1930—Paris Frocks at Home
Lesson I—Individuality Budgeted
Fashion changed over night!
Here in the step-by-step evolution of a smart frock Butterick has crystallized the formula for successful dressmaking... a formula which resolves itself into these three factors... the choice of a superlatively smart style in a good pattern... smart fabric in a becoming tone and texture, correctly cut... and perfect workmanship.
How many of us complacently viewed our perfectly adequate and good-looking clothes line in our dress closet some months ago and felt reasonably content? Then what happened? Fashions changed—seemingly over night. Our nice modish two piece dresses with plaited skirts barely reaching our knees (sometimes our bare knees), our straight little jumper over-blouses with belts nonchalantly poised on the hip bone, our rather severely tailored necklines innocent of any fluffy frills,-all these perfectly wearable and hitherto undeniably chic clothes suddenly became discards.
But suppose our budget didn't permit of wholesale discards—and most of us have that kind of budget—what then? We shopped, hopefully, to see what we could do to rejuvenate the discouraged wardrobe. We tried on the new dresses. Did they fit? No, they didn't, and we looked like somebody else whom we had seen in bad dreams but never in real life.
The dresses had waistlines, but not where we had ours. They had moulded hips which failed to mould ours. They had long dipping hemlines which dipped excruciatingly. Moreover, as we surveyed the series of calamities, we realized that that dress couldn't be made to really look, even with dollars worth of fitting, like our very own dress.
Confronted with this situation, most really smart women repair to a dressmaker with a reputation and a collection of chic models. The dressmaker and madame go into consultation, in fact many consultations, for really smart women have a very great deal to say about just how they wish their clothes made. Even if M. Poiret or someone equally gifted is their couturier, the best dressed women like to select their own materials, decide upon just how much ripple there is to be and from what point it shall start, the placing of a belt and of what it shall be made. After all, we women know more of the real truth about our build than anyone else. We have certainly looked at ourselves more often.
Set up your own little competition with the French.
Most of us, however, cannot patronize the French couturiers or their American contemporaries. The only sure way for us to dress individually is to make our own clothes.
What must we have to do this? A good range of fabrics from which to choose our own individual one, a good pattern with clear cutting, fitting and sewing directions, a sewing machine, intelligence and common sense, some patience, and above all, the spirit of adventure.
You know on the face of it, that with these aids you can have a much better costume for fifteen dollars than you could buy for thirty-nine fifty, and it will be your dress. Mrs.. Lady-Next-Door cannot possibly have it too.
The really good pattern, a Butterick pattern for instance, is the keystone which supports all your dressmaking accomplishments. We know that individuality and smartness in dress is achieved by making your clothes at home and we know you can do it. You do not have to be an expert. The manufacturer who produced your pattern is one. If you do as he tells you, using your own good judgment, you will be thoroughly well turned out in the best type of custom-made attire.
Your new costume is expressed and expresses you in your favorite color, your best lines and your most coveted fabric. Has that ever happened to you in a "ready-made"? Somewhere among these things there was a compromise, I'm sure.
To do successful home custom dressmaking observe these cautions:
- Never economize on fabric. Someone has said a garment is never better than its fabric. Do not risk the misfortune of having a shabby garment before the season is over.
- Always buy the full amount of material called for by the table on the pattern envelope. Skimping always shows and makes your dressmaking so much more difficult and so much more time-consuming.
- Always hold the paper pattern against you to be sure of lengths and widths and general positions of lines, taking note of necessary changes. There can then be no unpleasant surprises in store for you.
- Don't copy the best selling design in the biggest department store in your city. Almost anyone can own a Ford.
- Pick out a pattern embodying lines which you wear well. This little book contains definite suggestions for doing this if you need to be reassured on this point.
In doing your own custom dressmaking, be enthusiastic about it—it
is a thoroughly fascinating sport!
This is the Butterick Building, the home of Butterick Patterns, Delineator, and Delineator Home Institute.
Here the frock that you will presently make is visualized by expert designers, made on a living model and translated by master craftsmen into the magic tissue and Deltor.
Here, on the twelfth floor, Delineator is made. Here a busy staff welds the contributions of a dozen different departments into the magazine nearly three million women read and endorse.
And on the fifteenth floor one finds the living Delineator, Delineator Home Institute, where lovely interiors are constructed before your eyes, household engineer's test labor saving devices, and dietitians invent delectable new dishes. It is a fascinating place. Drop in some time when you are in New York.
