Time for a fashion parade! Here’s a collection of covers from the AHJ – all from 1953. Click on the covers to enlarge them.

First, February. A full-skirted dress with a wrap-style bodice; a girl’s cap-sleeve frock; a sleeveless tennis dress.

Next, March.Interesting foldover-sweetheart neckline dress with pleated detailing on the front; frock with gathered panel bodice and a-line skirt; girl’s pinafore and blouse.

May! An autumn suit-dress with hip pockets and angular raglan sleeves; blouse with winged collar; A-line skirt; and gathered-shoulder bed jacket.

June brings some very stylish outfits for winter: a straight-skirted frock with layered hip pockets and kimono sleeves (accessorised with leopard muff!); a very full-skirted party frock with raglan cap sleeves; a full pleated skirt; a young girl’s double-breasted coat dress.

July brings sportswear: two styles of pencil-skirted walking suits with plain pocket decoration; a boy’s short pants suit; a toddler’s jumpsuit.

August presents frocks to make for spring: a 3/4 sleeved shirtdress; a turnup-cuffed short sleeved frock with a combined rollover and pleated sweetheart neckline; and a girl’s shirtdress.

September spring fling! A kimono cap-sleeved spring frock with crossover bodice; a suit dress with a wide spread collar, short sleeves and a pleated full skirt; and a girl’s pinafore dress.

October is time to start making your frocks for summer. Here we have a kimono cap sleeve dress with a twisted bodice detail and full circle skirt; a sleeveless dress with a very wide collar that almost forms cap sleeves; and a girl’s playsuit.

November has a sundress collection: a shirtwaist dress with a full gathered skirt; a frock with a camisole bodice with asymmetrical bodice buttoning and large pockets; a summer dress with matching cropped jacket and off-centre buttons on the skirt; and a girl’s puff-sleeve frock.

December, and dresses just perfect for wearing to Christmas events: A full-skirted dress with a pleated-detail bodice and scalloped trim; a circle skirt dress with short sleeves and a modest sweetheart neckline; two girl’s dresses – one more formal, the other a play dress.

I went searching for lamps like the one in the advertisement in the previous post, and found this:

in an online catalogue from Shapiro Auctioneers. The description suggests it’s likely to have been designed by Clement Meadmore, a famous Australian-American sculptor, who was designing furniture in the early 1950s. You may have seen his sculpture at the National Gallery:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pvk/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

He originally studied industrial design (with a strong interest in aeronautical engineering) at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and you can see that industrial-atomic-spaceage look throughout his designs:

These chairs were made in 1950, and sold for about $5000 in 2008.

Retro Renovation (a blog of which I am a huge fan, oh my goodness the eye candy) has a new post up about upholstered bedspreads for the mid-century modern bedroom which you can buy from the site linked in the post. I had this post in my queue but thought I’d bump it up as it was timely.

Here’s an ad for these bedspreads, from Van Winkle, as printed in Australian Home Beautiful for September 1955. The text reads:

“Now.. Bedspreads in the Manhattan Manner”   In Manhattan Penthouses, 5th Avenue Mansions, and Long Island Estates, tailored, quilted Spreads are high fashion. Now Van Winkle brings this trend to Australia. Flawlessly quilted, generously flounced, faultlessly tailored to an original American design, a Van Winkle Spread is bedroom beauty at a budget price. Six fashion-favoured colours: Mexican Rose, Hollywood Green, Miami Sand, Kentucky Blue, Florida Rose, Pacific Blue.

The room in the ad’s got it all! An Eames-ish chair (and balcony furniture), a pouffe, designer lamp, barkcloth curtains, and tiki style sculptures.

(Click to enlarge)

I had a lilac bedspread like this when I was a small child, way back inna seventies, I’m not sure what happened to it.

Many companies released “advertorial” brochures in the years after World War Two, as soon as restrictions were lifted and regular supply of things like paints and fabrics was resumed. Taubmans, an Australian paint company, released this lovely booklet – The Colorful Home by Anne Stewart. [There was a trend in the 40s to use American spellings and phrases, probably due to the influence of Hollywood and of United States servicemen stationed here during the war.]

There’s no date given, but since it’s all about updating your tired old dark wood Art Deco and Victorian furniture with which you have Made Do with during the war, and there’s no modernist furniture in the pictures, I’ll take a guess at 1947-49. I found it in the National Library along with a few other interesting and similar promotional publications. Since colour photocopies cost something ridiculous like $2 a page, and taking a scanner to the library is fraught with difficulty, I used my iPhone to take photos of the pages. I’ve edited it together into a PDF which you can download: The Colorful Home (PDF 38MB).

There are plenty of before-and-after illustrations for all rooms of the house, as well as your exterior and garden. Here are the afters!

A living room: all the dark wood has been painted in "Biscuit", and the furniture modernised by cutting down the legs and removing frames.

Mission brown Victorian furniture and fittings painted in new "Llama Grey"(!) gloss, and the linoleum painted bright royal blue.

The bare concrete floor has been painted "Grotto Green" as has the window frame and door; the furniture is red-trimmed now; and the walls are an ever-popular bright cream.

A nursery scheme designed for a girl, with "Pale Orchid" walls and "Cambridge Blue" enamel paint on all the furnishings. Venetian blinds were advertised as healthful, because you could control "dangerous drafts" so the baby wouldn't catch a chill.

A very pretty little kitchen in a classic 40s colour scheme! Yet more cream paint, with "Oriental Red" trim, and "Burnt Sand" painted lino. The curtains are "snowy white muslin with red coin spots". I want a shiny red sifter like that!

The large kitchen, with walls in "Buttercream", furniture in "Lettuce Green", and floor in "Forest Green". Check out the Cornish ware crockery, and aluminium canister set.

There's that cream paint again! even on the bathtub exterior. The stool is "Marigold", the floor a grey-blue, and the shower curtains and mat have a seagull motif with black trim!

The "oppressive stained furniture becomes delightfully modern" when painted in glossy cream! The walls are "Distant Blue" (a soft turquoise).

Home sweet home - with "Mecca Green" and "Deep Cream".

Found at Bargain Hunter (Anglicare) in Queanbeyan. A white cotton tablecloth with cross stitch embroidery, and six matching napkins. Very pretty! Probably from the 1950s?  I think it was either my grandfather or grandmother who told me that these tablecloth sets were actually made in China, and the ladies who did the embroidery would stitch with the cloth in water as it made it easier to see the threads of the background cloth, and the floss wouldn’t snarl. Update: My mum says her similar tablecloth was actually a wedding present in 1974, so this is probably not as old as I thought it was. The design and colours are nicely “era-neutral” though, don’t you think?