20th Century

Fashions for June and January 1906

I’m currently dreaming of early 20th century fashions, with rather bad effects on my practical, reasonable sewing schedule.  I’ve been naughty and gone off on a sewing tangent.

Girl's Own Magazine, June 1906

I’ll give you a hint.  It involves greek keys.

Girl's Own Magazine, June 1906

Hmmmmm….

I’m also intrigued by all the diagonals in these 1906 fashion plates.  What an interesting way to play with fabric.  I’m not sure if I’d go as far as to say I want to make the black spotted chiffon and white satin frock number ‘admirable suited for a young matrons” (that’s me, right?) in this plate:

Girl's Own Magazine, January 1906

I do like the advice on sales at the top of the article:

Now is the time to pick up bargains in skirt lengths, and remnants for blouses and odd lengths in net and laces for making into chemisettes for house gowns.  Sales really come as a boon and a bonus for those who must make a brave show on a really  small dress allowance, but on the other hand they are often the cause of bitter disappointment and regret, for many women get carried away by the excitement of finding bargains and lay up for themselves a stock of rubbish.

Girl's Own Magazine, January 1906

Still true!

8 Comments

  1. Wow, still true indeed! And I dunno, but I totally think you should go for that black & white number, it’s pretty interesting.

  2. Great fabric buying advice!
    It’s probably even more relevant now. The “rubbish” fabrics of 1906 couldn’t compare to the crappiness of today’s rubbish fabrics.

  3. Daniel says

    Oh My Goodness. You won’t believe this, but I am using that exact same bound series of The Girl’s Own Paper as a source for illustrations for my current project.

  4. Oh, so true!

    I love Greek key pattern – I’m looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

  5. I was just thinking today that I may need to thin the fabric herd. I bought some stuff that I had originally thought would work and now I think they just look to synthetic.

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