Mistletoe and Hemlines, 1920s

Butterick patterns for girls. December 1924, Delineator.

An entire page of patterns for girls and young teens had a Christmas theme in 1924. Above, left, a very young girl holds mistletoe over her own head. Right, a little girl is ready for snow in her red hat, coat and leggings. (Imagine buttoning those leggings onto a squirming 3 year old!)

Holiday dresses for girls, December 1924. The older girl’s hem is just below her knees, while the younger girl’s hem is mid-knee.

Dresses for Girls 8 to 15, 1924; Woman’s dress, 1928

I’m always struck by how “right” the proportions on early Twenties’ dresses for girls look, while the length of dresses for women and older teens was still quite long:

Patterns for grown women (“Ladies,” bust size 32 to 44 inches.) September 1924. Delineator.

Dresses for misses aged 15 to 20, November 1924. Not a rouged knee in sight — yet.

Patterns for girls under 15, October 1924. Knee-length!

Before the late nineteen twenties, as girls got older they dressed more like grown women, exchanging short skirts for longer hems.

The younger the girl, the shorter the dress in 1924.

Those hems make even these 1924 party dresses for older teens look long and dowdy.

These teens are wearing quite long hems, compared to their younger sisters. December, 1924.

But, by 1927, adult women were wearing dresses as short as the pre-teens of 1924! Women aspired to look younger, and youth set the fashions.

Left a teen under 15, 1924. Right, a grown woman from 1927. Both are Butterick patterns illustrated in Delineator.

In 1927, these sophisticated women are wearing hems that only schoolgirls would have worn just three years earlier.

Ladies’ fashions from November 1927 are as short as this girl’s dress from 1924.

This is just a sample of the “youth” trend of the late Twenties. Of course, by 1927, young teens were showing the entire knee….

Coat and dress for 15-and-unders. November 1927.

For girls 12 to 16 years of age. November 1927.

As one (hair dye) advertisement put it, “You Cannot Afford to be Gray because … this is the Age of Youth.” (1925.) Happy 2020!

Fashions for Children, October 1927

Butterick patterns for girls, October 1927. Coat 1609, flanked by dress 1613 (left) and dress 1702 (right.) Butterick also sold hat patterns, like Tam-O-Shanter 5416.

There are some good looking coats among these illustrations of Butterick patterns for 1927. In fact, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to see the children’s double-breasted coats today. This plaid one doesn’t scream, “I’m ninety years  old!”

But the many-buttoned winter leggings worn by boys and girls are no longer seen.

Clothes for a small boy, left, a child’s coat for boys or girls, and a dress for a small girl. Delineator, October 1927. They all wear high leggings (not tights, but separate legs, like long gaiters) that button up the sides — a nightmare for getting a child dressed in winter.

Shorts for little boys buttoned to their shirts in front and in back, so a trip to the restroom must have required assistance. Small boys had to suffer freezing temperatures in shorts; apparently this practice was so universal that it was unquestioned. (Zippers were introduced into children’s clothing in the late 1920’s.)

Alternate views for boy’s “suit” 1680. coat 1670, and girl’s dress 1615. Butterick patterns for 1927. The legging pattern was included with the coat, which was recommended for “brother and sister” dress-alikes.

Similar leggings (really, extended gaiters) for toddlers were still pictured in McCall catalogs in 1950 — but by then, they closed with zippers.

1927 dresses and a coat for girls up to age ten: Butterick dress 1664, coat 1666, and dress 1662.

Alternate views of Butterick patterns for girls, 1927.

Patterns for older girls and pre-teens look very much like clothes for grown women. In fact, these look the way I mentally picture the “twenties;” girls’ clothing was always shorter than clothes for women, but rising hems for women in the late twenties seemed to follow the lengths worn by girls. (These also “look right”because the proportions on these drawings are closer to a normal human body than the super-slender fashion figures used for women’s styles.) For similar women’s styles from 1927, click here.

Butterick patterns for girls aged 8 to 14 or 15 years. From left, dress 1599, coat 1601, and two-piece dress 1676. From 1927. Surprisingly, the two piece (1676) was “smart for evening” if made “without sleeves and with a low neck.”

Alternate views of Butterick patterns for girls 8 to 15. The skirt of number 1676 is “flared-in- front”but straight in back, like many twenties’ dresses; the skirt hung from a bodice top, so it did not need a waistband or any shaping at the waist.

For those who like to read the pattern descriptions, here are the others, with their illustrations:

Butterick patterns for girls, dress 1613, coat 1702, dress 1609. 1927. No. 1702 is “quaint” like a figure from a children’s book by Boutet de Monvel.

Little girls wore matching “French panties” or bloomers under their short dresses. No. 1702 is “gathered at the normal waist,” or so it says.

Butterick boy’s suit 1680, coat 1670 “for both brother and sister,” and dress 1615. From 1927. Pattern 1670 included coat, hat and leggings. “The leggings are elastic at the back.”

1927 party dresses and a coat for girls up to age 10 years: Butterick dress 1664, coat 1662, and dress 1666.