Story of a Dress: Pt II

Prom is practically an invention of the 1950s. That horribe ’80s trend for sparkling, ruffled, sequinned, taffeta prom dresses stems from the ’50s revival during the same period. The ‘traditional’ prom dress has a fitted bodice and a wide skirt, just like the 50s debutante dresses, with stiffened skirts several feet wide. And the whole thing really is quite old-fashioned, in a twee (but very nice) sort of way: a school dance attended with the accompaniment of a beau, wearing a fancy dress and nice shoes. That’s how I interpreted it, anyway.

[image source]

“I like your sleeves. They’re real big.”

“Thank you. I made them myself.”

Although I delight in many epochs gone by (the 1770s, the 1910s; the 20s, 30s, 40s and much of the 60s), when it comes down to dressing myself I always seem to gravitate to the 50s. When I discovered the Vintage Vogue selection of patterns, I was understandably delighted.

For those not in the know, the Vintage Vogue range in the Vogue sewing catalogue reproduces original paper patterns from around the 30s to the 50s. The grand majority of their range, however, lies in day and evening dresses from the 1950s. This is understandable: after the rise of the couture houses after the war, the trade blossomed, and licensed paper patterns for middle-class home sewers were one of the options available to women wishing to copy Christian Dior’s New Look, making his delicious dresses available to less affluent women. (Who, after all, can really afford couture? The copying of the catwalk exists today of course – who would be so naive as to think that it didn’t? – only this time it’s not so much done by home sewers wishing to save a penny, but by high street chains looking to make a buck.)

I admit I was sad at leaving the elegance of the Art Deco period with the change of style – or perhaps regretful is more the word. I do love the 50s dresses, but I was hoping to create a dress which was a little more different from the norm – the norm of big swishy skirts. Any notion of tristesse was not long-lived, however: I know what suits me and what doesn’t, and so although the 50s dresses seemed simpler in my mind (being so used to the style, since that’s how I would choose to dress myself: a big swishy skirt with a tighter bodice) I was happy enough to be sticking with them.

Image from www.sewdirect.com

Anyway, I chose this pattern V2962, a gorgeous calf-length number with a full gathered skirt, fitted lower bodice, and gathered halter neck from 1957. The Vintage Vogue pattern range is quite expensive but I ordered it from www.sewdirect.com who often have 50% off sales. At the moment they’re offering 10% off, which is still not bad. Their postage is free, too. I really reccommend them, they always have excellent service and delivery was quite quick. Their range, also, is truly excellent. Oh and don’t forget that Butterick also do a range of reproduction vintage sewing patterns, it’s called Retro Butterick and is included towards the end of the Butterick Dresses section on the Sew Direct website. This range is noticeably cheaper, and still has a lot of very nice designs – though perhaps is a smaller range than the Vintage Vogue?

But back to the pattern. I don’t know why it stood out to me so much; it’s kind of classic 50s really, with the halter neck and everything. I planned on making the shorter version, and I also really liked their styling. Dainty gloves and curly hair? High heeled shoes and a fabric corsage? Hell yeah!

I spent ages and ages thinking about the colour: I did like the chartreuse which they suggested, but wasn’t so keen on wearing a chartreuse dress to the prom. (Quite frankly I wasn’t feeling brave enough.) Block colour is quite a hard thing as you have to consider connotations beyond the basic Do I like it? and important Does it suit me? For instance, though it may have been lovely I didn’t want to wear a black dress; nor did I want anything too bright as I felt that it would seem gaudy. I didn’t feel that red would really suit the style, and rich purples and blues didn’t feel summery enough.

I settled on an off-white cream type of colour in the sketch I worked up of it because  it felt light, delicate and elegant, plus enabled me to wear the very classic black/white/red combination which so suits my complexion. I was actually very pleased with this sketch: as you can see, I had it all worked out. I’d shorten the dress to the knee, and use a lightweight gauzy cloth. I’d wear elbow-length black gloves with a black silk clutch I already owned, and a chunky double-stranded bracelet over the glove. (Just as women often wear big rings over gloves in old films.) I’d put my hair up in a chignon with a pincurl at the side, and wear false eyelashes, swoops of black eyeliner, red lipstick, a black jet necklace, shoes I already owned, and a purchased red silk rose pinned to the side, as on the pattern envelope.

