Movies You Ought To See: The Thin Man Films

William Powell and Myrna Loy drink like fish, solve mysteries, and banter with the sort of affectionate gender animosity that passed for a happy marriage in the 1930s.  The movies are charming, funny, and (sexism, racism, and alcoholism aside) have a surprisingly modern sensibility.  The series spans my favorite period of history (first film 1934, last film 1947), and the clothes are straight-up gorgeous.  This is what Nick and Nora wear to get a midnight snack of scrambled eggs and toast:

Let's see that again from another angle:

What I Am Now Calling "The Dustbowl Skirt"

 Front view:

and back view:

 Skirt: tea-length full skirt in charcoal wool flannel, with narrow waistband, side zip, and two-button closure (worn layered over this dress/slip/nightgown hybrid).

Eras and Styles

If you follow this blog at all you have probably noticed that my go-to era is the early forties.  I have a slightly more complicated relationship to the period than some other sewing bloggers because I draft my own patterns--but then again, none of us can manage complete period accuracy in any case, not when we're using modern fabrics, modern techniques, and our modern sense of what looks "right."  When I'm drafting a new pattern, I usually flip through the vintage patterns wiki and search around on Pinterest for inspiration, but I never stick with any one pattern; I take the neckline on one, the waist detailing on another, and draft up a version that works for my body and tastes.

That said, I've noticed that I take different things from different periods.  In the forties, I'm drawn to a very practical, war-work sensibility--slacks, overalls, square shoulders and straight skirts:

Movies You Ought To See: His Girl Friday (& some thoughts on history)

His Girl Friday (1940).  Rosalind Russell attempts to escape the newspaper business by marrying a sweet but simple insurance salesman, played by Ralph Bellamy, but her ex-husband (and ex-boss) Cary Grant isn't about to let that happen.

The really wonderful thing about His Girl Friday is that, appearances to the contrary, it is not a love story about Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant: it's a love story about Rosalind Russell and the newspaper business.  For the middle hour of the movie, Grant is offscreen trying to get Bellamy thrown in jail.  That's a whole hour where all we see is the fast-talking and talented Ms. Russell quipping with hardened newspapermen, interviewing murderers, comforting maligned and helpless women, and tackling police wardens for a story (literally tackling, it's brilliant).  No wonder that at the end of the movie she finds she can't give it up, even for the love of a good man.

I Think I Bought a Sweater at Sears Once; It Was Not This Stylish

I discovered last week that my university's library includes a fair-sized collection of restricted access art books. I checked out the textiles and fashion section, on a hunch, and hit the goldmine--tons of books about vintage clothes! Interestingly, the most useful turned out to be Everyday Fashions of the Thirties As Pictured in Sears Catalogs (which is only ten bucks, and can't be checked out of the library for more than two hours, so I'm seriously considering just buying it). It's such a jackpot because it features A) actual outfits of the period, unfiltered by modern sensibilities, with B) vintage styling and C) fairly detailed descriptions of fabric, notions, and construction details, all topped off by D) the original pricing! I love being able to see how much the clothes I'm making would have been worth to the average middle-class woman of 1938.

The other super-fun thing about this book is the clear progression of the design; in 1930 or '31, it's all drawn in the Art Deco style of the twenties, but by 1939 the photography style dates the catalog very clearly to the WWII period. Some of the late-thirties outfits are even more "forties" than those from the sequel, Everyday Fashions of the Forties etc.

Some highlights:

The decade was full of these tea-length or slightly shorter skirts with the fullness controlled by several released pleats. I love them. So much. I have some wool/silk blend coming in the mail, so if it has the right hand for it I'm going to whip up something like the skirt on the right:

This sweater advertisement is very clearly competing with home knitters--it's interesting that by the mid-thirties, a mainstream mid-priced company like Sears could make this claim:

My grandfather lives in these all-in-one khaki work suits--I asked my grandmother why once, and she said his father wore them when he was a kid. My grandfather was born in 1931; this advertisement ran in 1939:

By the late thirties, pants were acceptable casual wear for women and many outfits are offered with skirt and trouser options. The two models, standing side by side, sometimes look a lot like a butch/femme couple. For example, these ladies:

By the way, the text at the top of the picture reads "Hollywood says: suit the woman in mannish flannels!" Girl on the left is rocking those mannish flannels and casually bumping elbows with girl on the right, who thinks her trouser creases are sexy.

I've got a whole sketch in my head for these two:

Jacket Girl: "Your hair looks really shiny today."

Blouse Girl: "Oh, really?"

Jacket Girl: "Yeah. And you're really pulling off those button-flap pants."

Blouse Girl: "Oh. Thanks!"

Jacket Girl: "Usually those are ugly and impractical, but they look kind of okay on you."

Blouse Girl: "Uh."

Jacket Girl: "As we seem to be on a boat, how would you like me to take you for a ride?"

(pause)

Jacket Girl: "I have a nautical-themed pashmina afghan."

Hollywood Patterns: Home Sewing in the Thirties

Hollywood Patterns, marry me.

These lovely, quirky patterns are advertised with glamour photos of various starlets--for instance, "Linda Hayes of RKO-Radio." That's some terrible hair, honey.

They date from 1932 through the Second World War, which is a fascinating period of fashion history. Home sewing patterns as a commercial industry had been around since Ebenezer Butterick pioneered them in the 1860s, but the way they were marketed changed enormously from decade to decade; early patterns are often advertised as stylish, but rarely (as far as I can tell) with reference to any particular public figure or media representation of the style. But by the late twenties and early thirties, the movies had come in in a big way, and many patterns (not just Hollywood's!) are sold as direct copies of costumes from popular films. You can imagine the hope that Depression-era women must have felt, with a pattern in one hand and a few yards of rayon crepe in the other--with just a few hours of work, you too could slink around in bias-cut dinner pajamas just like Bette Davis!

It wasn't only movies that women aspired to copy, either; this mid-thirties pattern for a tennis outfit sells itself as "straight from the French resorts," and includes a cap which the lovely Andrea at Unsung Sewing Patterns has identified as a possible fad item among the rich and fashionable in the south of France. This was clearly a period in which home sewers were looking to the fabulously wealthy and the glamorously glitzy for inspiration. One of my favorite dressmaking texts, "Practical Dress Design," frequently breaks off to identify the most fashionable Paris silhouettes of 1937, 1938, and 1939--and occasionally predict what 1940 will look like.

Women of the thirties were sewing to get glamour on a budget--mass-produced clothing was still pricey enough, and fabric by the yard widely available enough, that you could save a dollar on an evening gown or fifty cents on a wool skirt by sewing at home. Essentially, sewing was at its trendiest during the Great Depression, and on into the Second World War. By the prosperous fifties, Hollywood Patterns was either a bust or a shell of its former popularity--I can't find any details on what happened to the company post-war--and home sewing manuals no longer directed their readers toward the latest fashions in Paris frocks.

I'll console myself with Anita Louise's bias-cut evening gown:

Katharine Hepburn's gorgeous, I-want-them-right-now trousers:

Dolores Del Rio's... whatever this is:

and Ginny Simms's smart little skirt suit:

I think we've all got fifteen cents on hand for a lovely pattern like that. And Dolores Del Rio of Warner Brothers, I would very much like to know what that thing on the front of your dress blouse is. Not the scarf, the other thing. The whatever that is.