In Search of Style: 1950s Afternoon Dress for Campus, Office, and Home!

The clipping:  The clipping below was tucked into the pattern Woman's Day 5042, and what fun to actually see how Woman's Day magazine advertised their patterns! When working with mail order patterns, one often wonders what the original advertisement looked like. Most mail order patterns were advertised in newspapers, but there were several that advertised in magazines, typically the magazine's own brand. This was true of Woman's Day patterns in the 1950s. This clipping provides a wonderful color version of the pattern. Compare it with the pattern image that follows.

Woman's Day 5042

The pattern: Woman's Day 5042 (1952)

As you can read on the pattern envelope, this pattern was published in the August 1952 edition of Woman's Day Magazine. This crisp and contoured dress "for campus, office, and home" definitely looks all business. Note that it is a step-in dress, and has an eye-catching contoured double collar and ditto for the cuffs. Another clever aspect to this dress is that each sleeve is one piece (single seam), with the back being "kimono" style, while the front takes on a raglan aspect. Clever design!

And just for the fun of it, here is the back side of the clipping, full of fabric swatches in rich blue tones.

Home Sewing Tips from the 1920s - Embroidered Collar & Cuffs

Well, I adore hand-embroidery and deep collars and cuffs, so this is superb tip from my point of view! Thank you, Ruth Wyeth Spears for this tip for your home sewists of the 1920s! I love the Napoleon-style collar and the deep contoured cuffs - so totally elegant. The hand embroidery uses simple stitches (single stitch, cross stitch, and satin stitch) that produce a beautiful, rich look, especially if you include gold thread in the pattern, as Ruth suggests.

I definitely want to try this one! Perhaps on a jacket - don't think I could pull off a full coat. :)