Housecoats!

House Coat. Evening Wrap. House Dress. Coat Dress. Robe. Duster. Brunch Coat. Breakfast Coat. "Tee Vee Coat"!

All these terms refer to one of my favorite vintage fashion items, the housecoat. A versatile garment, typically a wrap dress intended to be worn at home for leisure, housework, or even entertaining, the housecoat evolved from the hostess gown of the 30s and 40s (a rather luxurious full-length garment of velvet or other rich fabrics). The house coat (or housecoat) retained that luxurious length but also became shorter for housework and was made of crisp, fresh gingham, cotton, or calico.

The same pattern was versatile and could be a hostess gown, a cotton house coat, or robe. Whether a stay-at-home mom or a modern business girl, the housecoat was perfect for comfortable wear at home and perfectly fine for receiving drop-in visitors as well as for cleaning the kitchen or lounging on the couch. My mother regularly wore housecoats - a basic wardrobe must from the 30s to the 60s!

For more information on housecoats in the 1940s, check out Hostess Gowns.

And now, here is a sneak preview of some of the housecoat patterns I will be listing in the next few weeks at Midvale Cottage. Such gorgeous and fun fashion!

Resort Fashions III

It's my final week of resort fashions, and it has been fun! Coming up this week are some gorgeous halter and bra tops, swim suits, sundresses, summer ensembles, and more. I think the most interesting part of swimwear fashion is the evolution of the beach coat. In the 40s and 50s the beach coat was a must. In the 60s this gradually became the beach shirt. Eventually it simply became a beach wrap or no wrap at all but a towel. Here is a sneak peek for this week. Next week's theme: housecoats!

Resort Fashions II

It has been fun this past week to see the response to the resort fashion listings. Two fabulous 40s swimsuits flew off the shelf, with playsuits an excellent second. Here is one swimsuit from 1942 that sold quickly and featured a rather sophisticated, jaunty beach coat:

If you love vintage swimsuits, you might want to check out a great blog on vintage swimwear, Glamoursplash: http://www.glamoursplash.com/. Be sure to look at a couple of her posts that focus on 1940s swimwear: swimwear through ages -1940s and 1940s swimwear fashions, which has a great film clip of models in swimwear, featuring that most popular style, the sarong two-piece swimsuit.

This week my shop continues the resort fashion theme, with new listings for swimwear, playsuits, and more. Here is a sneak peek at some items to come (no reserve requests, please, until after posted):

 

Resort Fashions

I don't know about you, but in the dreary days of winter I long for sun and the feeling of a warm breeze on my skin. What a perfect time to look at summer fashion! Inspired by a Life magazine January 1947 issue which featured resort fashions, I have decided to make my first theme Resort Fashions. This means that for the next few weeks I will be posting a number of patterns for wearing at sunny resorts, including swimsuits, beach coats, beach cover-ups, playsuits, patio dresses, and so on. I will be covering as full a span of decades as possible, from the 30s or 40s and on, and for the whole family. Summer, here we come! ;D

A peek of patterns to come:

Simplicity 1302

 Advance 8311

Simplicity 2532

Simplicity 3250

Simplicity 3960

 Simplicity 7107

 Simplicity 8480

Welcome to the Midvale Cottage Blog!

At long last! This is the official blog of Midvale Cottage on Etsy.  I begin my first post with a film snippet of my very dear mother, as a young woman fresh out of high school, in the late 1930s. Such a beauty! How lucky my grandfather was a camera and film buff, a lover of new technology. Note those fabulous puffy sleeves on her dress. Beautiful 1930s style! :-) (now if they could have just done a better job of centering the camera lens.... ;)