Spring 1914 fashions, as shown in an ad in the Atlanta Constitution, 11 Jan 1914
Are you ready for Spring? Here in Alabama we gave Spring a miss and went straight into Summer, after a brief nod around Easter. Spring is always a time for a fresh new outlook on clothing styles. A hundred years ago, women were just as interested as many of us are today in what the styles will be.
I won’t detail here why I’m focusing on events a hundred years ago. It’s a secret! I’m working on a project for a book, but for now, here’s just a taste.
In 1914, the main source of clothes wasn’t in the store. The Sears & Roebuck Catalog of that year had well over a hundred pages taken up with fabric of all kinds. Women still made their own clothing, unless they were wealthy enough to engage the services of a seamstress.
The gowns shown on the right are an advertisement for Cheney Silks. Here’s the text for it:
These new Foulards are unusually suited to the spring fashions–the slender figure, the graceful drapery, the elusive, clinging lines that mark the mode of the hour.
With the Oriental note dominating the trend of fashions, the silks reflect this influence in their warm tones and in their quaintly attractive designs. Soft, dainty Chinese floral effects, Bulgarian figures in dull, subdued tones, cubist and futurist effects, and the familiar conventional patterns.
A wide range of popular colors for early spring–all pure dye–blues, greens, wistaria and dull stone gray.
Price at 85c Yard
[The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia), 11 January 1914, page 1. From Newspapers.com]
These are certainly not fabrics in which you’d scrub floors!
What do you think of these fashions? Would you wear them? Comment below!
These aren’t clothing that I would be caught wearing now, unless it’s a costume party. But I can see why they were trendy 100 years ago. Michelle @ http://www.writer-way.blogspot.com
What I find interesting, Michelle, is that in another article I read, they talk about how great the silks are for their washability. Yikes!