Plus Size Vintage Clothing circa 1941

 

One of the myths of vintage clothing is that it's all so small.  There are a few reasons why this seems to be. 

• people were more likely malnourished a century ago and grew to smaller stature
• the smallest sizes survived over time because they were only worn for a few years, as women likely took larger sizes after childbirth
• women trained their bodies into smaller silhouettes with corsets and the like

All of these speculations had some impact on the size of existing vintage and antique clothes.  However, Doris Langley Moore long ago refuted much of these claims by measuring and comparing extant Victorian garments and reporting an average 26-inch waist - a modern size 6.  We recently cataloged an 1870s silk ensemble with a 41-inch bust and 33-inch waist, close to a modern size 16.  Not everybody was tiny.

And this catalog of 1941 Lane Bryant fashions shows many more recent vintage clothes in "stout" yet "slenderizing" examples.  The history of Lane Bryant with its initial focus on maternity wear, surpassed in the 1920s by the demand for plus-size clothing, bears out the real need for mass production of larger women's clothes early in the last century.  Sales of plus-size women's clothing exceeded half of Lane Bryant's $5 million revenue in 1923.

These pages show model after model in cherubic profiles with "smart" vintage dresses at "sensible" prices.  Sizes range from a 37-inch bust to a 59-inch bust, which is approximately equivalent to
women's sizes 12 to 40 today.

 

Even the shoes offered a generous range of sizes, from 4 to 11.  Lane Bryant was a single source for plus-size women over the last century, including everything from underwear to hats and bathrobes for larger ladies.

 

For a glimpse of plus sizes on our site, check our women's vintage clothing section and choose your size from the left column.  We offer over 400 authentic items in a size 13 to 26... and over 6,000 items site-wide.

"If I were allowed to choose...

...from the pile of books which will be published one hundred years after my death, do you know which one I would take?  I would simply take a fashion magazine so that I could see how women dress one century after my departure.  And these rags would tell me more about the humanity of the future than all the philosophers, novelists, prophets and scholars."

So said Anatole France, a French novelist who died in 1924 at the age of 80.  The women's clothes he saw in his day ranged from Civil War era hoop skirts to enormous leg-o-mutton sleeves to the liberation from corsets to the high peak of flapper frivolity in his last years.  Imagine that variety over a lifetime, and he a man of letters who paid attention to such things.

And nearly a hundred years have indeed passed since his death.  Imagine the developments since then.  Just a few years after his passing, fashion dictated swimsuits that show all a woman has, and ladies in hard-tailored suits as severe as men's... Would he think us too feminine and yet too masculine?

Then there's the reprise of the Victorian era in the 1950s, the Gibson Girl in the 1970s, the re-created flapper during the 60s, and so on... Are our closets today a split personality of sorts?  Too many acceptable looks run awry of the dictum of fashion?

Look at the mainstream fashion of vintage clothing today... Would he think us unabashedly nostalgic?

I wonder what he would think about our humanity.  What would you guess?

Memorial Day: A Vintage Vixen In Uniform

From the yellowed pages of a wartime Life magazine, a Vixen in uniform smiles brightly on this Memorial Day.  During World War II when this photograph was taken, women were entering the military in numbers previously unheard of.  And the designer of the WAVES uniforms (among others) was none other than the couturier Mainbocher.  These ladies not only served well, they looked well too!

Happy Memorial Day to those who have served, and to those who enjoy the benefits of those serving.