Summer in the 70's

Last week, it felt like winter had come back but this week is different. Very different. Now, it actually feels like late spring. The sky is often blue, it is sunny, the local supermarkets are already offering everything for the barbecue and sometimes you can actually walk outside without a coat!
Of course, the good weather should make me think about summer sewing... I haven't really decided on anything yet.
But, to get into the spirit of approaching summer, I thought I would write another post about a vintage magazine. Most of my collection is from the 1950's but not all of it. Today's offering is the May issue of Marion magazine from 1971:

It is funny, we've seen such a mixture of retro styles over the past years. Some of those bug-eye sunglasses might actually be fashionable again...

This being Marion, there are only patterns for a few of the designs. This peculiar jumpsuit with over-dress is one of them (in about my size)

The style of the illustrations in 1970's Marion is pretty goofy and then there are the prints in the photographs! However, if you look past all that, there are a lot of clean, simple designs which would probably still work today. 

For some reason, the editors of Marion are much more positive about the prospect of summer in the 1970's than they were back in the 1950's. This issue contains a lot of all-out summer clothes and several design especially intended for the summer holidays. Twenty years before, you would get headlines like "It is not summer yet" and "Wool, also for those chilly days in summer". I don't really think the climate changed that much in the third quarter of the twentieth century but of course the insulation of buildings did...

I don't think I will sew anything from this particular magazine any time soon. However, 1970's is a decade I still haven't visited in nearly two-and-a-half years of participating in the Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge, so I will be looking at more of it. 

1953!

Today, I have one more project for my Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge. A simple blouse from Marion magazine. 

From July 1953, to be precise. It's a basic 1950's blouse: Short kimono sleeves, convertible collar, French darts at the front, half darts at the back (darts from the bottom to the waistline, open from the waist up. that would make the blouse smooth to tuck in while giving it a nice bit of blousing above the waist).

I had wanted to use a different fabric, an off-cut I got for free at the fabric stall, but it was too small. Then I remembered this stuff, a fine cotton blend, a millefleurs print in brown and purple with a stripe-and-flowers border print. It's not a print I would usually pick. I bought it on one of the rare occasions I was shopping for fabric with a friend. She mentioned that the colours of this print would suit me and I agreed, so I bought a meter of it. 
It has taken me two years but now I've finally sewn something from it. I used that border print along the front edges. 

Unfortunately, this blouse proved difficult to photograph. Maybe there were just too similar colours together, with me posing in front of the purple-ish wall. 

Nevertheless, this is item number nine, or six if you don't count the reproduction patterns. It is also the third garment sewn from a pattern by Marion magazine in a row. And that has taught me something: In Marions from the 1950's and 60's, size 38 just fits me. No issues with the position of bust darts or shoulder width or back length, it just fits. Ok, I may need a tiny bit of extra space at the hip (2 cm in total, which is half a size in most sizing systems) and I guess I should still try a fitted 1950's dress to see how the waistline fits (which might have a bit too much room, based on the sizing chart) but that's still pretty amazing. I don't think I've ever had such a good fit without alterations from any modern pattern...

Marion magazine was first published at the end of 1949 (it's a monthly magazine and my oldest one, from February 1953, is nr. 55) so I think it's safe to assume they started with the same basic fit they were still using in July 1953.   The sizing chart didn't change until well into the 1970's and that may just have been a vanity sizing operation. 

I don't think I've made my last Marion dress this year either. There's a very nice little dress from 1970 too. And yet, I think it's enough for now. One of my goals for the Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge is to use different kinds of vintage patterns. So far this year, I've used three repro patterns (two EvaDress, one Vogue), two from Gracieuse, one Lutterloh and now these three from Marion. There were two hats, one robe, five dresses and a blouse. Of course, that means I have more than met my goal for this year's pledge. It doesn't mean I have to stop though. There is still a 1970's Frohne suit I would like to make for winter and I think I should try out an original 1940's pattern too. And maybe another 20's one...

1966!

The year was 1966 and eh... Well, what we tend to think of as the quintessential 1960's look was definitely gaining ground. It wasn't just for the hip young things in swinging cities anymore. A middle-of-the-road Dutch sewing magazine like Marion was publishing patterns for fairly short, fairly loose-fitting dresses too. For the smaller sizes, that is. It is interesting that the designs for the larger end of the sizing chart are still more along the lines of semi-fitted sheath dresses. 

Because I wear one of Marion's smaller ladies' sizes, I could find a nice dress pattern in the December issue of that year.

