The Harp Lounge » fashion

Vintage 1940s plus-size sewing pattern catalogue

Harpy — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:01:10 +0000

A while back I found a very tattered old mid-1940s pattern catalogue at an antiques centre. What was unusual about it was that it featured outsize fashions, something you hardly ever see. I paid a bit too much for it considering the condition, but I balanced it out with a few bargains elsewhere!

It’s a Leach-Way catalogue, a British company that seems to have been making patterns from the 1930s. You can find them now and then on eBay. All these patterns are for bust size 40″ to 50″, about a 14-24 in today’s clothing sizes. And they are about 5281% more flattering and lovely than nearly everything on offer in the plus-size market today, even in modern pattern catalogues. There are plenty of dresses, with complementary suits, blouses, skirts and coats. If you’re handy with patterns it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how to construct them, especially if you have a few vintage patterns already. You can always trace and scale up a vintage pattern, too. Here’s a very useful tutorial: How to re-size a pattern.

I’ve put the whole catalogue into a PDF, it’s 27MB. A few pages are a little blurry on one corner or tilted off-center – sorry about that, but the disintegrating condition of the catalogue made it hard to scan properly. Download it here: Leach-Way Outsize pattern catalogue.

Australian Home Journal 1953 vintage fashion gallery

Harpy — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:44:55 +0000

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.

Favourite handbag

Harpy — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:37:45 +0000

My current favourite handbag. It’s probably early mid1950s – early 1960s, and made of vinyl with lizard embossing, and brass fittings. Maker is Stylecraft Miami. It holds a lot more than most vintage bags and one of the inner pockets is just the right size for an iPhone. The bag is all black on the other side, so you can sort of have two looks depending on which way you hold it. Found on eBay Australia. I grabbed it because the two-tone bags are a little unusual; one of the only ones I’ve seen in a fashion plate is this black and white one from The Australian Home Journal (2 January, 1956). The black and white bag also seems unusually large for the era!