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Published by Dover Publications Inc, these books are an absolute gold mine of reference material for the vintage clothing researcher or enthusiast.
1940s velvet evening gown
When researching fashions of the past, there are a variety of sources and each will have their own particular bias. For example, golden era Hollywood movie fashion is slanted towards high-end and cutting edge designer fashion and/or 'theatrical' clothing - it doesn't necessarily speak of what everyday, average people wore during the 1930s.
On the other hand, sewing patterns were aimed at the relativley new market of non-professional home seamstresses and often left out tricky detailing to keep the patterns 'achieveable' by novice sewers, therefore representing the more basic, no-frills versions of the popular silouhettes and styles.
The 'Everyday Fashions...' collection sits somewhere in-between. With images sourced from the popular Sears clothing catalogue, these books show what 'middle America' was wearing from day to day.
Shopping for clothing via mail-order catalogues was quite popular and the catalogue companies prided themselves on dispatching orders as soon as they came in. This meant they needed to hold a lot of stock of each item in various sizes, which in turn required a sizable up-front capital investment. Because of the risky nature of holding large amounts of stock that might not sell, the mail-order companies stocked only the well-established, mainstream clothing trends rather than cutting-edge fashion whimsy that may or may not take the fancy of the buying public.
1940 dress jackets
What that means to modern-day vintage fashion researchers is that, by and large, the clothing as featured in the pages of the Sears catalogue is a solid representation of what people really wore - these are the 'bread and butter' clothes of the eras in question.
1930 frocks
Another excellent feature of the "Everyday Fashions..." series is that it includes pages on underwear, coats and outerwear, hats, gloves, shoes, handbags and other accessories, making it easy to piece together an entire look. Although the catalogue pictures are in black and white, each caption notes the available colours for every garment (as well as the type of fabric), which is another great feature for those of us interested in historical fashion detail.
1930 underwear
I've checked the "Everyday Fashions..." volumes of the Twenties, Thirties and Forties out of my local library enough times that I'm going to invest in purchasing a set for myself from Amazon. They are definitely one of the best, authentic un-interpreted vintage fashion resources I've come across.
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These books are fantastic! They contain some fabulosu daily fashion and ads. I have these myself, and the Fifties one too.
Interesting that mail order was so big. i guess the equivalent now is online shopping.
I think the mail order/online shopping analogy is fairly apt. The mail order model really opened up the clothing industry's market, allowing people living in smaller towns to purchase fashionable items and try to keep up with trends. The fledgling start of what nowadays is 'disposable' seasonal clothing I suppose.
Although apparently a lot of women were royally pissed off when Dior introduced the 'New Look' in 1947 and changed the prevailing styles practically overnight - rendering people's exising wardrobes full of dresses as outmoded.
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