However thing never really work out as planned, and I knew that my choice of fabric – and thus the colour of the dress, and all that rot – would ultimately depend on what was available to me in the fabric shops.

I spent several hours pottering around Soho, and went into nearly every single rag shop on Berwick Street. (I didn’t bother, for instance, with the Silk Society, since it was obvious that I could only ever dream of purchasing their sumptuously beautiful and monstrously expensive cloths.) I’d so wanted to make it out of silk chiffon, but after fingering a bolt of the most delicious, cobweb-light white chiffon in the 98 Berwick St branch of Cloth House for minutes on end (I went away, and came back to it) I realised that it was too insubstantial – not to mention far, far out of my budget. The one thing about those 1950s dresses is that they just eat up fabric: only after spending three hours comparing price tags on bolts and swiftly multiplying figures could I really and truly comprehend the outrage of the public when Dior launched his New Look in 1947:  after the frugal  war years so marked by rationing – all clothing scarred by the cheery “Make Do And Mend!” proclamation – these romantic dresses were called sinfully extravagant, and a waste of fabric. Just seeing what 4 metres of cloth looks like piled up on a cutting table is an eyeopener, not to mention working out the price of the fabric and lining…plus the costs of thread, fastenings, and possibly bias binding, interfacing and trimmings.

In the end I decided to go by my instinct and splashed out on a really pretty lightweight cotton, in off white with a rose pink floral print, with a breezy natural-coloured cotton voile to use as lining.

To be continued. . . .

Aproning

Hmm, it was on quite a sudden note that I left you last, hein? Things have been so busy as of late that I’ve barely managed to keep afloat. Everything happens at once – it’s either a lull or a storm – and I don’t seem to always be able to hold up very well beneath it all. Blogs reflect only a carefully-pruned side of the writer’s life, and I can’t seem to decide whether it would be best to hide all of the darker days, or mention them briefly in passing. It’s quite difficult, and I don’t seem to have quite worked out my voice in all of this, despite having written a blog for several years now. But on to better and brighter things.

It was Mother’s day (but apparently, Mothering Sunday is the correct title) last Sunday. It was quite stressful. Anyway, I made Maman an apron. We’d had this discussion, you see, about a range of aprons which at one point were carried by the company she works for, Splat Cooking. They were called the Desperate Housewives aprons – or perhaps they were just the same aprons worn by Bree on the show? Anyhow, they were (according to Maman) gorgeous, little frilly fifties things. But apparently, as it so turned out, they were also of not-so-nice quality, and pretty costly to boot.

Then the conversation turned to aprons in general, or rather not in general at all – aprons in the 1950s. Because at that time women had the mentality whereby they thought it necessary – I know I’m generalising horrifically – to look ones best at all times. I’ve been told, on more than one occasion, that it was not all that uncommon for a woman to rise an hour earlier than her spouse, apply her maquillage to perfection, then settle down back on the pillow and calmly await the réveil of monsieur le mari. The idea being, of course, that her husband would think her made up to perfection at all times, or perhaps even think that she was perfection and thus was (completely naturally) blemish, shadow and spot-free, perhaps even (by nature of course) gifted with smoothly coloured lips and long, dark eyelashes…but I digress.

At a time when a woman had always to look her best, yet at the same time once married had only the right to stay at home and look after the children (Kinder! Küche! Kirche! err…), what were the options to keep her clothing clean and thereby ensure her presentability? The answer is, of course, the apron.

