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Vintage Patterns...and sizes

Suz

(website)

Veteran

In my hunt for an outfit to wear to the Fabulous Fifties party, I came across some great websites selling vintage patterns. Oh, so lovely! Has anyone here ever bought one and had something made up? One of the best sites I found was this one:

http://www.sovintagepatterns.c.....terns.html

Seems to me if you could sew, you could have so (ha ha) much fun with this! And even if you had to hire somebody, how amazing. You wouldn't have to make the pattern exactly as is; you could mess with it a bit to make it more current, I expect?
Though in some cases, why would you? In any case, I found the site inspiring.

On another note, I now understand why my mother keeps insisting that she wears a size 14 or 16! A size 14, back in the day, was a 32 bust!!!! Now she wears 2 petite, and every time I take her shopping the SA and I have to argue and fight her to get her to try on what she actually needs. Turns out she is not a whole lot smaller than she used to be. Amazing....

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15 replies

Latest reply was from rosee

Kate

Veteran

Just the other day, after Angie posted about culottes, I started looking for older culotte/gaucho patterns from the 1970s, so I could recreate a great pair of gauchos I used to have.

Thanks for the link, Suz. If I find a good pattern, I will definitely buy and have somebody run up.

Isis

Veteran

Lovely dress! That would be so fun to wear!

Another confounding factor on sizing is that, even today, sewing pattern sizes are different from ready-to-made sizes.....

Anonymous

Here's a good discussion about vintage vs. modern sizing:

http://tess45.hubpages.com/hub.....ern-Sizing

Suz, I can'r wait to see what you wear to the party! Have you checked out the Stop Staring! website? They have vintage-style dresses cut for the modern figure. (In my opinion, their sizes still run a bit small.)

Laura (rhubarbgirl)

(website)

Veteran

IIRC, sewing pattern sizes last changed in the 70s, which is why they are now smaller than ready to wear sizes. It's a test for my ego when I have to buy 4 sizes bigger in patterns than I do in the clothing store...

Anonymous

Oh Suz! Those dresses would look so beautiful on you! You have the perfect figure for them! I love the wide but shallow necklines, the collars, the tiny waists and voluminous longer skirts. The height of femininity IMHO. Make sure you take lots of pics whatever you end up wearing. What a great idea for a theme party.

san

Veteran

The pictures on the pattern cover give me a real stomach ache. Don't the dresses with the impossibly tight waists look like torture? Back then the numbers 36-24-36 really were important and talked about. Thank goodness we have stretch fabrics now but back then we didn't. My first bras didn't even have stretch, no stretch straps, no stretch band, no stretch cone shaped cups. Everything was so unforgiving and uncomfortable in those days. When my mother first strapped me into a bra I thought my life was over, certainly my carefree childhood was. Waistlines in the clothes were impossibly narrow and there was not much opportunity to waist surrender unless you wore the heaven forbid moo moo. No wonder body image issues and eating disorders happened.
Sleeping on uncomfortable curlers which left dents in the head, mass amounts of Auquanet hairspray to keep the helmut head under control, heavey eyeliner, blue eyeshadow, silver lipstick, girdles, merrywidow corsets, stockings with a garterbelt, before pantyhose. Before the invention of the stick on pad, we wore a contraption belt to keep the pad in place. This belt had metal parts that cut into my tailbone and I was only in 7th grade. These are not comfortable memories.
I don't see the romance in this type of fashion.
I don't mean to pick on any of you who love this and I know you are more soft hearted about this womanly style than I am. I guess I had too many painful days of trying to make my body fit the clothes rather than the other way around. Ouch.
Sorry for the rant. I hope you'll forgive me.

Mander

(website)

Veteran

I wonder if the difference between sewing pattern sizes and off-the-rack sizes explains why most wedding gowns seem to run small? More than one sales assistant told me that women are often in tears when trying on wedding gowns because they have to go up two or even three sizes. Crazy.

