Woman's Home Companion 1910

Woman's Home Companion, March 1910
The Fashion Department
Conducted by Grace Margaret Gould

These are scans of a magazine page I have framed and hanging on my wall. On the back is an advertisement for Himalaya Cloth "an exact reproduction of the fashionable rough silks" along with drawings of these two dresses.

While the S-curve corset looks incredibly uncomfortable and I thank the Gods that I live in the age of cotton knit I have always loved the fashions of the Gibson Girl/ Edwardian era. 1910 of course is towards the end of this time and with the beginning of WW1 more realistic, comfortable styles took hold.

Vintage Dior at the Oscars

Natalie Portman wore a vintage Dior (1954 H-Line) gown last night.
Love the polka dots.

The H line of 1954 with its exaggerated body contortions generated considerable negative publicity. The design shifted the bosom up and incorporated the hipline of the middy as the crossbar of H. Dior’s intention had been to create the illusion of a longer, leaner look. The controversy primarily centered on the treatment of the bust. The constricting bodices pushed up the breasts sometimes resembling the sixteenth-century Tudor style costumes of Anne Boleyn.

                                - As Seen In Vogue: A Century of American Fashion in Advertising*

I love the the ruching low on the back of the skirt.

Click here to go to Rare Vintage where you can see the gown details.

*I have a collection of 1954 Vogues, I might look though them tonight and see if this dress was in any editorial shoots.

First Lady Vintage

I thought that looked like a vintage dress.
Mrs. Obama is on the cover of next month's Essence Magazine wearing a lovely vintage 50's dress from New York Vintage.
She makes it look totally modern.
Via Mrs. O.

Cocktails and Culture

North Star Vintage just sent out a Tweet:

An exhibit about two of my favorite things - vintage and cocktails!

I agree. What a fabulous combination for an exhibit:

As you enter Cocktail Culture, an intoxicating exhibit of apparel, accoutrement and ephemera at the Rhode Island School of Design's Museum of Art, it's hard not to think of Billy Strayhorn's lyrics in his jazz standard "Lush Life":....

The exhibit feels like an elegant and witty party that can be followed over six decades, from 1920 to 1980. You can almost hear the chatter. Think of it this way, say Kate Irvin and Laurie Brewer, both curators with the museum's Costumes and Textile Department. Cocktails — the word might be from the docked tail of a certain kind of show horse — are about mixing. Which, during Prohibition, was necessary to cover up the awful taste of bathtub gin......

Cocktail Culture: Ritual and Invention in American Fashion, 1920–1980 will be on display at the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, R.I., until July 31.

How can this not be wonderful?

Wish it was a travelling exhibit....

As always my favorite scenes mixing wonderful vintage and liquor come from The Thin Man movies:

Celebs in Vintage

Ashley Olsen wore a vintage 40's gown to the
2009 CFDA Fashion Awards.
Adrian maybe?
(EDIT: The guys over on Project Rungay have commented
that it may be a "vintage inspired" design from
Ashley's on line The Row. )

That is a whole lotta dress for such a small woman.

And look at how awesome Tracey Ullman,
the host of the CFDA,
looks in a vintage Clarie McCardell
she purchased from Dorothea's Closet.


If you go to Ang's blog you can see a picture of
the dress before it was sold.

Pattern Of The Week

Delish!
Vintage Vogue 1930's Couturier Pattern on eBay.
What a dress:

Vintage Arkansas

Recently The Old State House Museum here in Little Rock, AR. received a gift of $1000 to restore the gown worn by Mabel Claire Martineau in 1927 to her husband's inauguration ball when he became Governor.


Oh my, that is one lovely vintage 20's dress.

The website for the museum has a nice timeline of all the dresses of the former First Ladies of Arkansas.

Here are a few others, one from 1933 and the other circa 1953.


The last one is Hillary Clinton's from 1979, which was the fist time Bill was elected Governor.
I mention it because it was made by a local designer, Connie Fails.
Last weekend I was over at a friend's house just going though her closet looking at the great vintage she has collected over the years and she pulled out this exquisite dress that looked like a beaded 20's wedding dress, but was a actually a reproduction made for her by Connie Fails.
Cool, huh?