I wasn't in love with this dress (the one of the left) when I first lined up the potential candidates for a Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge 1960's project. However, it didn't take a lot of closer inspection to realize that the insipid styling was hiding a rather nice design. Those colour-blocked criss-cross panels!
Of course, the dress in the picture might be quite impressive in real life: For all we know it was made in clashing orange and green... It just seems to be one of the very few cases in which Marion's stylists or sample makers forgot they were preparing for a photoshoot in black-and-white.

Of course, my colour choice was going to be different. And I wanted to make a dress I could wear right now. So, cotton or linen was called for. 
Compared to the dress in the picture, I fear I may have pushed this style to the other extreme: Between the black and the black-red-yellow print, there is a whiff of the fires of Mount Doom about it ;)
Or it might just be what Twiggy would have worn if she were really into Death Metal ;)
Does that make it a terrible anachronism? Maybe, but I'm not too bothered about that. I like vintage style and vintage patterns but ultimately, I want to be able to wear the things I've made and feel comfortable in them. (oh, and I know those shoes are terribly 1970's in style) 

The fabrics I picked are the textured linen I also used for last year's jumpsuit and this great African wax print which I've only ever used for a skirt before (which must have been pre-blog because I can't find a post about it but it is still here on Burdastyle). I love it but with my complexion, it's not something I can wear all-over (which is how these wax prints are normally worn). 
In this case, I could use the print to re-inforce the effect of those diagonal panels.

I'm quite happy with how this dress turned out. I didn't even make a muslin and the fit is spot-on. The bust shaping in those panel seams is in the right place, the waist length (which I did check against my sloper) is good and it doesn't have a crazy amount of ease or a lack of it. 
I only made three changes: I made the sleeve short instead of three quarter length to make the dress more appropriate for this time of year, I hemmed it a bit shorter because I preferred the look of that and I cut the sides of the back pieces a centimeter wider at hip level. Before cutting, I measured the pattern pieces and realized there might not be much ease at the hips so I compromised in that way. Normally, you would distribute such added width across front and back but I had already cut the front contrast pieces which reach down to hip level. Interestingly, the side seams look perfectly straight now.

I tried a Marion pattern before and I had many more issues with that one. Of course, it was an earlier pattern in a very different style so its pattern makers may have had very different ideas about ease. I was also a bit smaller at the chest back then, which made me pick a smaller size. This dress is in size 38, Marion's smallest "proper" ladies' size throughout the 1950's and 60's. That first dress was a size 36 which was a kind of in-between or teenager size: Same waist measurement as 38, smaller chest and hips and, as it turned out, a shorter waist length. Clearly, my proportions and height are much better suited for the larger size. 

I may not really be a hip young thing anymore but it doesn't take much to imagine rocking out in this dress ;)   

Another plan...

Tomorrow, I should be able to finish by 1930's dress. It has been pretty much finished all week but the hemline-to-be had some rather weird length differences as a result of bias hang. So, I left it to hang a bit longer and because it's a full length skirt, I really need help to pin the hemline. So, E can help me on Saturday.

In the mean time, I'm thinking about a next Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge project. On the warm summer days, of which we've had a few so far, I don't really like to wear my dresses and separates with a closely fitted waistline. Too warm. Weather like that suddenly make the short, simple loosely fitted looks of the 1960's seem desirable.

I had a look at my vintage patterns. I hvae some 1960's Frohne books but those are from the early years of the decade and include more 1950's-light shapes than the mod looks I was looking for now. The same is true for the two German Gunther magazines but I still have a small stack of post-1950's Dutch Marions.

Not a huge amount of them, but they do pretty much span the decade.

After some examination, I realized that the "typical 1960's" looks I was after doesn't really come in until 1965 (at least, not in mainstream fashion in the Netherlands). So, the following pictures are all from between 1965 and 1970.

Marion was one of those magazines which included only a few of the designs in each magazine on the pattern sheet (you could get the rest through their mail order service). They must have stopped doing that at some point because my mother subscribed to that magazine around 1990 and it was sort of like Burdastyle magazine and came with patterns for all designs. They didn't until the mid-1970's though. 

And, unfortunately, 1960's Marion had a tendency not to include the most on-trend items...

Anyway, I would prefer a dress which I could make now and wear straight away but of course, I have to work with what I have:

The dress on the left would be an option but the pattern is too large for me, the one on the left would be just a little bit on the small side but it doesn't really appeal to me.

 The middle one is in my size but not very inspiring...

and these options are just too winter-y.

