#advance patterns

Pattern haul! I found some vintage patterns at an Antique mall today. Look what’s in the middle: a design by Edith Head! She won not one, not two, but eight academy awards for best costume design in her career. These are my first patterns from Advance. The seller told me that they only sell ones with all the pieces, which is the main problem with vintage patterns. For example, the pants I’m making right now. Here’s the backs:

The Day-to-Night Jacket Dress Combo, Or A Stewardess? Advance 9549

In the early 1960s, women still wore suits to city office work or city shopping, and sometimes they were staying for an evening out in the city. The rules for the occasions of dress distinguished work clothes— serious and sober— from party clothes— playful and possibly seductive. What to wear to the city when you had a big day and a big evening planned? The dress with matching jacket fit the bill.

This pattern envelope illustrates precisely how to make the change. During daytime work hours, you wear the jacket with the dress making a suit. This jacket has princess seams to create the slim bodice silhouette that had been popular since the mid-1950s when the sheath dress became popular. This jacket has a collar and opens to V at center front. The sleeves are three-quarter length, then darted at the elbow. The bottom hem of the jacket has little notched openings where the seams end which probably gave needed space to the waistline when you wanted to sit down. As does the deep pleat in the back of the straight skirt. 

Notice the sketch on the left has her wearing a pillbox hat, short gloves and a couple of bangles, so maybe a bit too decorated for work. The right sketch is clearly for evening. The jacket has disappeared revealing a wider, deeper neckline, whose notches echo those found on the jacket. Cap sleeves reveal most of the arms too. A multi-strand necklace, long gloves and a deep cuff, plus a looser hair do, all point to an evening outfit.

The fabrics ranged widely, indicating how many different occasions a woman could make this for: heavier cottons, heavier rayons, and wool crepe, but also satin and faille which are dressier. So you could keep aim for a day-to-night look, or go very dressy for a fancier and more formal occasion.

HOME ARTS NEEDLECRAFT | SEPTEMBER 1937

For the Love of the Set-In Sleeve: Advance 5345

A friend of mine gave me a stack of vintage patterns and I got very excited because among them was this Advance pattern. It dates from the late 1940s or early 1950s because the skirts are long and the New Look of Christian Dior had dropped skirts to lower calf in 1947. He had also cinched up waists and softened shoulders. This afternoon or informal evening dress has small shoulder pads which makes me think it is earlier than the re-issued Vogue 8768 which you see right below that was published originally in 1950. As someone with square shoulders, I was thrilled to have the same trapeze neckline with set-in shoulders. The dolman sleeve on the Vogue pattern is too restricting on me.

You can also tell this is early in the era because the voluminous petticoats, which became a hindrance for sitting, and comically large by the mid-1950s, are nowhere to be seen. Instead, the skirt falls softly down, achieving the luxurious yardage of the New Look--World War II shortages were over-- with both soft pleats and flaring from the waist to the hemline. The bands on the front bodice are cut on the bias for a soft drape and then applied over the front bodice piece. This is a clever way to build up the bustline if that is what you are after. Yes, thanks.

The rest of the neckline is finished with two bias-cut fabric strips: one across the front and the other around the back neck. Working with bias-cut fabric strips was probably second nature to home sewers as they appear on many patterns. Then a straight-of-grain strip is cut to finish the side seam where a “slide-fastener” or zipper was installed. These side opening were originally snap plackets, with one hook and eye at the waistline. I prefer that technique as the result has more drape than a zipper, and I cut the fabric strip slightly off grain for the same reason.

Vintage 1940s 'Pussy Bow' blouse pattern from Advance patterns....

1940's playwear patterns by Advance patterns....halter top, shorts and cover-up top!