Fashions for Daytime, October 1928

“Clubwoman” in an ad for Quaker Oats cereal, October 1920.

You could make your own version of this coat with a Butterick pattern:

Butterick coat 2243 from Delineator, October 1928. Tweed with  a lynx collar is “the smartest sport coat.”

To wear under it, Butterick offered a range of classic Twenties’ dresses:

Left, a two-piece dress with a bi-color hip band, Butterick 2267. Right, a more complex cut, with pleats falling from a diagonal zig-zag; Butterick 2279.

The collar of the dress on the right becomes a loose scarf — a detail often seen on late Twenties’ dresses.

As usual, these dresses are pleated in front but plain in back. The skirt length is appreciably shorter in this ad:

An ad for Diamond Dyes suggests that your high-school or college-age daughter can wear dyed dresses instead of new ones. Delineator, October 1928.

The school girl’s two-piece dress is inches above the knee and has a dynamic Art Moderne repeated V in front, plus a pleated skirt.

The high-school girl’s skirt exposes her knees completely. 1928. Her belt is two-toned.

I was about to comment that the dress does not look “long out of style,” but dresses for girls were always shorter than dresses for women, so perhaps she did wear it when she was 13 or 14.

Although the picture isn’t really clear, this dress for young women has a vertical zig-zag button placket closing. Butterick 2258. The pleats are cleverly inserted into a point at front and side fronts.

Butterick 2275 is a typical, simple Twenties’ style. The surprise is the neckline, which ties in front and in back. Once again, the skirt part of the dress only has pleats on the front. If you look closely, you can see a vertical line of buttons at the side of the top, just at the hip. This allowed a pull-on dress to be fastened tightly at the hip.

Butterick 2281 and 2245 are day dresses in the normal range of women’s sizes. It looks like pleats were chic in the  Fall of 1928; they go all the way around in dress 2245, right. Delineator, October 1928, p. 121.

Prints and plaids for daytime. The pleats at left are top stitched, but would not be if the fabric was printed velvet. The dress on the right (2245) is probably waistless.

The next dress could be made for size 52:

Butterick 2283: all the interest is in the front.  The pleats are top stitched for several inches. This dress was recommended for large sized women — up to 52 inch bust.

The cuffs echo the band with decorative button at the point. There are no figure flattering diagonal lines in back, however. The two dresses below are also for larger-than-average sizes. Can you figure out why?

Butterick 2227 (left) and 2249 (right.) October 1928.

A closer view of Butterick 2227 and 2249. This modern velvet comes reasonably  close to the printed fabric at left. a description of the dress at right is below.

The thing all three dresses for larger women they have in common is: Surplice (i.e., diagonal) lines.

This simple afternoon dress calls for printed velvet; here is one source. Printed silk rayon would work, too. Rayon is one of the first synthetic fabrics, often used in the Twenties.

A simple afternoon dress, October 1928. Butterick 2253.

October clothes for schoolgirls were very similar to adult clothing:

A coat for girls and a dress to go under it. October 1928. Butterick patterns in Delineator.

Butterick for schoolgirls ages 8 to 15, October 1928. Their knees are not covered at all.

 

Caught in the Twenties

Cover of Delineator magazine, September 1928. Illustration by Helen Dryden.

Caught isn’t the right word; “enraptured” might be more accurate. I finally have a chance to visit bound volumes from the mid-nineteen twenties and photograph them, and I wish I could post everything I find. By 1928, Delineator magazine is filled with the styles we think of as “the twenties.”

Butterick patterns for January 1928. Delineator, p. 33. Composite from original illustration. I’ll return to these patterns in a later post. Love that coat!

There’s a strong Art Deco influence in the geometry of day dresses, and there’s drama, beading, and a flutter of chiffon in the evening.

A gown from Paquin, February 1928, and a jewel-studded evening gown from Lanvin, March 1928. Delineator magazine.

For a knock-out evening coat by Lanvin, circa 1927, click here.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a sixties’ girl that the proportions of 1928 look “right” to me.  Not that I would ever want to wear a straight-torso-with-hip-belt dress, but the knee-length skirt balances them better than the skirt lengths of 1925 or 1926.

Print fabrics, Butterick patterns; Delineator, August 1928.

With my library time machine, I’m currently “visiting” 1926, 1927 and 1928.  I try to bounce around from decade to decade in this blog, but getting out of the late Twenties is going to be hard.

Joyful geometry: Butterick patterns in Delineator, February 1928. I love the way the angle of the trim on the bodice is echoed by the angle of the pleated skirt panel. Interesting that the button is located at the natural waist….

I’ve already written about the fashion shift of the mid-twenties (click here.) Just to review, fashions for young women (15 to 20) were slightly shorter than those for mature women in 1925 and 1926.

Patterns for adult women, Delineator, December 1925.

Patterns for girls 15 to 20, and small women. Delineator, December 1925.

Left, teens 15 to 20; right, adult women. Composite based on Delineator ilustrations, December 1925.

Because teens and adults were drawn differently, it’s hard to get an exact comparison, but the hems on the adult women seem to be a couple of inches farther below the knee. When I compare the two dresses in the center, the orange one on the right looks dowdy to my modern eyes. All four figures are drawn with impossibly long torsos.

Here are some Butterick fashions from 1926:

Pictured are two little girls, and four girls aged “8 to 15 years.” Their dresses are quite short, but look like young adult fashions of a year later. Delineator, February 1926.

The proportions on these knee length skirts look “right” to me, but they are not dresses for young women; they are for girls under 15. I especially like that plum colored outfit on the far left.

Two adult women flanked by two girls aged 8 to 16 years. Delineator, February 1926.

These are Butterick patterns from 1927:

Women’s fashions with straight silhouettes. Butterick Nos. 1329 and 1317, Delineator, March 1927. I love the use of graded values of the same color, and those repeated geometric, Art Deco jogs on the dress at left — with matching cuffs. Skirts end just below the kneecap.

These couture designs for evening, 1927, use metallic fabrics and beading, and look quintessentially “Twenties.” It would be hard to mistake the dress on the left for any other era.

Left, a salmon pink-and-silver fringed and beaded evening gown by Paquin; right, a straight gold metallic cloth dress with finely pleated ruffles, by Yvonne Carette. Delineator, January 1927, p. 16.

Two evening dresses by Chanel. Left, “deep orange” lace; right, a dress completely covered with black beads. Delineator, January 1927.

Detail of paillette beading on black Chanel dress; Delineator, January 1927.  Apparently the beads change direction, giving a checkerboard effect.

If you love the Twenties, it’s hard not to think, “Now, we’re getting somewhere!”

The Metropolitan Museum has a beaded dress from 1926 attributed to Chanel; click here — and don’t forget to click on “Additional Images” for a a close-up of the beading and spangles.

A few images from 1928:

Two women’s dresses from October 1928. Butterick patterns 2243 and 2267. Note the zigzag formed by the skirt panels at right. It’s hard to see, but the band on the left dress is two colors, or two shades of the same color.

This young lady appeared in an ad for Fleischmann’s yeast, which, she said, restored her health. The fabric of her glittering dress is quite striking:

Fleischmann’s Yeast ad, Delineator, May 1928.

Butterick patterns for misses and women (from teens to bust 44″.) The coat came in sizes 46 and 48, too. Delineator, November 1928. Hems are already on their way down.

For more about 1928 “Hems Going Down,” click here. This cartoon dates from 1929.