to an underbodice is, that you will have to wash the skirt much more often, which might wear the material out and means additional work, even more so, if there are, for instance, pleats to press. I wonder, if this was an issue at all. Just airing the clothes can’t really be the long-term solution, can it?
I hand’t thought about that; perhaps, if the skirt is hand basted to the underbodice, you could separate them for washing, Mostly, I think our modern notions of cleanliness are different. And they did have deodorants….
You’re right, it must have been another approach to cleanliness. And surely to spending time on and caring for your clothes, too. Separating the skirt for washing the bodice means work that seems unnecessary, but than this was done with collars or inset vests, too. And of course the use of underwear eliminating the waist is a good point!
In searching for clothing of this era, it’s a lot more common to find the tops than it is the skirts of these two-piece dresses. I’ve even seen them separated at sales and in shops, the seller not realizing it was a set!
I just want you to know how much I enjoy reading your posts. Thank you.
Elizabeth
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Thank you for the timely encouragement. I’m elbow deep in family photographs and trying to identify and date them. It’s amazing how any ways those early 1900s’ census takers found to spell “Barton.”
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