Detail of fashion photograph from Delineator, December 1907. The original photo was probably hand tinted.
Fashion plate, Delineator, Dec. 1907. Left, Butterick dress 1610; right, bodice/waist 1646 with skirt 1660.
Dress 1610 was described as “elephant gray” in this picture, but the line drawings suggested other versions.
Detail of dress 1610, bodice/waist.
The face and the feather boa confirm that this is a photo, not a drawing.
The detail of feathers and lace confirm that this is a tinted photo, not a drawing.
Skirt detail, Butterick dress 1610.
The pattern included the waist (blouse,) over-blouse, and skirt.
Pattern 1610 description, Dec. Page 874.
The drawing of dress 1610 on page 874 shows very different options, and suggests two other color and fabric suggestions as well:
Left, 1610 in “amethyst chiffon velvet” with ruffled sleeves; Right, in “sherry-color crepe meteor with blue and gold embroidery.”
The tiny waist and extreme posture shown in the drawn illustration are exaggerations, as we see from the photograph of the same dress on a normal woman:
Butterick 1610, photo and fashion drawing.
The ensemble on the right, which was shown in a photo in the color plate, must have had fewer pattern variations, because the drawings on page 874 only illustrate back and side views.
Fashion plate, Delineator, Dec. 1907. Right, bodice/waist 1646 with skirt 1660.
Detail of Butterick skirt 1660, Dec. 1907. Delineator.
Side view drawing of skirt 1660.
Back view of skirt 1660.
Pattern description of Butterick skirt 1660. Delineator, Dec.1907, page 876.
Detail of fashion photograph from Delineator, December 1907. Waist 1646.
Back view drawing of waist 1646.
Waist 1646 description p. 876
I was hoping to show a few examples and then just give you a link to some 1907 Delineators, but…. Sadly, not all issues of Butterick’s Delineator from 1907 are available on Googles’ Hathi Trust site. This link will take you to the Hathi search page.
(Maddeningly, Google has assigned its own page numbers rather than the original page numbers, which is a problem because, in 1907, Delineator didn’t put the month of the issue on the pages, and Delineator did number its volumes (six months per volume) with consecutive page numbers (e.g., page 1 on January 1, and page 998 in June.) Figuring out which month you are reading requires you to search the little dark box at the top left for the table of contents for each month. On the other hand, I found photos of some dresses in the August issue, but the pattern information for them was in the March (?) issue. I simply typed the pattern number (e.g., 9909) into the text search box for Volume 69, and “Bingo!”
More color photos from Delineator at Hathi Trust.
More about these later….
witness2fashion 
Fascinating contrast between the bodies on the fashion drawings and the real bodies!
I really enjoy the details you can highlight from these images and corresponding pattern descriptions! Keep ‘em coming! Thank you so much.
Thanks. When we’re trying to reproduce a period style, it’s always nice to see it on a normal body instead of a fashion figure.
I find the fabric descriptions fascinating. These days we get such vague fabric suggestions, though I have no idea what “French cloth” is, I’m sure dressmakers of the time would know.
Yes, some of the fabric names are fascinating. Crepe meteor is among literally dozens of crepes I found on a textile wiki. Radium silk sounds dangerous but was just very shiny….Perhaps future historians will be trying to find out what “Louboutin red” is. Ruth Gordon wrote about a “tango” colored dress. I still haven’t found that online….