Obi Wow Can I Have-y?

Here's a picture straight out of Life Magazine, October 17, 1967. It's Naomi Sims, taking a stroll down the street in a cool 60s outfit that says relaxed. Gone are the foundation garments of the earlier 60s, and the wild mod is starting to relax into hippiness - hence the looser fit. I particularly love the obi belt.

The purse would fit right into today. The shoes? Who knows -- I can't see them, but it sure looks like they are sensible. I'm sure they're not.

The plum color would fit into a fall wardrobe perfectly, and if I had that set, I'd be wearing the top as a mini dress, too. I love clothes that can multi-task.

Shoe Candy from 1937

From a Swedish sewing pattern catalog, March 1947.

Then and now

I love it when the fashion gods converge and hand us a gift. Offered here: a vintage 1956 Pat Premo ad, featuring the amazing Suzy Parker. Absolutely gorgeous rendition of 1956 fashion, yes? Pat Premo dresses are always cute, and rather overlooked today. I've never seen a Pat Premo dress that I didn't love. Suzy Parker is just the icing on the cake in the ad for me, since she's second only to Dovima in my book, so this ad is like the perfect storm.

Then take a look at this: the same dress, featured on Etsy, by my friend Julie of Damn Good Vintage, minus Suzy Parker, but no less drop dead sexy, yes? And Julie's right, Pat Premo loved horizontal stripes. Can you imagine this making it to market today, in a time when everyone is so afraid of them? She was one brave woman!

Don't you love it when this kind of thing happens? It's like years past meeting today, and showing us how fashion can be so indicative of the time in which it's made, but at the same time how vintage clothing is still relevant today.

The pairing just makes me smile.

Interesting

This pattern is from 1953. The thing I find interesting about it is that it says on the cover that "this design is illustrated in quilted fabric." Who knew?

I've never seen a quilted fabric dress, especially from that era, so this intrigues me. The back of the envelope lists quilted cottons among the suitable fabrics, but I'm still not quite seeing it. The fabric list is also one of the most varied I've ever seen. Here it is:

• quilted cottons
• linen
• pique
• cotton broadcloth
• denim
• lace
• gingham
• percale (great use for leftover sheets, for thrifty sewists)
• chambray
• calico
• dotted Swiss
• embroidery cotton
• velveteen
• corduroy
• shantung
• taffeta
• crepe

That's the kind of fabric list that goes from soup to nuts, yes? What do you think? Ever seen a quilted cotton dress like this?

Pretty............

A friend point this store out to me recently. It's a great store where you can find fabrics with wonderful vintage themes. You can search by color, so if you are a sucker for pink (like me) or a fanatic for red (again, like me), you'll find something pretty easily.

Things like this wonderful deco inspired print:

and this fun little button print:



and this cherry blossom inspired print:



and this -- reminds me of picking Granny Smith apples at the orchard in September:

Click on the Aunt Bea's logo up top to shop.