Be Glad It's Spring 1939 -Corseletted Chic A Look Into Spring Vogue Pattern Book 1939

The late 30's offered so many flattering and beautiful silouettes.  I really love this period of time.  I picked up this Vogue Pattern Book from 1939.  It is coverless but filled with great inspiration, none the less.


S-4119 pattern is amazing!  A lovely dress with a puffed sleeve princess coat!   There is one for sale on etsy but maybe I just might find one cheaper in the future.



Below is a comparison of 1929 to 1939.  I  find it delightful how they compare just ten years ago to the "present" 1939.

"Gone (forever, we hope) is the straight, shapeless silhouette.  In its place, we find the skating girl skirt wide flung and graceful, or a sleek, tailored skirt, or even a Minaret or tiered frock."

The feature discusses the shoulder style of 1939...I'm all about the poof!  In their words "arrogantly pinched and puffed, but never turn downward like the mouth of an unhappy child as they did ten years ago".   Think this article is a little bias to 1939:)?



"Spring 1939 - year of colour and corseletted chic"   Corseletted, now this is a new word to me.

I believe you can double click on the image to enlarge and read.

A lovely lady,  I would love to see the pattern envelope for this perfectly "suited" outfit.  The lady kind of reminds me of Christina Applegate.  What do you think?  Maybe it's her grandmother?

I like to scout out cheaper patterns and I happened to have this pattern below prior to buying the book.  Pretty neat eh?  I thought I scanned a copy of the envelope but can't seem to locate it, I'll share it in a future post.

Love these blouse patterns!  I want them all but especially Vogue 8255 and 8289.  I hope one day I can find one of these grand patterns.

I'm trying to decide on my next sewing venture.   I'm thinking it's going to be the pattern to the left (from 1940). Which one is your favorite?  I'm also going to have to lay out the pieces to see if this fabric will work.  It was a piece of fabric that I had from my old quilting days.  Wish me luck!   

I have a hard time opening these envelopes when everything is all nicely folded inside almost factory like.  I'm going to practice bound buttonholes and fabric covered buttons so it should be a learning experience.

50's Color Couture

How lovely are these videos?  It's so nice to see these fashions in full color (see middle video) as a lot of times you see these fashions in black and white.  All the lovely colors!  I'm off to watch these yet again!

Contemporary Earrings 1950s in color

Anatomy of a Swing Coat.

This cradle of 1940's joy, a sapphire-ink colored coat came from Shrimpton Couture.  I love to find vintage fashion that defines a period and when it is so well preserved, I feel like I've been handed an extra slice of cake.

This is a coat that you can feel transported in, hopefully there will be no penny in the pocket (catch the reference?).  Just like vintage suits, I have a deep fondness for vintage coats.  In addition to the glamourous princess coats of the early 50s, I also love the coats that were a precursor to this look that you might have seen a remarkable young lady or a stylish woman wear in the late 1940's.  I believe this coat to be from this time.  Whenever I look through the fashion magazines of this period, my heart does skip a beat so it is certainly a period of fashion that I can truly immerse myself in.

Do you have certain blocks of time that you tune into as well?  I'd say a block in the late 30s, a block in the mid and late 40's, and one last block in the early 50's.   In the whole scheme of fashion, not really a big time frame.


This coat is also very interesting in that depending upon what light is focused on it, it can appear to be a blue/purple blue hued coat or a dark blue coat.  When I tried this coat on, I immediately thought I would like to experiment a little with light and dark.

This is something I'd like to experiment more with in the future, achieving a vintage look with natural light against contrasts of light and dark elements.

Outfit details:

Hat: Hattie Carnegie, blue velvet

Earrings:Schiaparelli

Coat: Peggy Barton (wish I could find more on this designer but there is nothing out there)

Gloves: Dior

Suit (not seen) Lilli Ann

Scarf: Vintage

(All items were bought at very reasonable prices and in many cases quite a steal-of-a-deal.)  

This is the great thing about vintage you can wear designer labels for a fraction of what you'd pay for a designer labeled item today.

Check out the peplum detail on the hips.  I do wish this coat had pockets but this was the style in the late 40's.

I always find it charming when a label inside a garment is hand stitched around the edges.  I'm sure not much time to put this label on by hand but it certain adds a couture element.  It's all in the small details..isn't it?

I found a cobbler not too far away that can fix up vintage shoes.  I was so happy he could save these 40's strappy shoes.  They didn't have really very much wear when I got them but the strap was almost falling off.  The leather had become dry.  I gave the shoes a good conditioning and off to the cobbler they went.  The cobbler was able to fix this strap for me before I lost it completely which was pretty close to happening.  

I am also very excited to share that I am in the process of organizing a fall photo shoot.  The one I did last year  , here, and here was so much fun that I thought I might try it again this year at a different location. 

I'm also going to see if I might get in my Dior "New Look" creation.  I put together a "Bar suit" that is very similar in nature to Dior's Bar suit (1947) almost a year ago and never quite found the right opportunity to present this.   The suit and skirt are vintage and are from around this time period.  It is not the true Dior but a great recreation attempt based upon actual vintage.   More images here.

