The Art of 1920s Dressmaking - Choose a Becoming Color

This image is the frontispiece in the 1927 book "The Art of Dressmaking" published by Butterick. The image carries the caption "Selecting becoming colors as they do in Paris".  Does this sound familiar? If you've been reading Ruth Wyeth Spear's tips for home sewers of the 1920s, she frequently mentions the current fashion from Paris, whether it be color or some other detail of style. And of course, selecting the most flattering, or becoming, color was extremely important.

The book goes on to state that "in order to look well dressed, you must have your clothes accord with the season's lines". Clearly, Paris designers ruled!

Resort Fashions 2013 - Swimsuit Retrospective - 1929, 1930, 1931

1929

In 1929, the dressmaker suit still let a girl with a poor figure look pretty when she went swimming. This was a boom year when people drove to the beach in big open Cadillacs and paid $500 for a cabana.

 1930

In 1930, the Depression and a sudden trend to nudity set in together. On the beach, men and women looked about the same in their belted suits. In pools about the country, Eleanor Holm, an Olympic gold medalist swimmer, was beginning to be famous.

1932

Stores sold 12,000,000 suits in the Depression. People had discovered swimming and sea bathing were cheap recreation. In 1932, the rage for dressmakers was declining except for older women.