Vintage Dressmaking Patterns for Special Occasion Dresses

With vintage dressmaking patterns, you are either a collector or a sewing enthusiast. So which one are you?

Using sewing patterns to make something classic; to sew that one of a kind 1940’s style outfit means you are fashionably different and bold enough to showcase your fashion sense in a way that’s totally diverse from your ‘everyday woman’. You are kind of exciting in a stylish way.

If on the other hand, you are a collector, you are also different because collecting vintage patterns is just the same as collecting vintage pocket watches (for example).

Collectors never seem to get enough of their rare and dated items.

These days it’s getting more unrealistic to expect to find authentic dated clothes patterns in near perfect condition. Most you’ll find (if any) are usually worn, torn, and terribly discoloured, but that’s a collector’s delight I’m sure, and the most important thing is that the pattern package is vintage.

There will most likely be some missing pieces from a set anyway, so if you are a collector, you’ll need to be careful and perceptive when purchasing old classic dressmaking patterns.

In the majority of cases, envelopes and instructions will be missing but if you are particular about the envelopes, they can be reproduced; that is if you desire to have them as design collectables.


Further Reading:
Dressmaking Patterns of Vintage Designs
Vintage Dressmaking Patterns for Special Occasion Dresses

19th Century Fashion Today . . . 'To Die For'

Fashion is meant to be enhancing and flattering to the silhouette of men and women.

Being fashionable means being stylish, up-to-the-minute trendy and/or chic.

And even though being stylish means all of these and more, it is also meant to be safe and to die for!
To die for! But literally?

Yes if you’ve ever heard of the muslin disease. This was a terrible and deadly illness that was a result of being fashionable in the late 18^th to early 19^th century.  At the time, it was the rave for ladies to “dampen themselves with water before wearing their muslin gowns”.  

Because the skin was wet, the muslin gowns clung to their bodies revealing all their curves, bosom, backside, and all. Talk of being utterly revealing!

This was a way to show off their figures and reveal the absence of underwear! And what did this style of wearing wet clothes result in? Disease!

Asides being unhygienic, there were severe cases of illnesses such as pneumonia, bronchitis, influenza, and even death! Some hygienists at the time claim that this supposedly fashionable way of dressing was solely responsible for the viral outbreak of influenza in France in the early 19^th century. This outbreak is what is known as the ‘muslin gowns disease.’