The pattern is for the one on the left. These are prime examples for the craze for topstitching which seems to have returned several times over the decade (and the one after it).

Ehm... Here the pattern in my size is for the blouson top with a choice of culottes or a skirt. I suppose it is very 1960's and not close fitting but I can't see myself wearing that. I like the dress but don't see the point of grading down what is in fact just a basic shift. Grading it down by four sizes...

And then there are trousers... Such a cool suit.

These dresses all look a bit frumpy but I kind of like the diagonal seams and colour blocking at the left.

And more trousers. These are sort of like knickerbockers... What do you think: Could I pull off that look?

In winter, I would love the dress in the middle (but not with the decorations at the sleeve and body seam at exactly the same level)

And then, there are these party dresses. I like the one on the left (which comes with a pattern in more or less my size) despite the scary make-up and facial expression of the model. 

All these are real options but back in the day, you could get some real gems. I thought it would be nice to include a few examples, from the ridiculous to the sublime.

A beach suit with a built-in cape!

I don't even know what to call the outfits on the left page, the coat has to have a colour blocking design to get that giant checkerboard look and I guess the tame suit on the far right is just lost.

 

It's a shift dress party! And there is one very pretentious guest: An Yves Saint-Laurent Mondriaan dress knock-off.

The suit on the right. Yes, it would be a lot less exciting in a plain fabric. But they made it in that block check.

I have to be honest, this last one is not a Marion design. The illustrations belong to an ad for Vlieseline fusible interfacing. Apparently, giant cut-outs at the waistline are the height of fashion and if you have the figure for it, you too can achieve this hot new look if you just buy their product...

So, I know it is a bit of a departure for me but I am really considering a "typical 1960's" dress. I don't think I'll go for the waistline cut-outs though...

I am still finishing other sewing projects but I think I have a favorite already. Do you?

1957(ish)!

Well, thanks to the vagaries of Dutch winter weather (not cold at the moment but windy rainy and generally rather glum) it took me a while to get pictures of this outfit. On the other hand, I was lucky that E has taken this week off work and didn't mind being forced into the role of photographer on Tuesday morning. 

This is my 1957 outfit, made using a tutorial for the skirt and belt from the issue nr. 4 of Libelle magazine from 1957.

The whole look is based on this picture, from the mailorder pattern section from nr. 5 from the same year. I tried to get a picture in a similar pose but that proved really difficult. I didn't have anything with the right height to lean on so it felt really awkward. Looking at the my attempts when sorting the pictures for this post just made me feel scruffy and waistless... 

To complete the look, I obviously needed a blouse pattern. One from the same year would have been ideal but my collection didn't provide one. 

This little number (on the right), however, is from sewing magazine Marion from 1955. From the March issue. It shares a lot of the characteristics of the blouse in the picture: kimono sleeves (at least at the front. The Marion blouse has set-in back sleeves), no button band and less-than-full-length sleeves with turn-back cuffs. I chose not to mind about the fact that it has tucks at the waist instead of darts but of course, I did feel the need to alter the collar. I kept the original neckline and button positions (those three are the only buttons at the front of this blouse. Obviously it was meant to be only ever worn tucked into a high waistband) and drafted a very simple convertible collar to use instead of the stander and mini-size rounded collar the pattern came with. 

Skirt and belt were made following the tutorial but adapted to my waist size and didn't really cause any surprises (and I've made my own, more detailed, tutorial for this belt in the previous post). It was a bit of a shame the instructions didn't bother with enforcing a particular skirt length. That would have been interesting. On the other hand, I've read enough 1950's (and 1940's and probably from earlier times as well) fashion news to know that a truly stylish lady defines her skirt length by the distance from the hem to the ground. Measured while wearing the appropriate shoes for that outfit, of course. 

I was pleasantly surprised with the blouse. I've tried Marion patterns twice before and both of those times, I was rather underwhelmed with the result (a dress and a coat which didn't get beyond the muslin stage). I guess this teaches me not to go for the size 36. That may be very close to my bust measurement, it's considered to be a 'transitional' size, a point between the sizes for girls and women and apparently, that means a seriously shorter back waist length. Part of the difference will also be down to rather simple matters: for a blouse like this, the fit has to be right through the shoulders and bust, the rest doesn't matter as much. For the coat, it was mostly the lack of shaping at the waist and flare of the skirt that disappointed me. Oh, and in this case, the picture from the magazine was definitely not what drew me to this pattern.   

For the purpose of the Vintage Pattern Pledge, I'm counting this outfit as two patterns, because it is.