.High Fashion with Simplicity Patterns - Inspiration from Paris, New York & Hollywood

[The Wiser Hatter]

[video=youtube_share;INewImMJWLE]http://youtu.be/INewImMJWLE[/video]

 

[GHT]

Don't you just love the hour glass figure? In my teens, the early 1960's, I had a Saturday job, working in a Singer Sewing Machine shop. We had training films (no such thing as videos back then) similar to this. All sales staff were expected to be able to read patterns, comprehend the structure of fabric, the nap, the grain. How to lay out the pattern using the minimum amount of material, cutting out the material, lining up the dressmaking tabs and so on. Back then a good many women made their own clothes, and we used to get many a men's tailors too, all came into the shop with a plethora of various requests, you just had to know what they were talking about.
Simplicity, then as now, is a paper pattern company that makes dressmaking as easy as possible, it's still complicated mind, but with a little tuition, and a lot of determination, anyone can get there. They have a range of retro patterns, like this:
http://www.simplicity.com/p-1976-misses-plus-size-sportswear.aspx But the real joy of making something from a bygone era is to find an original pattern. We go to lots of 1930's & 40's festivals, where stall holders have an array of original patterns. Sometimes you will find notes in the margins if the pattern was pre-owned. Sometimes the pattern has never been used. Often though, the pattern will fall apart at the folds. If this happens you need to lay the pattern out, cover it with tracing paper and then trace the pattern onto new pattern paper, you can buy it at fabric shops or online.
The dress that the model made in that film harks back to a time of femininity, in today's parlance: Girly girls. The joy of seeing a woman walking along in a wiggle wiggle skirt. Women then didn't just walk, they sashayed.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

[video=vimeo;56962340]http://vimeo.com/56962340[/video]