Butterick patterns from Delineator, December 1926.
The illustration on the left is from an article on dress alterations. Click here to see it. These sleeves were a Butterick fashion in late 1926 and early 1927. (I haven’t found any sold by Sears….) Sometimes called “troubadour” sleeves, they were known by other names — “dolman” or bat-wing or “deep armhole” sleeves, too.
Troubadour sleeves. Butterick blouse pattern 1174, from December 1926.
Left, “deep sleeve” Butterick 1154; Right, “deep armhole” Butterick 1167. Both from December 1926 Delineator.
“Fashion Outlines of 1927:” left is dolman-sleeved Butterick 1216. January 1927.
Butterick 1121, a youthful fashion, was described as having “bat-wing” sleeves. November 1926, Delineator.
Butterick 1124, “bat-wing” deep sleeves. November 1926.
Whatever it was called, Butterick was definitely pushing this fashion in 1926-27, although I’m not sure how successful the push was.
The heroine in this story illustration by John F. Crosman wears a dolman/troubadour/deep-armhole dress. December 1926, Delineator.
Butterick 1120 has troubadour sleeves; this dress uses contrast sleeves of metallic fabric.
Butterick 1110 illustrated in November 1926. Satin crepe dress with red and silver metallic sleeves.
French couture: a coat of “medieval cut” by Lucien Lelong. Sketched for Delineator, December 1926.
Butterick’s version of a dolman sleeved evening coat: pattern 1086 from November 1926.
I wonder if this dress style didn’t really catch on because you would need a new coat like this one if you made dresses with the new “troubadour/dolman/bat-wing” sleeves, which wouldn’t fit under a normal coat sleeve.
“Deep armhole coat” Butterick 1158; Delineator , November 1926. Not all troubadour sleeves would fit under a coat like this, much less a normal coat.
The slim lines of the late twenties included close-fitting sleeves in both 1926 and 1927.
Butterick deep armhole coat 1158, January 1927. [It’s not very deep!] The blouse at right has very close, long sleeves which would fit under any coat.
More typical Butterick dress and coat patterns, from December 1927, have close fitting sleeves and high armholes, even the raglan sleeve at right.
Delineator suggested that Vionnet solved the sleeve problem with this evening wrap:
Worth evening dress and Vionnet evening cape. Delineator, April 1927. A cape would accommodate any sleeve — or no sleeves.
A not-very-thorough search hasn’t found Troubadour sleeves elsewhere, in spite of all these examples from Butterick’s Delineator magazine. Sears did carry a lot of “Troubadour red” items in 1926. I found only one dolman sleeved dress pattern for 1926 at the Commercial Pattern Archive. It was a Butterick pattern.
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