Black & White, Clothes, Mini Maidens, Printable Paper Dolls
Mini-Maiden's 1935 Dress & Shoes From Sears Magazine
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Today's Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Sears Fashions from 1935
The Mini-Maiden paper doll series are getting some attention today with a 1935 dress and a pair of 1933 Shoes. Both the shoes that go with today's day dress and the dress based on designs from the book, Everyday Fashions of the Thirties As Pictured in Sears Catalogs.
One of my favorite series of fashion history books are the Sears Fashions set from Dover Publications. Each book is a reprint of pages from Sears Magazines from a decade long period. There's not a huge amount of contextual information, but they provide a vivid window into the fashions of the decade for children and adults. Plus, they are super reasonably priced, so not bad place to start a collection.
(Says the girl with over 50 fashion history books on her shelves.)
The 1930s is a fascinating period. Skirts get longer than the 1920s and there's a lot of fun details like the scalloped collar on this dress. There's also a lot of asymmetry in the styles as well which you can see from the side wrap style of today's dress.
Right behind the 1920s (which are my first love) is the 1930s. Again, it's not a period where it would look terribly good on me, but I love the details in the styles.
There's also a theory in fashion history that really modern clothing begins in the 1930s and the changes that follow this era are fairly minor. I think there's a lot of truth to that.
Really fashion hasn't dramatically changed in the last 80 or so years.
So, what do people think of today's paper doll dress? I always love to hear from people in the comments.
Need a Mini-Maiden paper doll to wear today's outfit? Pick a Mini-Maiden Paper Doll Here.
1930shistoricalvintage
Annemarie says:
I see today's dress in a flour-sack cotton print, neatly hand-sewn…
Is it true that the use of flour sack cotton for clothing was actually a manufacturer's idea, that came out pre-Depression? I read it somewhere and can't remember the source. But was surprised, thought it was a housewife's ingenuity kind of thing.
RLC says:
I don't know the full history of flour sack print dresses, but I was told by a man who'd worked in his father's store in the 1930s that they would specifically order the printed flour sacks from the mills. He also talked about women coming in and sorting through the big stacks of sacks of flour looking for sacks that matched the other sacks they had, since a flour sack isn't that much fabric. I don't know who first came up with the idea of turning flour sacks into clothing though.
Fascinating! I'll have to do some poking around; this is such a part of the story of the Depression. i know there's a booklet, "Sewing with Cotton Bags," from the early 30s, that a lady at the thrift shop here owns. Must get a look…
At some point, all this history, plus paper dolls to show it, is worth a book. In amongst all your other commitments. Heh.