A Few Pretty Pages of...Ladies Home Journal October 1904

Today for your enjoyment my dears, I have a few pretty pages of Ladies Home Journal Magazine from October 1904.

Enjoy!

A Few Pretty Pages of...Ladies Home Journal January 1905

Today for your enjoyment, I present a few pretty pages of The Ladies Home Journal magazine from January 1905.

Enjoy!

How to Mend Large or Difficult Tears in Sewing Patterns

Below, we have a pattern that has had the stuffing kicked out of her. Every single piece of this poor baby has between 1 and 3 very large tears. I spent a whole afternoon fixing her up and thought I might share a few tricks for making repairs that last.

The much-abused lady in question.

1. 1. Iron out the pattern piece, using medium-high heat and NO STEAM.

1. 2. If the tear is large, it can help to weigh the pattern down with pattern weights, or in my case, giant nuts and washers from a hardware store.

Draft-at-Home Sewing Pattern Tutorials From Mrs. Depew Vintage

Hello lovelies. I long time ago I did a photo tutorial for you here on how to draft my any-size Draft-at-Home sewing patterns.
I hope that it was helpful, but I still got lots of requests for a video or two. I'm shy (I like to hide behind the blog, lol) but I got so many requests that I finally did it.

In this series, I walk you through drafting up my corselette pattern #355 from the 1940s.

So without further ado, here it is!

For the full series:

Part 1: https://youtu.be/H9dyTDxjxcU

Part 2: https://youtu.be/LAwMqMTyxOM

Part 3: https://youtu.be/6Yz5oDxcdwQ

Part 4: https://youtu.be/bA5GUwWSd4Y

Part 5: https://youtu.be/AlhW-Ugj3cc

A Look Inside an Antique Magazine Le Bon Ton 1896

I've decided to film "A Look Inside" some of the rarer vintage fashion and sewing items that come into my hands. Today for your enjoyment I have Le Bont Ton et le Moniteur de la Mode sewing pattern magazine from Spring, 1896.

It was printed in English, in the U.S. by S.T. Taylor to advertise their sewing patterns and pattern drafting system. The fashion illustrations are absolute perfection.
To download E-books of other Bon Ton magazines from my collection, check out the E-book section of MrsDepew.com!


If you're interested in adding rare magazines like this one to your collection, you can find others like it in my Etsy shop book and magazine section.

Anatomy of a Dress - The Unexpected Victorian Dress

Lately, I've been having fun reverse-engineering dresses into patterns. This is a technical, convoluted excuse for my "buying vintage clothing I'll never wear"  habit. I just love to study original antique pieces, how they are constructed, what materials were used, which parts have held up to wear and use, and which parts haven't.  Sometimes this manifests in a new pattern at Mrs. Depew Vintage, but most of the time, it just means hours spent becoming a (hopefully) smarter seamstress and designer.

Today, for your enjoyment, I present The Unexpected Victorian Dress. I was haunting a not-widely-used online auction site looking for patterns when I stumbled across a very blurry picture of a 1920s wedding dress covered in silk rosettes (more on that later). Just from the photo, I knew it to be adapted from the "robe de style" design; something I've been wanting to study in person for ages. The listing was vague, saying only "Dresses" and showing a much-abused 1920s dress hanging on a door. I bid furiously, knowing that if the plural turned out to be a typo and I only had this one dress to study, I'd be one happy girl. I won. A Giant box arrived weeks later at my door.

And inside was not one, not two, but three beautiful dresses for me to study.

The photos that follow are as detailed as I can get, and I have erred on the side of overkill, knowing that there are fashion historians out there that will be delighted with as much detail as possible.

With their help, I am still nailing down the dressmaker named, as well as trying to name its original, stunningly petite owner and perhaps date the dress which appears to be from the late 1880s to early 1890s.

(update: this dress is now for sale!)

Enjoy!

See it Sewn - Ladies Home Journal 1952 Featuring Vogue Sewing Patterns

Today for you, my lovelies, I have a couple of gorgeous fashion pages from a May 1952 Ladies' Home Journal Magazine. The patterns advertised are by Vogue, which had a long-standing relationship with Condé Nast dating back to 1905. Sorry if the images are a bit grainy - this was the largest I could get them for you.

Above: Vogue Junior Design 3470 Dress,

Above, Vogue 7545 Blouse and Vogue 7583 Skirt.

Above, Vogue 7597 Dress. Below, Vogue 7608 Coat.

Above, Vogue 7669 Dress. Below, Vogue 7685 Dress.

Above, Vogue 7689 Dress.

And last but certainly not least, my favorite, Vogue 7696.