Pretty apron pattern envelope by Simplicity – image nabbed from Google

I used to find it a little strange, how vintage aprons were always so fancy. I mean, if you look at pattern envelopes, or indeed at surviving relics, half the time they are so detailed, so flounced and ruffled and decorated, embroidered, adorned, that they could very easily pass for a normal day dress. In fact, were it not for the tie-waist and small gap at the back, due to the fact that they, indeed, could be said to imitate normal and/or fashionable dress, the mistake is not just easy to make, but likely.

But if you look at it coldly, this of course makes perfect sense. One would have spent so much time in aprons, that it is more than fitting that they were colourful and interesting and pretty.

Nowadays we clearly spend less time in aprons, since for the last few decades women have (hallelujah!) had the freedom to choose whether or not they want to spend as much time in the home. So the concept of wearing an apron for the greater part of the day is ostensibly a more alien concept. But it does makes sense to wear them when doing housework, though I personally would feel strange wearing one – particularly such simperingly female ones as the true 50s aprons – for anything save the cooking and the washing up. (See brief moment of panic at the end of this post.) I think that perhaps my mother was seduced by the glamour of it all. . . .

Anyway. So I made an apron for my mother. It’s not quite right -we have extremely different body shapes and thus quite a few adjustments are needed. But I love the pink and black – I used leftovers from the 50s shift dress/jacket set for the ruffles. I just hope she actually wears it.

-Anushka

PS – I’ve just found this very interesting-looking article on aprons and vintage apron sewing patterns. I’d read it if anything at all (at all!) in my apron spiel interested you.

Notorious . . . .

Issue 8 of Knit on the Net is online and I’m extremely proud to say that my work is on the front cover.

Notorious Fascinator – with pheasant feathers and veiling

A knitting pattern with three designs and two variants, Notorious presents millinery for the adventurous knitter. I worked so hard on these, and hope that you’ll enjoy making them!

Notorious Fascinator – with ostrich feather

The body of text on all three pattern pages is the same, but each different link allows you to see pictures of the specific style of fascinator.

Notorious Fascinator – with pheasant feathers and tulle

Do throw a glance over the rest of the issue too! Susan has worked so hard on it and I think the whole thing is brilliant. It’s the Glamour Issue, so get that lipstick ready…There’s a debut pattern and interview with the ever-beautiful Theodora Burrow (who I happen to be a tiny tiny bit obsessed with!) as well as more lovely patterns (I love Miss DeHavilland, Quadrato and Ava especially) and interesting knitterly bits and pieces to read.

dressed

I bought the fabric and cut out the dress from a pattern I received a long time ago. But this really started with Grace Kelly in ‘Rear Window’.

Grace Kelly

I love her in this film because she has so much more spirit than in other films, such as  ‘Dial M for Murder’ where I can’t seem to really, truly like her wooden, stylish, gorgeous character – because she seems so lifeless. Here, her character is much more interestin;  she’s a little more formed, more 3D,  than the usual Pretty Face she normally seems to play (although in this film she’s still, of course, the Pretty Face!)

I was sent this pattern by a very kind lady on Flickr, ages ago, who I think was clearing out her stash of vintage sewing patterns. She extremely obligingly sent me two paper patterns in my own size and it’s taken me till now to find the perfect fabric and sew it up.

This fabric hapened to be a  cotton brocade which I found hidden in a corner on a top shelf in my local fabric shop. What a find! It’s a complete treasure, printed (I think) with the most gorgeous flock wallpaper-esque pattern. Scrumptious.

I made the dress first, originally intending to wear it to a Christmas party. That ended up being cancelled, and the dress languished unfinished, needing a hem, a zip, and the bodice shortening a few centimetres, until that unexpected and glorious Second Snow Day that kept me off school.

I seem to have bypassed the little bows at the shoulderbones in my rendition of this dress. I also shortened it by quite a bit at the hem, since – as I have come to realise – I am shorter in the leg. (I’m taller than my driving instructor by an inch or two, yet always have to move the seat forward a notch to be able to reach the foot pedals!)

