1940's skirt help Please

[Louise Anne]

Hi every one I going to have a skirt made to go with this 40's jacket ( yes that jacket again)

What style is right for it, length, colour, photos or links to paterns etc or any thing which would lead to a period correct skirt been made
Would be a great help,

Thank you
Paul.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You want a six-gore A-line skirt, not a pencil-type skirt. Side zipper placket, button waistband, no pleats. And the length ought to be just about where it is on the one you're wearing at the pic -- if you want to get precise, have the hem fall right at the point where you calves curve into the back of your knee. That would give a proper mid-forties silhouette.

 

[Louise Anne]

Thank so much Lizzie , that's very helpful the lady who going to make it has a degree in fashion design and a feel for the vintage era also so she understand what you said.(better than me lol)

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

You want a six-gore A-line skirt, not a pencil-type skirt. Side zipper placket, button waistband, no pleats. And the length ought to be just about where it is on the one you're wearing at the pic -- if you want to get precise, have the hem fall right at the point where you calves curve into the back of your knee. That would give a proper mid-forties silhouette.

Lizzie,

Speaking of A-line vs. Pencil skirts, off the top of your head, do you know which cuts were popular in which decades?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, A-lines were very common thru the forties. The tight pencil-type skirt was popular by the early fifties, although originally it was quite a bit longer than it would be later on, and remained popular thru the early sixties. A-lines came back into style very strongly in the 70s -- they were very common when I was in high school in the 70s -- and then pencil styles came back as part of the whole power-suit thing in the '80s.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Well, A-lines were very common thru the forties. The tight pencil-type skirt was popular by the early fifties, although originally it was quite a bit longer than it would be later on, and remained popular thru the early sixties. A-lines came back into style very strongly in the 70s -- they were very common when I was in high school in the 70s -- and then pencil styles came back as part of the whole power-suit thing in the '80s.

Thanks. I was thinking about this very thing earlier today. From what I can tell 1920s and 1930s were mostly popular for a-line correct? Just longer than what would have been around by the 40s.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There were some more unusual shapes in the twenties and thirties -- a lot of twenties dresses were almost cylindrical, sort of like a long t-shirt, while some of the thirties styles were fitted at the hips with a flare at the hem.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

There were some more unusual shapes in the twenties and thirties -- a lot of twenties dresses were almost cylindrical, sort of like a long t-shirt, while some of the thirties styles were fitted at the hips with a flare at the hem.

Yes, I would agree. I was trying to figure out whether they would have been considered A-line or straight but was coming up empty. It seems that once the 1940s came around those skirt shapes never came back in style and it's been mostly a back and forth between a-line and pencil shapes ever since.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think the closest they came to bringing back thirties skirt styles was the so-called "midi" in the early seventies, which was sort of a hippie twist on 1933. People loathed them, and laughed them out of the stores, and that was pretty much the end of that.

 

[Red Diabla]

Just wanted to say I LOVE the hair and hat in these photos!

RD

 

[W-D Forties]

I always think of 30's skirts as havina quite a 'tulip' shape. Is that right?

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's exactly how I'd describe it, especially the 1934-37 period. That was a shape that had a very brief re-visitation in the early 70s. Until the moths got it, I had a c.1971 beige wool skirt that could have been cut from a 1936 pattern.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

I always think of 30's skirts as havina quite a 'tulip' shape. Is that right?

I agree. A long pencil skirt with a tulip shape at the end, lol. I noticed that pleated skirts enjoyed some popularity during the 1920s too.

 

[Louise Anne]

. I noticed that pleated skirts enjoyed some popularity during the 1920s too.

Most people think of the 20's as the up and down flapper dress, but ladies were doing things like riding bycycle and having a lot more active life in general so the fuller skirt had to be around then and worn not seen as typical flapper so not noted or kept as been typical 20's