Future Projects And Vogue Pattern Book 1951

I missed the "Fall For Cotton" challenge.  As I begin to type this blog post, I have surrounded myself with a bunch of patterns trying to decide what I might do next.  I thought I had a particular pattern I wanted to do but had too much perplexity about finding a fabric for it so I guess it just isn't this pattern's time.  It sometimes becomes overwhelming to find just the right fabric.  I find myself wanting to pick out the same types of styles as what is on the pattern envelope because one of the reasons I bought the particular pattern is because I like the complete style:)

I was very fortunate to happen upon a copy of Vogue's New Book For Better Sewing at a decent price.  Of course, it isn't in the best of shape but I paid probably half of what they go for so I'm quite happy to have this copy.  I thought in getting this book it was about tips and tricks to sewing but it is actually a detailed look at some various patterns that were out in 1952.

You can see all the images to the pattern styles on Gertie's website.  I'm not sure if Gertie ever did find all the patterns from the book but she certainly made some beautiful things.

As I was scanning through the pages of this wonderful book,  I came to this image and thought how much I really loved this dress and thought that this would be the one I'd most like to make out of the book.  I thought that I would one day like to find this dress pattern.  So, I began to search around and I realized quite quickly that it is not easy to find the patterns from this book!  I wonder if anyone out there actually has them all?

Then a few weeks after buying this book, I was searching around for the above pattern and found it.    Oh joy!  This will be a fun dress to learn from. This pattern will certainly give me practice on covered buttons.  I wouldn't mind to have this dress in every common core color.  Hey, why not throw in a couple of novelty prints too?  

I am quite sure it would take a lot of skill to match up the seams on this dress with the striped pattern they show on this envelope.  Gosh just look at how the stripes would need to be matched up!  I think I'll stick to a solid color for the first go around.

I find in addition to vintage fashion magazines that Vogue Pattern Books are a wealth of fashion information.  It is amazing how well these dresses were designed.  So much different than going into a shop today and buying a dress.

As I was browsing through this book from 1951, I saw this image below and immediately fell in love with this dress.  How grand is this dress???  I just love to see the actual dresses on models, so this was indeed a rare treat to not just see an illustration.  So, I set out to see if I could find the pattern.

Low and behold, I found one lonely copy of this pattern!  So, this will certainly be a dress that I will try out in the future.  The sleeve caps are so interesting.

Within this pattern book was also the below images,  how cute are these bow accents on this dress?

There is this wonderful dress again in shades of green.  Although, I do prefer this dress in red.

I can only dare to imagine how much some of these patterns below would command today!!!

In all honesty, it would be difficult for me to wear a saucer hat with a little stick sticking out of the top.  Have any of you worn hats like this?  But, I can also say this model looks glamourous and gorgeous none the less.

A Schiaparelli Pattern, I dare to guess the amount this would sell for today too!

My next post, I will share scanned images from a 38/39 Vogue Pattern Book.     I'm not sure of the exact year as I bought it coverless.  But, it contains a wealth of great images to share!  I'll also share a couple of patterns I am thinking about starting on next.  I don't think I am quite ready to start out on the patterns above but they are high on my list.  I still haven't quite yet decided what to do.  

Paper dolls

Paper Dolls:  In case any of you had a few minutes to spare and felt like dressing some vintage ladies, here are some nifty outfits.  Jane Arden had quite the wardrobe.  There are tons more if you google her.

Eisenberg Originals, Vintage Ads, and Celine

As you may know from reading my blog, I am a big Eisenberg fan of both their jewelry and apparel.

I thought I'd share with you an Eisenberg dress I bought off of Etsy awhile back.  This actually is one of the more "casual" dresses I've seen from Eisenberg.  I have subsequently sold this dress as I didn't really get the right vibe from the bolero as I thought I would but I thought I might share some photographs of this dress with you.


When Eisenberg first started out making clothing, they used to attach jewelry to their garments but the jewelry would mysteriously disappear.  Their jewelry became more famous then their garments.  This dress is probably more from the end of their dress making days but still a gem none the less.    I'd love to find the advertisement for this dress.

I have a lot more to share about Eisenberg jewelry and clothing in future posts.

Outfit Details:
Dress: Eisenberg
Hat:  Vintage Dior Etsy only $45
Brooch and bracelet: Eisnenberg
Shoes - vintage 50's

Meet Celine (my daughter decided on this name), this is my dress model.  This is one of those items I was on the fence about buying, but now I am glad I did.  It will make future cloth making much easier and of course selling items that aren't quite right for me.   I bought this dress form through Amazon and I'd certainly recommend this dress form to someone interested in one.  

Dress without the bolero.

I had to share this up close image of the fabric detail.  Look at how the seams match up perfectly to create a pattern.  This is quite impressive.  The dress fabric has a bit of a texture to it even though I believe it to be a cotton base. 

I thought I'd also share some vintage Eisenberg ads.   As I find more Eisenberg ads, I'll also share them.

I also have, yep you guessed it and Eisenberg Ad file on Pinterest, please check it out.

Here's a vintage ad, from Eisenberg 1951... fancy a cup of tea with these ladies?  Check out how the jewelry is integral to the design of the dress.  I have yet to see an Eisenberg Original garment with the original jewelry still with the garment.  I think in the case of these below,  they were sewn in.   These dresses were quite expensive back then at $60 and $70, respectively.  This is probably $600-$700 today.

Eisenberg Original Ad from Vogue 1950

Eisenberg Clothing ad 1949

Eisenberg Dress 1948

Love, love, love, this ad!  Source

Eisenberg Original ad "My Vintage Vogue" 1944

A Happy Ending...



Oh, but Celine must have a head my daughter tells me.  The necklace is my daughter's.  She wanted Celine to wear it with this outfit.


Postscript:
Celine was also granted hands by my daughter but they don't quite work with this particular outfit.