I love all the little construction details on the dress, which really point at the period that it comes from. Such as the zip in the centre of the back, which provides the back-skimming effect so that the dress shows off your shoulderbones: the dress is cut so that it gapes a little at the back. Also the shape of the bodice: I really ought to be wearing a bullet bra and waspie to show off its intended silhouette.

Another of my favourite details is the kick pleat in the back: delicious. (See above right.)

Here’s a snap of the matching jacket. It has envelope sleves with three little darts on each elbow which I find very, very endearing. I used a black satin for the collar and the facings for a bit of extra glam. It’s unlined which is a little silly, but I couldn’t be bothered to draft a lining so I left it as it is.

I’ve yet to work the three button holes. Additionally, I know it’s going to take me an age to search out the perfect buttons for the jacket…

Here’s the whole outfit together. It’s a bit aging to be honest, and I lack proper shoes. Ideally I would brighten it up with a paprika-coloured  patent leather belt to cinch in the waist, featuring a circular leather design over the fastening. Matching shoes and nails. An envelope clutch.  I’ve had a look for such a belt but all the red patent anythings that are available seems to be either dark red (as opposed to really bright) or PVC. (Or both.) I envisage a bright red with orange undertones; I’ll probably end up having to make it myself…

I think I also wouldn’t wear the two together that often. It’s not very youthful, is it? It’s also much longer than I would usually have a skirt, and I reduced the length on both the bodice and the skirt! (Imagine if I hadn’t shortened it…)

Something has gone wrong internally with my camera – it can no longer capture light. (The pictures without me in were taken with my parents’ one.) Without the flash it is dim and blurry, or blurry and overexposed -see the two pictures above. But with the flash switched on it either just doesn’t take, or else takes the photo but is even darker and more horrible  than without it! I don’t know what to do about it but it’s quite distressing as I’ve only had the camera for a little over two years and I’m very fond of it. Until recently it’s always been really reliable. What should I do? (It’s a Canon Power Shot A640.)

Thanks!

A Stitch in Time (saves nine)

This is a book that I would dream of styling, but have to make do with looking at instead.

Before Christmas I ordered ‘A Stitch in Time’ from the bookshop where I work. In case you hadn’t heard, this book is a republication of the 1972 classic of the same title by Jane Waller.* It features 60 knitting and crochet patterns taken from women’s magazines spanning from 1920 to 1949, mostly womenswear, lingerie and a few accessories. But really, it is more than a mere reprint. It’s a book of old knitting patterns brought completely up-to-date and into life, in almost every way I could think of.

As soon as you pick it up this book is sure to hit you visually, for it’s a treasure-trove of pictures. As well as including a copy of each pattern in the original format – ranging, by the way, from cardigans to swimsuits with a few accessories in-between – beautiful full-colour photographs accompany each patterns, showing off all relevant details in construction and stitch, as well as being nice to look at. The patterns are all for women and the book features three models. What I found particularly touching was discovering that all models are actually, in different ways of course, “vintage enthusiasts” in real life (my term, not theirs), from a burlesque dancer who performs onstage, to a swing dancer who knits, to a model who actually dresses like it’s the 1940s, every single day.

The focus, as in most if not all knitting books, is on cardigans and sweaters. The patterns are heavily weighted towards designs from 1930s, with many from the 1940s as well. Personally I would have been interested in seeing more from the 20s, but then again this would have been purely a visual and not practical interest since the shapes of the 1920s were possibly one of the most unflattering styles of the 20th century!Saying this, great majority of the patterns appeal to me very much, although – “Some of these should have been left in the past!” my mum said when she leafed through. I can’t help agreeing, and found it a little bizarre in some cases that in the reworking of a few of the patterns, significant details had been noticeably changed – such as in shape, size or style. But you could always choose to work from the original pattern rather than the rewritten one, and in terms of outmodedness, there are definately, certainly, surely enough lovely patterns to outweigh any of the more antiquated ones. Whilst I won’t be crocheting anything, or knitting a onesie, I could easily find at least 10 amongst the 60 that I would happily cast on for tomorrow.

