Summer clothes from the Golden Era

[St. Louis]

Hello ladies,

I'm making progress on my sew-along (see the thread in the front parlor), though I haven't posted any photos yet. They're coming, I promise.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what the average lady would have worn in the summer. By "average," I mean, someone like me -- respectable, not wealthy, lives in a small bungalow in St. Louis. I've been studying mail order catalogs from roughly the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s. I'm assuming that's the level of price and value I'd have been able to afford.

To my surprise, especially considering the hot, humid weather here, I found no real "summer" clothes, at least not clothes I would consider comfortable in the 95 to 100 degree temperatures and nearly 100 percent humidity. I certainly wasn't expecting sundresses, but I did think that I'd find lightweight, sheer, somewhat looser constructions.

I'm posting a few images here to show what I mean. These are all from a 1940 Spring/ Summer catalog, and they're quite typical. For example, just looking at the summery rayon and cotton dresses , they tend to be fitted, with pleats, belts or sashes, pocket trimming--I'd consider these fairly heavy, particularly for a very hot summer day in an era without air conditioning.

 

[St. Louis]

Then we have these slightly sportier, more casual styles. The first two are rayon, and the third one is cotton.

 

[St. Louis]

I understand that ladies of the 1930s and 1940s didn't wear sleeveless sundresses. I've never seen any in my catalogs, and I don't think I've ever seen any in vintage clothing stores or museum collections. What I can't quite understand is the lack of clothing that would have been comfortable in excessively hot weather. In fact, when I was looking for patterns and ideas for summer nightgowns, I didn't find anything that wasn't floor length. I did find some sleeveless styles, and I own a few patterns for something like this:

These gowns are made of batiste, which would at least be lightweight and breathable.

 

[St. Louis]

Finally, I looked for shoes and sandals. Now here I had some luck. I found a few adorable huarache styles, which wouldn't be too hard to duplicate in today's shoe fashions.

 

[St. Louis]

I can post more photos from other catalogs, if you fine ladies would find that useful, but mostly I'm really curious to know what you make of this question. Why wouldn't the mainstream catalogs have carried summer clothes? Later in the 40s, you do see play clothes (shorts with skirts buttoned over them) and even in this one, there are bathing suits. I've seen photographs of everyday women from the Era, and all of them appear to be wearing some kind of lightweight, pale or pastel cotton or rayon shortsleeved dresses.

Any thoughts?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wear cotton short-sleeved dresses all year round -- the difference between summer and winter is that in the winter I wear a cardigan over the dress. If you turn to the fabric section of any catalog of the Era, you'll see many different kinds and weights of cotton dress fabric -- broadcloth, percale, muslin, and lawn, among others. A cotton lawn dress, for example, was very light and cool to wear.

One question -- what region was your catalog issued for? Sears put out several regional editions which differed slightly in the items they offered, adjusting them to regional demand.

 

[St. Louis]

Good question! This one must have been issued in Chicago, since the shipping map at the back of the catalog indicates that everything within 150 miles from Chicago is Zone 1. I see that St. Louis would be in zone 2. So we're looking at the heartland. Even though Chicago is always a bit cooler than the rest of Illinois and certainly Missouri, the temps can still soar into the upper nineties during the summer.

You're quite right about the fabrics, of course. I see lots of fine dotted swiss, semi-sheer rayon, and spring-weight suiting fabrics. I'm particularly tickled to see that the ticking fabrics are offered for play clothes as well as for pillows & other utility items. I hadn't even thought about researching whether ticking would be "authentic" but here's proof that it would have been used for summer casual wear. (I posted a ticking dress I made in another thread.)

 

[sheeplady]

I can post more photos from other catalogs, if you fine ladies would find that useful, but mostly I'm really curious to know what you make of this question. Why wouldn't the mainstream catalogs have carried summer clothes? Later in the 40s, you do see play clothes (shorts with skirts buttoned over them) and even in this one, there are bathing suits. I've seen photographs of everyday women from the Era, and all of them appear to be wearing some kind of lightweight, pale or pastel cotton or rayon shortsleeved dresses.

Any thoughts?