San, I remember trying on some of my grandmother's old-fashioned bras and girdles, and they were amazingly uncomfortable. For me the appealing thing about vintage style clothing is in the details and the overall shape, but I think that fitting my body into those kinds of proportions would require the surgical removal of several bones and half my internal organs!

Di

(website)

Veteran

I sew, but I'm AWFUL with patterns, which completely bums me out, because vintage patterns could be such a great thing for me. I love them, and I could update them with modern fabrics.

Laura (rhubarbgirl)

(website)

Veteran

There are a lot of modern reissues and remakes of vintage patterns out there that take into account current body shapes and lack of girdles, etc. I am not that into wearing straight vintage, but I like the idea of adapting vintage shapes to today's lifestyles. I've made things from a lot of old patterns, but I tend to use ones from the 70s and up because it's harder to find plus size patterns the longer you go back.

Suz, there are people out there who do custom dressmaking who would be happy to make you a dress. It might be just the ticket for your event.

MsMaven

Veteran

Yes, everything San said above.

In college and as a young married I sewed a lot of my clothes. I bought size 12 patterns and had to take them in at the waist and back. I weighed about 15 pounds less than I do now and now I usually wear an 8 in ready made. Even with a 12 I often had to add length to the bodice and skirt and sleeves. I'm not that tall, 5' 8 1/2" but at that time I think the average height was shorter. I wish I could remember my waist--I do know I would buy the smallest belts and take them to the cobbler to have more holes punched in them.

So if the vintage pattern measurements are close to yours, make sure you measure for length before you cut.

Kristine

Veteran

Yes, sewing sizes are still wild. I wear a 0 or 2 in off the rack and I'm something like a 10 in patterns. I have no idea who is a 2 in sewing sizes!

http://reviews.ebay.com/Conver.....0009138373

Suz

(website)

Veteran

San and MsMaven, thanks for your dose of reality! It is a useful corrective to any lingering romanticism about the fashion of the past.

I am old enough to remember some of this—not all. But even if I don't remember it all, I wouldn't want us to squeeze ourselves into unforgiving and constricting clothing. That's not what I was saying and I apologize for bringing up painful memories!

Having said that, I do think some of what we wear today (super sky high heels, for example) falls into the same category of what I think of as "hobbling" fashion (in that case, literally!)

But I do love the attention to detail in those old patterns; the variety of collars, sleeve lengths, etc. And I think, cut for contemporary women in more forgiving fabrics, the styles would be very flattering for many.

For my Fabulous 50s party I wore the vintage bought outfit I already posted. Not true 50s, but 50s inspired, and fun. http://youlookfab.com/welookfa.....ties-party

Note:
The waist was snug, I admit! But wearable. For one evening.

Phew!

san

Veteran

Suz!! You look fablulous. What a fun evening. You are glowing in your beautiful Fabulous 50's inspired outfit. You did a great job.
Did you see alot of interesting interpretations of the 50's?

catgirl

Veteran

A lot of 50s dresses catch my eye, but the waists are so tiny!

I was a size 10 or 12 as a teenager in the 1980s (or a 9 in junior's sizes now). No wonder I felt HUGE, and I was smaller then than I am now.

rosee

Veteran

Sizing is pretty difficult to determine some of the time -- a size 16 in the 1950s is about a size 4 now, smaller sizes were larger numbered even before that. Measurements are most useful in determining if something will fit in vintage sizes (and you still need to leave about 1 inch in clearance to ensure fit -- i.e. 36" bust will fit 35" or under).

Have you checked out Heart My Closet on Etsy (custom-made vintage style dresses)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/heart.....ss_profile

There was another thread that posted this link recently
http://youlookfab.com/welookfa.....xperiences

I personally like this dress but with a swing (flare) skirt instead of a pencil skirt:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/61.....wiggle-all
or:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/70.....ired-dress
...but I have a few others saved as well.