I usually avoid doing any designing if I can help it, so I was thrilled that the talented Mr. Jereaux took the onus on himself of buying fabric and flowers.

Click on the photo to connect to the How-to.

I found this fabric in a funny little  store in the east village and had to have it.  It’s a jacquard in black and white of a naked woman-statue, ancient greek style.  I lined it fully with a long-haired faux fur.  It weighs about 20 pounds but is delicious to wear on a cold day in Manhattan.

Sadly, I cant find any more of this fabric, but if you want your own cocoon in some other fabulous textile, check out my Etsy page here.

Photographs by Kevin Bertholf.

1860s sea-bathing costume reproduction

This is an old project but I just love it, so I’m posting a bit about it here.  It is made of wool flannel, and consists of a one-piece gown over a pair of drawers.

My primary design/technical sources were an original bathing dress in the collection of the Suffolk County Historical Society, a CDV in my collection, and an image that a friend e-mailed me so many years ago that I seem to have lost the image file (though I still have a print-out.)

Kerry and Anne's wedding suits, Winter 2010

Anne and Kerry brought me an advertisement from Chanel’s Fall 2009-2010 campaign  (I wrote about an image from the same campaign here) as the basis for their designs.

After much back-and-forth (and several meals and bottles of wine) we settled on a buttery wool/cashmere in green/blue for kerry’s jacket, and a heavy black wool melton for Anne’s.

Anne had been dreaming for a long time about a jacket that would evoke Beethoven, so I altered a Burda Magazine pattern to have a high standing collar and wide lapels.  I made her a white silk/cotton cravat, which she tied loosely around a regular white shirt.

The skirts are identical in pattern but made up in colors to match the jackets.  I used C&J white silk charmeuse with an overlay of coloured  silk chiffon.

Backmark: None

Date: c. 1900

Subject: Portrait bust of a woman

Location: Unknown

Dress:  Her clothing is barely visible, but I see a hint of texture around her collarbone area that looks like it could be embroidery.  Something like eyelet, perhaps.  Her high standing collar is probably supported inside with tiny bones of whalebone or zig-zagged wire.

Accessories:  There is a tiny brooch at her throat.  Unusually, she is wearing glasses.  I don’t know if the dearth of images of women wearing glasses is because few women wore them or because most took them off for their photograph.  But these are adorable- wire rimmed and oval shaped.

Hair:  Her hair is center parted and probably combed over a pad of some kind.  Her hair has a somewhat awkward shape, but picture it with one of the magnificent hats of the period and you will understand the reason for it.

Backmark:  None.  Front reads “Conrad Magnus Photo Artist Hoboken N.J.”

Date: c. 1900

Subject: Seated Girl, full length

Location: Hoboken, N.J.

Note: This is another period that I don’t know much about; ditto for first communion clothes.  Feel free to help me out!

Dress:  She wears a light dotted dress, it could be a silk or cotton.  It is semi-sheer, and the dots may be printed in another light color.  The skirt is ruched around her hips, and cut in a slight trumpet shape.  The hem is accentuated with a tuck about 2″ in depth.  If she were standing, the skirt would probably reach to her lower calf.

The bodice has a yoke that is pleated.  Many dresses from this period had tucked (sewn-down pleats) yokes, but this one does not appear to have sewn pleats.  The bodice is full at her front ribcage, which is characteristic of this period.  There is a faux-berthe lace collar that spreads over her shoulders and helps give a smooth line to the fullness in the front bodice.  The short standing collar is sheer and edged in lace.  A woman’s collar from this period would have reached all the way to the top of the neck and been supported by small bones.

Note the hint of a bow at the nape of her neck.

The sleeves are full, ending in a band just below her elbow.  There is lace tacked to the band, a sartorial remnant of the washable, detachable cuffs that women had been wearing for most of the 19th century.

Accessories: she wears long, white gloves with pin-tucks at the back of the hand.  Note the bracelet worn over her left glove.  There is also a tiny brooch at her throat.

Hair: Her hair is pulled up into a fashionable top-knot and finished with a ribbon and flowers.  The flowers are probably specific to the occasion (her first communion?  I am bad at judging ages.  Maybe her confirmation.)

Backmark: L. T. White Photographic Art Studio 105 Fourth Ave., Bet. 11th & 12th Sts., NEW YORK.  Duplicates can be had at any time.

Date: Late 19th c.