Technically-speaking, the patterns have been re-written to accomodate modern yarns and notation, and in many cases they have been graded for different sizes. A huge range of yarns feature, from bog-standard 4-ply wool sock yarn to expensive silk to luxury alpaca… When you think about it, even though this sounds a pretty normal selection of fibres in our day, considering that in the first airing of these patterns, knitters would really only have had access to wools and cottons, perhaps silks, it’s really a very wide range. One of the things I like the most about this book is the way that it forces you to make comparisons between then and now, and in that way you really learn about the social and technical history of knitting, as well as appreciating the mad technological advances that have taken place in textiles relatively recently.

In terms of sizing, it must be said that some patterns are much better than others. Whilst most offer at least 3 or 4 different size options, I came across a few that only offered one. Whilst this may not be a huge problem (how many amongst us are really going to knit a 1930s swimsuit?), in keeping with the above it made me really reflect on the banality of knitting in Britain the first half of the last century. These days, if a pattern isn’t graded it seems to present a huge amount of inconvenience and fuss (and annoyingly, on the Internet, outroar). But in those days, everybody knew how to knit and everyone knitted. So everyone knew how to rework a pattern to fit a larger bust, shorter back, or longer sleeve.

Knitting was banal. Knitting patterns were included in all women’s “lifestyle” magazines, just as recipes are still, often, included today. But now knitting is niche, and it can be expensive. The price of the book (well, it’s an independant publisher. Let’s support them!), the styling, the subject: even though it’s modernised, all these factors play into the fact that these days, knitting is practically a specialism. It’s become a hobby, a luxury, and not a necessity. Fashion retail is the total opposite of what it was even thirty years ago (blame the 1980s), where for the grand majority of the population it is cheaper and more convenient to go out and buy a sweater than knit one yourself. Said sweater will probably have been sewn by young children in a factory with awful working conditions somewhere in the far East (I say Bangladesh)…This is what sprung to mind whilst reading through the book, but ultimately what stood out as a message was that this attitude can, if the populace is willing, be changed. People can learn that it’s better to spend a fortnight knitting a woollen sweater that will last years than go out and buy a trashy one from the high street. I think that the book presents this as an oppurtunity, with the past – knitting-banality, frugality and austerity all in one – showing us how it used to be done.

It’s a large book – 350-odd pages, A4, paperback – and if you’re accident-prone like me, it’s probably worth protecting it with librarian-esque sticky plastic stuff or if you want it to be authentically retro, brown wrapping paper (like my grandma used to). If anything, it’s pretty. Go, and buy it now – and knit!

~

‘A Stitch in Time – vintage knitting & crochet patterns 1920-1949 Vol I’ by Jane Waller and Susan Crawford is published by Arbour House Press, and available through the Knit on the Net Shop as well as other on-line book retailers. You should be able to order it from all (good) bookshops too.

If you’re curious about what’s inside, you can see the fabulous co-author’s pick of her favourite’s here.

~

Cover image from  http://shop.knitonthenet.com/

*I say classic, but really this is just hearsay on my part since the book was originally published a good couple of decades before my time.

Knitting your Own Designs for a Perfect Fit

by Montse Stanley

I borrowed this book from the library a while ago and basically had it on a kind of permanent loan for ages, so when I saw that it was going for cheap second hand on Amazon I scooped it up. It’s such a helpful book, and it’s got everything from basic knitting techniques and stitch patterns, to information about shapes, construction and variation on designs.

Click any photo to enlarge.

I think that in terms of basic elements such as garment construction and properties of fabrics, this book is far more informative than any of the instructions I’ve found in modern knitting books. Often these kind of nitty-gritty details are mystical constructs in in modern patterns and books, so it’s great that in this book Stanley really pulls everything apart so that there is no ambiguity. This is especially important when you’re leaning something by yourself at home, as opposed to being taught these things on a course.

