1963 Elkhart County Fair Champion, Or Yes, That is a Matching Hat

This suit which came with a matching coat is on display at the local 4-H building at the Elkhart County Fair as part of the clothing construction exhibit. Most of show were items made by young people for this year's fair, but they had some winners from the past on display as well. And this won was the most impressive.

This 1963 suit is a beautiful blue and gray wool with matching, bias- cut shawl that buttons on to either the suit or the coat. In the early 1960s, a suit was still the garment that even young women wore for travel to the city, whether to work or to shop. In fact, a suit was one of the garments sold in juniors as well as misses sizes. And coordinated hats and gloves were part of the look for public occasions.

But a new simplicity had come to suits which explains why it differs from women's suits of the 1950s. The jacket is still fitted to the body, but lacks a collar and pockets. Of course, it was still a challenge to make, especially the outfit required a coat and a matching hat.

The 1950s Spring Suit: Advance 5688

If it was within budget, every woman who went into a town or city had a suit in the 1950s. Women wore suits for city shopping, for travel, and for city office work. Suits came in a wondrous variety of styles and were almost always detailed in some way to signal they were for women and not men. And this one was extra adaptable having both long and short sleeves and a look of a dress and jacket or of a suit.The length of the skirt tells us this was a post-war model and before the late 1950s when skirts were crept upward towards the knee. The small waist and the long skirt became the style after Christian Dior introduced the luxurious New Look in 1947. 

This suit has a bolero jacket with a 2-scallop detail at the edge and then the pockets have 3 scallops along their pocket edge. While there can be something childish about scallops, which were often used in abundance on girls’ clothing, the shift from 2 to 3 allows the lines to echo one another without becoming too cute. Notice too that the version with the long sleeves has a notch, like a scallop, in the cuff. I noted a clever design trick introduced here to deal with unstable edges.  In sewing, the bolero front edge is merely rounded, without the scallop; only the front facing (which is interfaced and thus unlikely to stretch along the edges) has the scallops; then you attach the facing and trim away the extra fabric from the front. The same trick is used for the pocket facing which is then attached to the plain edge of the skirt.

Notice that this suit was offered with relatively bare top, perfect for wearing with the jacket for work or shopping, and then perfect for evening dates without the jacket. And if the top and skirt are made in the same fabric they appear to be a dress. There is even the suggestion that you outline the top’s edges with 3 top-stitched lines using metal thread, see the small sketch at bottom right.

The skirt is straight, but the 4 pleats at the waistline ease the fit both over the hips and allow for a bit more walking ease towards the hem, far more walking ease than a straight skirt with waistline darts would. The back of the skirt is darted, and there is no back pleat, so the walking ease must come from the front darts alone.

While seam binding is called for finishing various raw fabric edges, such as the edges of the back button placket on the skirt (a less practical feature to my mind as who wants to sit back on buttons?), the patterns asks you again and again to cut bias strips to finish edges. These include the armhole edges, the edges of the short sleeve, and the edges of the cuff on the long sleeve. Clearly, the pattern designer believed women knew how to cut these and how to handle them.

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