#vintage fashions
Three images of Taisho (1912-1926) Japan
Top - A 1920s fire drill
Middle - Two ainu women with a mortar, probably pounding rice for mochi, 1920s
Bottom - Shinsaibashi bridge, Osaka, 1910s.
All found at Old Photos of Japan - That place is AMAZING
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Silk Ribbon Bolero: Summer Fancy in 1948
This “Sunback Dress” and bolero from Modern Knitting reflect the popular look of the late 1940s. Post-war American women embraced the New Look offered by Christian Dior in 1947 with fitted bodices and long, full skirts. The skirt on this dress is both gathered and pleated at the waist for fullness and then was knitted until it was 30 inches in length. This sundress also reflects the new prosperity and leisure that marked much of America in the era. Both garments were knitted of ¼ inch rayon or silk ribbon. Pretty fancy for a summertime dress, but pretty amazing to wear too, I would think. It would be cool to the touch and have the subtle glow which both kinds of ribbons can have. But it came at a cost.
They estimated that the price would be $50 in rayon ribbon which works out to over $580 today, or $60 in silk ribbon which is $799. This was unusually high for this magazine as the next page has a simple dress from a boucle wool fingering yarn which costs only $14.50 to make. The ribbon was wider and the knitting would have gone faster, so there was a time savings. But you can imagine that anyone embarking on this project would have had to think long and hard about how much wear they would get out of it to justify the cost.
Ribbon yarns are far more common now and made out of all kinds of fibers, but I suspect the silk ribbon version would remain the most luxurious and perhaps the most beautiful choice.
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1950s Swimsuit Glamor from Augusta Auctions
Were Fifties swimsuits glamorous or what? Yes, that is a white swim suit embroidered with gold lamé stems, and with gold lame straps. Another one with black lace overlay sprinkled with rhinestones, a more daring lingerie look. They really look more like something a chorus girl would dance in, but they were swimsuits.
True, it seems unlikely that gold lamé and rhinestones are really likely to survive a lot of time in the pool, but these were probably not made for meant for swimming laps. Can’t you image two women wearing them pool side, drinking tropical cocktails, looking flirty, and then announcing it was just too hot and dipping into the pool to cool off?
Augusta Auctions tells us the white one is made of a cotton/rubber/acetate blend and the black one, more vaguely, was synthetic. There are zippers along the center backs as designers did not have spandex to make them extra stretchy, so they needed some way to get you into a fitted garment. These suits cover far more than suits would later and were easier to wear as a result, but they do show off as much of the figure as anything that came later.
They were made by “Deweese Design, Swim & Sun Fashions Los Angeles California" according to the label. California had a post-war fashion cachet as the war industry had brought so many more people out west. Designers catered to the region’s longer seasons of sunshine which meant more people were spending time in outdoor living, including poolside. Postwar prosperity mean more people had the time and money to relax in the outdoors too. Yet, even sportswear, as you can see, could be fancy.
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