It’s both well-written and clear, and what I find interesting in the book is that Stanley doesn’t give the pattern for the knitted garments that the book is illustrated with. Instead she provides a technical overview, giving just the bare bones of the garment itself so that a knitter can interpret the basic instructions individually.

Of course, it is needless to say that since the book was published in the ’70s, these designs are generally-speaking either weird or ugly, and very, very dated.

I liked the kids’ ones though.

Sadly this book is now out of print, though copies are obviously still floating around the stratosphere. I think that this book surely must make up one of components of a basic knitting library. Another long-loan item for me has been her ‘Knitter’s Handbook’ (which really is a handbook – it’s got everything!).

Other books that would – in my mind – make up the ideal knitter’s library would be: something by Kaffe Fassett explaining his colour theories (I’ve got ‘Glorious Knitting’); Barbara Walker’s ‘Treasury of Knitting Patterns’ books and ‘Knitting From the Top’ (none of which I own! ); the ‘Stitch ‘n Bitch’ books by Debbie Stoller (which taught me to knit, though they now seem really passé and the patterns are very dated); and perhaps those ones by Maggie Righetti (‘Knitting Without Tears’) and Elizabeth Zimmermann (‘Knitting Without Tears’). Writing this list makes it really evident that all the current and in-print knitting ‘classics’ seem to be coming from the US, which I suppose is one of the reasons that I like Montse Stanley – she’s so fantastic, and was Catalan, but married a Brit and thus lived here, so is British by marriage I guess. It’s nice to see something that reflects the country I live in – even if it’s the 1970s, and resembles a bad dream from my mum’s childhood photo albums!

Finding

It always feels like a kind of strange and exciting treat when I discover something that I’ve completely forgotten that I have.

Seventies

The night before last, I had a sudden fit of tidying, and decided to do something about the upteen pairs of knitting needles that are lying in the bottom drawer of the little plastic stacker thing that my knitting bits live in. (It’s terribly organised, much more of a successful system that I have with my art materials, for instance, which languish in various places all around my room.) It’s got to be said that tidying is not something that I particularly enjoy, and indeed seems to be the kind of thing that I will put off for days on end, living in ever-mounting clutter until my desk, dresser, bedside table, bookshelves and floor are bearing the weight of all manner of loose objects, papers, notebooks and general things strewn out all about the room. But once I have a tidying fit, things can become somewhat obsessive and it’s hard to know when to stop. I’m currently working my way around the room, but last time it was the knitting section that I attacked.

Questionable Taste

When I first started knitting in earnest I was given a load of my grandmother’s knitting needles. A short while after that, I was then given a huge bag full of old knitting needles by a friend via her mum, who I believe is an art co-ordinator of sorts in a primary school, and who had been clearing out a cupboard. At the time I was gleeful and planned to sell them off to girls in the lower years at school as little How To Knit kits. Encourage the craft and all that. Of course I never got round to it, and since injuring my wrists a few years ago I’ve been very cautious about what type of knitting needles I use and find it difficult and downright painful to knit with anything heavier than bamboo. Thus all of the old, cold, heavy grey metal things have become redundant. I put them all in a bag and plan to take them to a charity shop this week, with some books that I need to clear out.

Gay Woollies

However, once I had unlodged the boxes and bags of old cold needles, I made the most fantastic discovery, which I honestly can’t believe that I forgot about. When my grandmother – never a great knitter, it must be said – gave me the knitting needles, along with them came a plastic wallet full of knitting patterns from the 1970s and ’80s. What’s more is that I once was lucky enough to stumble upon a real, good old-fashioned charity shop which sold old patterns, and picked up a small selection of knitting, sewing and crochet pamphlets from the ’40s and ’50s. And then, to top this all off, a while ago I was given two American knitting magazines from the 60s that a friend had picked up in a thrift store and sent to me. I found all of these bundled up at the bottom of a drawer when I cleared out the knitting needles.

How on earth did I forget about these treasures -?