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Thursday, February 20, 2014

1953 A Peak Within A Fashion Shoot

I came across an auction for a set of slide negatives on ebay and thought it would be interesting to develop them.  The photographer appears to have been a fashion type of photographer.  In these sets of images, we see a model in a wonderful gingham bell sleeve dress accented with flower motifs and also has this with a wonderful black cartwheel hat.  She has a certain period look about her with the full dark brow and black liner.  She is modeling some of the lipstick from an ad campaign for Micheh lipsticks. This is an interesting name and I tried to find out more information about it but was unable to.  So, how do I know that this is 1953?  Well, there is a Flair book from 1953 near the artist.   The thing I also like about this set of negatives is that it looks like it tells a story.  You can quite image that maybe the young ad designer might be interested in this beautiful fashion model.  Maybe they went out for a few drinks after the shoot?    She has a playful wit about her.  It is rare to see multi-shot images so I thought I would take this opportunity to share them all with you.   Can you also imagine what the colors in this photograph might have been like, if they'd used Kodachrome?   Imagine all the different colors in the lipsticks.   I would have also loved to find the final version of this ad campaign that the artist has a ruff draft of at his drafting table.


I'm not sure why blogger changes the tint of the photographs upon upload but these more closely resemble the next set of images in color scheme.



I did a little touch up in Photoshop of some of these images as they had some scratches on them.

Here is a before and after of the first image after I went into Photoshop and made some adjustments for scratches.









The thing that is great about these negatives is that I can delve into the details of the scene and have still a lot of clarity.





Hmm, which lipstick shall I choose?





She has a great smile and consider how many people really had such nice teeth back then like this.












Now, if you are like me you are also greatly admiring this dress she is wearing.

Here is a pattern that has some of the characteristics..




If any of you do decide to make this pattern, please let me know.


Shall I throw a Lilli Ann suit with bell sleeves into the mix from around the same time period?






Friday, February 7, 2014

Young Seamstresses and Their Creations 1930s-1950s

I thought it would be really interesting to share these photographs of lovely young ladies who have made their dresses and entered into a competition at the annual Indiana State Fair.   The period of time is really interesting to see the changes in fashion.  These ladies all did some marvelous work creating these garments.  How fun that the Indiana State Fair had such an event.  The photography is fantastic as it is rare to be able to zoom in for the intimate details.  For some reason when I upload these images they take on more of a tinted look, you can click on the link below and see better images of these wonderful creations.


Images below are from the Indiana Historical Society, JC Allen collection.  These photographs are very detailed and you can zoom in on them at this weblink to take in all the details.


 1930 dress winners of Indiana State Fair


This lovely lady won and was 14 years old.






These lovely young ladies made their dresses in 1933 and were blue ribbon winners.



1934 winners



1935 winners


1936 winners



1937 winners





 
Winning dresses from 1938 state fair.


1939 winners


1940 winners




1941 winners


1947 dress winners 



Some young girls who won for baking:






1949 dress winners




1950 dress winners




1951 dress winners