A Most Beguiling Accomplishment

I've written a lot (a  lot ) about why it's wrong to put Chanel, and even Chanel plus Poiret, up on a pedestal as the pivot(s) of a sharp turning point in fashion, but I've only touched on Dior and the New Look once or twice. Just like the earlier narrative compresses time to juxtapose frothy Edwardian gowns against the short, narrow dresses of the mid-late 1920s, the centering of Christian Dior as the inventor of stereotypical 1950s fashion in 1947 is a big oversimplification. Women's fashion for much of the 1930s was streamlined: the overall emphasis was on a sleek line from shoulder to ankle. At the beginning of the decade, the tubular figure of the 1920s was still common, but within a few years dresses and skirts were being worn with waistbands and belts at the natural waist. By 1935, it was common for jackets to be made with built-up or padded shoulders, turning the silhouette into a long, slender carrot shape "Afternoon suit: solid-colored silk dress, t...

When I posted about my half-slip , I linked to some information about the Haslam System of Dresscutting but didn't really get into it. Let me rectify that now! The Haslam System is a method of creating patterns for anyone, at any size within a particular range. Where a paper pattern comes at full size in a range of set measurements, and a gridded pattern à la  Janet Arnold comes in one particular size, Haslam patterns were printed to scale, roughly, with information on how to make them full size depending on an individual's measurements. The way this works is through the use of a two-sided chart . (The one at the link is prepared to be printed on A4 paper, so if you're American it will cut off some of the edges, but it's fixable.) Each side helps you draft the top of the back and front of a bodice sloper specific to any individual: the chart is perforated to allow you to plot points based on your neck, shoulder, and bust measurements, and on one side there are a few...