I have a few patterns that I assume to be from the 1940s that have looser fitting dresses that don't really have sleeves. One is a dress I want to make someday- it is essentially only 5 pieces- front, back, waistband, placket, and collar facing. The thing that makes it fitted is the belt, and it is "advertised" on the packet as being easy to sew. On the model, the edges of the shoulders
"overhang" the arms. I wonder how many of the more casual dresses that women wore in the heat were homemade, particularly dresses that were intended for the heat of housework or everyday tasks like shopping. I imagine quite a few.

I think another thing to remember is that middle and working class women owned fewer clothes that we do, by a long shot. When my husband's grandmother died (housewife), I cleaned out her closet and was given her vintage clothing, which was only a few pieces. She basically had one "good dress" from every era. I'm assuming given the wear on these items that she had one item to wear at a time, perhaps two, for "dress." (Church, shopping, functions, etc.) I imagine she had a few house dresses that didn't make being kept. My grandmother (also a housewife, although she helped run my grandfather's business), who was more working class than my husband's grandmother, had one good outfit in 3/4 length sleeves every few years. Other than that she wore house dresses that were simple shift-type (my grandmother was not a seamstress, she could sew, but complicated piecing was beyond her). And my grandmother LOVED clothes and was always very stylish and up-to-date, if she could have afforded more, she would have had much more.

I've noticed that in patterns I rarely see "full length" sleeves. Most dress patterns/ suit patterns feature a version that is short sleeves and a version that is 3/4 length sleeves. I think this gave the woman the most wear and use out of a pattern.

For the nightgowns, I imagine most were homemade. I also wonder if in the heat if any was worn at all.

Also, I want to add this: weather may have been slightly more "seasonable" then. My parents were always complaining about the weather being different from when they were kids- hotter, more humid, lack of a spring, etc. I know I've seen a change in the weather since I was a child. I grew up without air conditioned cars for most of my life, because we only would have run it a day or two out of the year. It was downright cold most summers when I was a kid- I never had the chance to wear shorts or sandals most years, even once. Now I find myself running my car's air conditioner from May until September, and I haven't relocated that far from where I grew up.

 

[swanson_eyes]

I've been wondering about this myself. But I'm the type to wear something out of it's "home spot." For instance, I'd make those nightgown patterns in something just heavy enough to wear in public. And I'm not above grocery shopping in '20s beach pajamas. I just don't care about convention, either of the past or now. Now if only I could get those patterns to fit my large frame....

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandmother was very fond of those wrap-around housedresses with "cap sleeves," which wasn't much of a sleeve at all. I've made a couple of such dresses myself, and the main problem with them is that they tend to rip out fast along the side seam just under the arm opening. You can't wear dress shields with such a dress, so any sweat you work up under your arms -- and they didn't have anti-prespirants in the Era -- would be absorbed by the fabric at precisely that point and would basically decompose. So yes, there's a good reason why real housedresses seldom survive to be collected today.

As for night wear, I have a rayon gown that's actually quite comfortable to wear on hot nights. It's nylon that's absolutely unwearable. Sleeping "in the raw," as they called it, was not uncommon, either, especially among the young-sophisticate type of gal.

Also, I want to add this: weather may have been slightly more "seasonable" then. My parents were always complaining about the weather being different from when they were kids- hotter, more humid, lack of a spring, etc. I know I've seen a change in the weather since I was a child. I grew up without air conditioned cars for most of my life, because we only would have run it a day or two out of the year. It was downright cold most summers when I was a kid- I never had the chance to wear shorts or sandals most years, even once. Now I find myself running my car's air conditioner from May until September, and I haven't relocated that far from where I grew up.

That's exactly my experience. My childhood summers forty to fifty years ago tended to have very few days that were stultifyingly hot and humid. You might see ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity once or twice a summer. Now we end up with at least a week of that each year. We went straight from the worst winter in recent memory to summer this year, with very little in-between.

 

[sheeplady]

That's exactly my experience. My childhood summers forty to fifty years ago tended to have very few days that were stultifyingly hot and humid. You might see ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity once or twice a summer. Now we end up with at least a week of that each year. We went straight from the worst winter in recent memory to summer this year, with very little in-between.

I remember one year my parents bought me a kiddie pool (one of those plastic thingies) and I used it once over the three years we had it before it deteriorated from the sunlight. Our summers were cold in the 80s. I laugh because as a kid I used to mock needing air conditioning in this part of the country. Our new house I demanded we have air conditioning installed- we've had at least 15 days of temps over 80 already and the humidity is bad. It's not even June.