Subject: Portrait bust of a boy

Location: New York, NY

Note: I don’t know much of anything about boy’s/men’s wear for this period, so I’m not going to write anything.  If a visitor to the site wants to fill me in, please do!

Backmark: Houston  307 King Street S.C.  [handwritten: "Amelia Vans-------"]

Date: c. 1870s

Subject: Portrait of a woman

Location:  Houston, S.C. [Note: There is a Houston in North Carolina, about 8 miles from the South Carolina border.  I wonder if the boundary has changed since the 1870s?]

Dress:  Silk, probably a solid-colored taffeta.  There is a decorative square inset at the front neck of the bodice.  I am not sure, but I think it is probably just piping basted onto the bodice to give the illusion of being a separate piece.  The mid-height standing collar is a darker color from the bodice.  Perhaps velvet?

She wears a heavily pleated white collar inside the dress collar, and a bow tacked or pinned at the neck.  A black lace fichu or necktie is pinned over everything.

Jewelry: She wears hooked earrings, rather large and probably metal.  There is a chain looped around her neck.  I’m not sure if it is a necklace or a fob.

Hair: This style is really magnificent and undoubtedly required extra hair.  The rolls on top are probably fake (real human hair, but purchased in the pre-rolled form), as is the mass of hair just visible in a coil behind the bow.  I suspect that the long curls are real.

I don’t know much about this period, I’m afraid.  If you can make any corrections, please do.

Dress sizing began with the advent of mass-produced clothing. Menswear was the first to be mass-produced and the first to have sizes. Women’s wear, with its greater variety of style and multiple fitting points, was not typically available in ready-to-wear until the end of the nineteenth century. Women’s styles changed, however, and by the 1920s they were perfectly suited to being mass-produced. Women’s clothing was never based on industry-wide size standards, which has presented problems to consumers since manufacturers began vanity-sizing in the 1930s.

“Vanity-sizing” is a popularly used term that refers to the ubiquitous practice of American clothing manufacturers of lowering dress size numbers to appeal to consumers’ vanity. My survey revealed that vanity sizing began in the 1930s. My data primarily consist of dress sizes in advertisements in Vogue magazine. I looked at one issue, usually March, from each year between 1922 and 1999.

The 1920s:

Initially, all women’s clothing was sized according to the bust measurement. One of the first sizing innovations was to develop the misses size range, which morphed in the 1920s from a range intended for teens to a range intended for young to middle aged women. Many companies compromised by offering garments in both ranges, with 14 to 44 being the most common. Misses was originally size with a smaller bust-waist-hip ratio, and was numbered according to age (e.g. Size 14 years)

A few stores offered specialty size ranges. “Juniors” had even smaller bust-waist-hip ratios than misses, and were named by odd years (e.g. “size 15 years”). Other stores didn’t use a different size range, but did advertise to a specific size of customer. From at least the early 1920s Lane Bryant advertised clothing for “stout” women: “sizes: 39 to 56 Bust.” Bromley-Shepard Co. considered any bust size over 42 to be an “out” size, and charged $5.00 more accordingly. Another store, WeeWomen Inc., advertised “Coats and Suits for little ladies…Flattering fashion and fit for the short woman and miss.” Important to note here is that the line for short women, what we now call “petite,” was available in both misses and ladies ranges. Wil Wite Swimming Suits included a size chart in their advertisement from the April 15, 1922 issue of Vogue that called size 32 and 34 “flapper,” probably a cute substitute for Misses.

Vogue, May 1923 Advertisement "Co-ed Frocks"

The 1930s:

There were no apparent changes in dress sizing during the 1930s. Women’s clothing continued to be divided in Misses or Ladies. There was a slight increase in the proportion of Misses to Ladies sizes advertised in Vogue. Approximately 43% of the dresses listed were in Misses sizes only, 40% were in Ladies only, 16% were offered in both, and 1% were offered in Juniors sizes. There was also a decrease in the use of “years” to designate a Misses size. Instead, the dress was simply called, for example, a “size 14.” Both of these trends could indicate the beginning of the modern size system based on arbitrary numbers.

The 1940s

By the 1940s, manufacturers had decreased the percent of garments offered in women’s sizes. Sixty-three percent of the garments advertised in Vogue were in misses’ sizes only. Ten percent were available in both misses and women’s, and juniors increased from one percent in the 1930s to ten percent in the 1940s. Garments available only in women’s sizes fell from forty-one percent in the 1930s to thirteen percent in the 1940s. Moreover, women’s sizes were primarily limited to blouses, slips, nightwear, and low-end advertisers.

