The Tent Dress Goes Glamorous: Vogue 1947

The term tent dress is usually used as a kind of insult for a dress that has no fit at all. True, this has a “tent-shape” being narrower at the shoulders and flaring from there hitting well over 2 yards of width at the hemline in the short version. Despite this lack of shape in line, it was supposed to be glamorous as you can see from the illustrations.

The only shape added to the dress is the belt to be tied at the waist, but the huge sweeping collar, a borrowing from more restrained 1930s Bertha collars and cape collars, gives it glamour. As do the fabric suggested for it which include matte jersey and I thought immediately of Quiana, a Dupont product made of nylon that was pricey at the time it was introduced in the late 1960s and was oh-so-slinky. They also recommend crepe and challis which also have a lot of drape. All of these fabrics would allow the cape and the skirt to swing easily as you moved. The touch of pockets in the two front seams are so Seventies too, implying a nonchalant attitude despite the glamour.

Of course, the lines of this dress would look especially good on the tall and thin models that dominated the 1970s runways when fashion shows had turned into public spectacles, and were no longer the intimate showings to wealthy women and the fashion press gathered in salons to take a look. On a more petite woman, the cape would overwhelm her unless it was cut down to smaller proportions.

The 1970s Jumpsuit Revived: Simplicity 9700

The 1970s saw a move towards unisex fashions which generally meant men’s fashions put on women’s bodies, with or without actual acknowledgement of how they actually tend to differ from men’s bodies. Which is how we got those t-shirts marked “medium” which swamp the women wearing them. Fortunately, eventually jeans and t-shirt were re-cut to fit women better.

Jumpsuits were one of those fashions which men had worn first. You could call them coveralls, but jumpsuits connected them to people jumping out of planes wearing parachutes which seemed far more impressive. The word first surfaced in 1948, but slowly the connections to planes and parachutes faded away.

These bring the wide, flared legs that became the fashion in the 1970s, but held on to some of their traditional utilitarian elements, such as multiple pockets for holding gear. The orange version here has all the pockets, while the cream version announces that it is not all that utilitarian with write bangles and a little clutch bag. Of course, the wedge sandals on both versions make it clear that nobody is jumping out of any plane soon.