 

[LizzieMaine]

According to the National Weather Service, our May here has averaged fifteen degrees above normal. And yet, there are still snow piles left over from the winter that haven't fully melted.

 

[MissNathalieVintage]

Hello state neighbor,
For the past 3 years I worked in an office were there was no central air conditioning me and my co-worker used two oscillating fans http://www.luxicore.com/minka-aire-...f300-bn.html?gclid=CKyL88q45cUCFVM1aQodMn8ASQ to keep the room cool. And since we were only there during the day we also pulled the shades a little, opened a window, and turned off the lights. With a lot of cold water with in our reach too. The room was fairly cool, we also did not move around as much unless it was absolutely necessary. I also carried around an accordion fan https://www.google.com/search?q=acc...v&sa=X&ei=P5RnVe65E8SfsAWyn4PQDg&ved=0CDUQsAQ along with a hankie to dap at my face and neck when it got to hot. Being in this situation go me thinking this must've been how women coped with the heat in the past.

My summer office attire :
Cotton day dresses
with belt at waist
cotton or rayon/sheer blouses
jumpers/sweaters short sleeves in place of a blouse
cotton skirts knee length or calf length
big Sun hat
sunglasses and umbrella to block the sun when walking on the side walk.


On day my co-worker and I were talking about who was feeling the heat in the room more and turns out she felt the hot weather more even though she was wearing less clothing.

Not only did I wear as mentioned above I also were under garments.
My summer under garments:
Bra
cotton underwear
Cotton vest/tank tops like these http://www.shopnational.com/p/100-Cotton-Rib-Knit-Vest
cotton slip or half slip Half Slip http://www.shopnational.com/p/100-Cotton-Half-Slip
full cotton slip http://www.shopnational.com/p/Easy-Breezy-PolyCotton-Slip?trk=
Pettipants http://www.shopnational.com/p/Snip-It-Pettipants?green=D5AE3508-DCFE-58F8-B580-5F93970D2A22

I noticed while wearing theses undergarments the sweat was wicked away which made me feel a lot cooler. Since women of the past wore similar undergarments I believe they too were better able to cope with the hot weather in this way.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A few good cotton slips are the best wardrobe investment you can make for summer wear. Nylon slips become intolerable when the humidity gets high and the temperature gets into the eighties.

It was also very common for women in the Era to omit stockings and go barelegged in the summer. If you look around you'll find many pictures of ordinary women wearing short socks with heeled oxfords, saddles, or other casual-oriented summer shoes. For those who worked in offices or such environments, calf-length sheer stockings with Lastex tops were available by the mid-thirties, and were a more comfortable alternative to full-length hosiery and garters.

 

[swanson_eyes]

If it's humid it doesn't matter what I'm wearing. I will still be hot. I need to move back to the desert.

 

[coalchak01]

I do know that before the War, my Union seamstress grandma made dresses and clothes for her 3 daughters. In the Depression, she made a lot of clothes with flower bag cloth. Other more affluent girls mocked them over it, as you could tell the fabric was repurposed. Two of three sisters dropped out of high school so they could buy better clothes, shoes etc., but they still usually bought better fabric and newer patterns.
Now, they also got cheap cotton "house dresses" at five and dime stores. In summer no stockings or bobby socks. These were not fashion dresses. They were made to wear for a year or three till they got so stained or torn they couldn't be repaired. These dresses were too cheap for the Sears catalog.
Hope that helps a bit.
These were coal miner's daughters during a time their father only got enough hours at work to be underemployed.

By the 50s they were getting denim slacks with the cuffs rolled up, too,.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[St. Louis]

A couple of responses to the interesting posts above: I've always felt that layers of pure woven cotton that cover the skin are much more comfortable than close-fitting knits that leave a lot of skin exposed.

Also: there were definitely both anti-perspirants and deodorants around, going back to the 1920s. That fascinating subject deserves a completely new thread. As far as I know, that's been discussed here in the past, so I won't go into more detail right now.

I've been looking at more of my catalogs over the past few days. Now, I haven't done a scientific study of this, but I'm beginning to believe that the changing styles of fashion had a great deal of influence on this question of summer clothes. I could be wrong, but I think the early 1930s summer fashions were lighter, looser, and more revealing. Then fashions seemed to become more covered-up and sober (obviously a reflection of hard times), and after the mid-forties, became more playful and revealing again.

