Enter Spring?

Is it Spring? When I can walk outside and see trees looking like this, I’m going to believe it is regardless.

To mark the occasion, here are some sage words from my Vogue Pattern book from April-May 1935:

Spring isn’t just a question of first robins and sunshine. It is essentially a matter of new viewpoints, fresh enthusiasms. Its outward and visible sign is not, as commonly supposed, the first crocus, but the flowering of new fashions up and down the land.

Indeed. So what were the new fashions blossoming in Spring 1935? (And how many of them sound familiar from the catwalk for Spring 2008?)

Big Sleeve Story:

Sleeves, for example, are charmingly dramatic…

Personally, I wish that I could pull off sleeves twice as big as my head, although I fear they’d get dragged through everything, like the dinner. I love the red number in the pic below, and its fascinating neckline:

Fabrics with a future:

An amusing novelty- the tiny new animal prints- Scotties, Sealyhams, and other dumb friends in surprisingly good little motifs forming rather close patterns. Fashion must have its little joke, and they’re better that they sound.

The magazine apparently disdains to illustrate this amusing novelty. I have to admit I had to google an image of a Sealyham as I’ve never come across one. They seem to look a lot like Scotties but with longer necks. Anyone interested in reproducing this look should head over to Fabric Finders, where they have the fabric to the right.

Things happen behind your back:

Jackets and coats are just as interesting seen from the rear as from the front. When an admiring public turns to look after you as you pass by this spring, your retreating back will leave a ripple of enthusiasm in your wake.

The re-discovery of the Regency:

Capes- the Season’s gallant gesture. You’ll feel like D’Artagnan in the long ones, and a jaunty Beau Brummel in the short ones…

Femininity, or what every woman knows:

There’s a rustle of taffeta in the air, and chiffons have fluttered back into fashion for evening. Of course, every woman knows she look best with a ruffle around her neck…more fragile in ethereal chiffons….Flowers in the hair and sheer fluttery fabrics by night…

Perfection

Remember my mysterious French pattern catalogue from 1941? I found another, also optimistically titled Perfection, also on ebay, but this time for summer 1937. Isn’t this a gorgeous front cover?

It becomes more apparent in this particular catalogue (I think my other 1941 one may have a page or so missing) that Editions Bell were indeed a pattern company based at 25, Avenue de l’Opera, Paris (although Google doesn’t turn up much on them). Perfection was one of selection of catalogues with names like Prestige and Inspirations that they offered, promoting patterns for menswear, hats, coats etc. They offer to send you a pattern of “impeccable cut” drafted to your measurements within 48 hours.

This particular catalogue smells very strongly of gauloises. I love to imagine a terribly elegant lady reading it, perhaps sitting in a cafe with a small verre de vin, narrowing her eyes through a haze of blue cigarette smoke at delicious frivolities like these:

Of course she’d go for the orange number at the back. I know I certainly would.