Clearly, manufacturers and advertisers were responding to the public. Most women would rather buy a garment that is labeled “size 14” than “size 32,” even if the sizes are based on the same measurements. The elimination of women’s sizes from commonly available clothing presents a problem. In theory, the women’s size range had a larger bust-waist-hip ratio than misses. Surely women as a group did not become less curvy from 1930 to 1949. Therefore, we must guess that manufacturers quietly changed the proportions of misses’ clothing to fit the most common figure type.

With women’s sizes gone, two more size ranges rose to take its place. Clothes available in the juniors range rose from one percent of the total in the 1930s to ten percent in the 1940s. Juniors were sized for older girls in their teens. They were often advertised specifically for college girls. Possibly, junior’s sizes took the place, in terms of proportions, of misses.

Half-sizes grew from less than one percent in the 1930s to four percent in the forties. Half sizes were represented by misses’ sizes plus ½; For example, 24 1/2. All of these available size ranges meant that a woman of average height and proportion could have a very good chance of finding a garment with perfect or near-perfect fit.

Although it cannot be proved without actual original garment specs, there are signs that vanity sizing was quickly becoming commonplace. In the 1920s, the most typical misses’ size range was 14-20. In the 1930s, thirty-nine percent were 12-20, and a few in 12-18. By the 1940s the most common sizes advertised were still 12-20, at thirty-three percent, but 10-20 followed in close behind at twenty-nine percent. The most logical conclusion is not that women were getting dramatically slimmer, but that manufacturers found it profitable to appeal to a woman’s vanity by calling a real size 14 a size 12, and making her feel that much slimmer.

The 1950s and 1960s

Misses’ sizes continued their downward trend. The smallest size range advertised was 6 to 14, the largest 12 to 22, and the most common was 10 to 20. Juniors’ were also sized down to appeal to women’s vanity. 7 to 15 was the most commonly available range, but 5 to 15 was not unusual. Oddly enough, half-sizes remained around the same level they had been at since their invention in the 1940s, at 12.5 to 24.5.

Clothing For Moderns, published in 1957, elaborated on the vanity-sizing problem. “Formerly we expected a size 14 in the bargain basement to be comparable to size 12 in the more expensive lines. It will be wonderful when size 14 is not tagged a 10 in coats, 34 in blouses, 36 in sweaters, 5 in panties…” Mail order catalogues, according to the book, based their measurements on data from the Women’s Army Corps. Garments were available in misses’, women’s, juniors’, and half-sizes, and were further divided up into tall, average, or short, and average hips, slender hips, or full+ hips. Different manufacturers offered different size combinations.

The measurements for a given size could vary widely. The Revised Measurement Chart approved by the Measurement Standard Committee of the Pattern Industry in 1956 lists a size 12 bust as 32”. Sears’ size 12 in 1957 was made for women with a 34” bust. A 1955 size 12 sewing pattern from McCall’s was for a woman with a 30” bust. The push of vanity sizing resulted in a wide disparity in measurements.

The 1960s and beyond

Unlike sizing, figure type definitions did not change significantly over the decades. The Vogue Sewing Book, published in 1972, gave the following definitions for the most common size ranges:

“Misses: A well-proportioned and developed figure that is 5’5”-5’6” without shoes.
Miss Petite: A well-proportioned, developed figure that is 5’2”-5’3” without shoes.
Women’s: A larger, longer, and more fully developed figure than Misses; well-proportioned; 5’5”-5’6” without shoes.
Half-Size: A fully developed figure with short back waist; 5’2”-5’3” without shoes.”

Another publication defined a “junior’s” figure as “a young figure with a high and smaller bust, slimmer through the hips, shorter waisted and not as tall as the standard adult sizes.” The publication describes half-sizes as the industry answer to the “juniors” getting older and wider, but not tall enough to fit into standard women’s sizes.

The first size 2 was advertised by Calvin Klein in 1981, but did not show up much elsewhere. Vanity sizing slowed as the millennium drew to a close. Perhaps manufacturers were hesitant about making the plunge to size “0.” The smallest size advertised as of 1999 remained size 2, and the most common size range 4-14. Dress sizes in advertising had, by the early 1990s, all but faded from magazine pages. Only one or two clothing advertisements showed available sizes, compared to an average of twenty-five per issue in the 1940s and ten per issue in the 1970s. For that reason, it is difficult to make any grand conclusions about dress sizing based on what is advertised.

The first advertisers in Vogue to offer the new smallest size