Don't quote me on any of this, though! I don't have too many spring-summer catalogs, so until I find more images I won't be able to prove any of this definitively. Here's what I have so far. This first set of images comes from a Larkin & Co. catalog, Spring-Summer 1934. Larkin & Co. was from Buffalo, New York. Apparently they also had branches in Peoria and Philadelphia.

I'll post the next images in another message to keep from overwhelming your browsers.

 

[St. Louis]

This next group of summer dresses comes from a 1944 Spiegel summer clearance catalog (be still my heart!). For now, I'm just posting dresses, since that's what I've been researching. I can say, though, that by the mid-forties the catalogs show a lot of swim suits, abbreviated midriff-tops, and play outfits. I don't see those in my earlier catalogs.


This is the cover image. Cute bonnet and matching bag here. I apologize for poor image--the cover is stained and rubbed.

Now at the far left and far right, we have sleeveless cotton dresses.

And dressier sheers (though obviously worn over colored slips -- no doubt rayon.)

As far as those slips and other undies go: I've found very little cotton lingerie in any of these catalogs. I'd say about 75 percent of the undies are rayon. There's more to be said about that, so I'll leave the topic until I can post more specific information about the differences between "era" rayon and modern rayons.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Cotton undies were more commonly homemade than store bought, usually from light nainsook cotton, and were very simple designs -- if there was any trim at all, it was eyelet lace. Patterns were widely sold. I have a couple of examples of store-bought cotton slips, but since it's so easy to sew them at home, they weren't especially popular as a ready-to-wear item.

An excellent marketing-free discussion of slips and the various types of fabric used can be found here.

As for antiprespirants, Odorono, Nonspi, and Mum were primarily deodorant products -- they stopped your sweat from smelling, but despite what the advertising claimed, they weren't particularly effective at stopping you from sweating altogether. They also had a tendency to stain clothing because people wouldn't heed the package instructions to let the product dry completely before getting dressed. Odorono was especially destructive because it depended on acidic chemistry to kill bacteria -- and when it got on clothing it tended to attack and weaken the fabric.

These disadvantages meant most people preferred to stick with tried and true remedies like a handful of cornstarch in the pits, and pinned-in dress shields. It wasn't until aluminum-chlorohydrate products became widely available after the war that truly effective antiprespirants were available.

 

[sheeplady]

These disadvantages meant most people preferred to stick with tried and true remedies like a handful of cornstarch in the pits, and pinned-in dress shields. It wasn't until aluminum-chlorohydrate products became widely available after the war that truly effective antiprespirants were available.

Antiperspirants actually make you sweat more when you are not using them; as in they increase the amount of sweat you produce. When I switched to a natural deodorant, I was *stunned* with how much I sweated. I didn't smell bad because I was using a deodorant that I reapplied often, but I sweated SO much. After about a year (yes, I stuck with it for a year of nastiness) I found I sweated as much using my natural deodorant as when I was using an antiperspirant. Which made me wonder why I bothered using one in the first place. (I use a homemade formula of baking soda and cornstarch. Good to know I'm authentic, I just thought I was cheap.)

Now I sweat even less since one of my armpits got obliterated through radiation treatment, but I don't recommend that as a strategy to reduce sweating.

I really have come to believe that anti-antiperspirants are a huge marketing thing and aren't all that effective for a lot of people (women in particular) if they just make you sweat more leading you to always have to use them to tame the sweat.

As far as those slips and other undies go: I've found very little cotton lingerie in any of these catalogs. I'd say about 75 percent of the undies are rayon. There's more to be said about that, so I'll leave the topic until I can post more specific information about the differences between "era" rayon and modern rayons.

Rayon (at least old rayon) is altered cotton. It has a lot of the breathability of cotton.

As part of my investigation into natural deodorants, I found that synthetic fibers made me sweat badly, particularly polyester. However, my rayon lined suit jackets and rayon clothing did not make me sweat, although I found them warmer than cotton or silk linings or garments.

I think we all have an idea that polyester and the like doesn't "breathe" but I never realized how much until my year long tirade while my body adjusted. Now I won't buy anything polyester or synthetic that goes on top. This has also fixed the sweating issue.