keeping track of lovely posts

I fell down the rabbit hole of trying to find old Eaton's catalogs, but we're going to make do with Sears, because Internet Archive has a scan of the 1922 spring catalog.

One of the reasons I like to pin 1922 on the fanciful "whenever" of The Blue Castle is that waists started to descend toward the hips, and the silhouette was pretty straight up and down. While most dresses are shown with sashes, a girdle of red beads isn't impossible. (It's also a good year for squishy hats.)

Placement of the waist is critical. Back in the early 1910s, there was a shift from the Edwardian S-curve to a more straight silhouette, too. But that one was Regency-inspired, so waists started high. By 1913, they'd dropped to the natural waist line, as this Ladies Home Journal spread shows. This is almost the last gasp of that straight-ish silhouette.

By 1915, skirts are wide and fluffy, as this page from The Delineator shows.

Now, if we want a fairytale reality in which WWI didn't happen, I'd love to put Olive in the fluffy fashions above, but Valancy in the straighter styles of 1918, also from The Delineator. The lower, looser belts could count as a hip-level girdle.

Waists retreat to the natural waist and skirts become a little more gathered in 1921, per the Eaton's catalog.

Then waists get softer and lower again for 1922 (back to Sears).

By winter 1923, waistlines have fallen below the hip bone (Eaton's), so Valancy's beaded belt would no longer be daring.

Sharpshooter Annie Oakley while touring with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in Italy, 1890 -