dress size standards in UK and US - date established?

thanks guys! fabric wise it's very definitely a silk satin, very heavy and fluid..but you're right about the colour palette being a later one chris, so i think i am just going to have to put it back on the rack and look at it with a 'fresh eye' next week! it just 'feels' older, if you know what i mean which is why it is confusing me..although i suppose it could be very nice quality 70's boutique quality. it's lovely eitherway so i don't mind!
there was lots of other fun stuff that i got that i need help with so i shall try and post a few pics over the next few days, although the base of my mannequin is currently being repaired so i cannot show dresses if they are too small for my larger dress form... grr!
 
I agree, Harriet...either way the wrap front on the blouse is a really great look. I think regardless of decade, it is unique and has some nice features about it. I wouldn't hesitate to offer this one for sale with complete confidence.
 
Harriet, with the wrap front and that fabric, could it also be 60s? I'm pretty baffled, though.

<i>I asked for trousers in Hobbs that were not back, cream or grey and was told that they didn't sell other colours.</i>

Aha!! You know? I think the solution is that we all need <u>our own dedicated couturieres</u>

I've just finished reading 'Fashion is Spinach' by Elizabeth Hawes (pub'd 1937), and does any of this sound familiar???
--------------------


'I want a navy blue dress in the fall. It is only worn in the spring, the salesgirl says. I want a coat with no fur trimming in the winter of 1930. All winter coats have fur trimming, the salesgirl says.
I want a brown turtle-necked sweater. I start at Macy's and slowly wend my way through Altman's and Best's and Lord & Taylor's and Saks' and Bonwits'. Finally I buy a white one at Fortnum and Mason [London? ed] and send it to be dyed. They say it won't dye, but it does.

I want a plain knit bathing suit with a skirt. They're all fancy knits this year and they have no skirts. I want a brassiere and separate pants bathing suit. We don't have them anymore. That was last year'

***

On her <i>own</i> designs made up by a wholesaler for cheap sale:

'I ordered a few for myself... The silk dresses caught me in odd places, although they looked as if they fit. I had the sleeves taken out at Hawes Inc., but there wasn't enough material across the back to ever get them right...

I finally got rumous from interested friends that the Nibs-Hawes clothes did not fit when they tried them on in stores. I hied me to Lord and Taylor and got the assistant buyer. When I asked her about it, she said, 'All the clothes are nearly a size too big. We just pay no attention to the marked size but see to it that the customer is fitted.'

According to Ms Hawes, we are the 'ready-made lady' and we suffer accordingly. Vintage just gives us a wider range of shapes and fittings to search through. Or, accordingly, better-tailored clothes than we can afford now...

:rolleyes:
L
 
well, silk satin was still made in the 70s. Even though we think about so much polyester being around that time, it definitely was still used. I can see why you also thought earlier, Harriet. I have a 40s blouse that has a wrap front as well that i love. It could be 60s, but i would venture to guess that the earliest would be the very late late 60s just because of the colors.

Lin, that is very interesting...so the race to find something that fits is not unique to our times of companies messing around with sizing. If i find something that fits well, i will buy it in an array of colors because i never know when i will find another. I think the problem is also a time issue. I just don't have the luxury of going to a store for hours and hours or looking for months for the perfect thing.

bathing suits are an even bigger nightmare...i won't even go there!
 
Actually silk satin was a big feature around 77. I recall having a black silk satin pencil skirt.Not everything 70's was polyester. I have a few lovely quality pieces that were made from silk including a green and purple Liberty blouse. Wrap fronts were also big in the seventies.
Louise
 
I see a lot of talk about those scanning machines. Too bad they don't let you just custom make an individual outfit and they are just for "data". When the Levi's stores did custom jeans, my cousin got some and said they weren't really custom, you could just mix and match cut, size, color, etc. I don't know if that was true or not. Maybe i should just have my clothing made. Problem is i had a seamstress that altered my wedding dress and she was on a mission to make me look as matronly as possible. Not on the dress, but other stuff.
 
I remember going through Harvey Nicks in great frustration because I couldn't find a simple well cut pair of trousers having tried on loads. Eventually I found them by Cacherel in Libertys. Cacherel is a rather nice label and the tailoring is of an excellent standard. I hate examining garments and finding bad finishing and tacky linings. I'm also irritated by trousers that end somewhere below the navel as I'm high waisted and they don't suit me. But if you don't want drawstring OAP trousers thats virtually all that is on offer. I love the wide legged Palazzo pants and trawl Ebay for them.
Louise
 
I've found great cuts for trousers in 70s-80s Jaeger (tailored in France, high-waisted and actually *cut* to specific measurements which are noted on the label - yey!) and, hehe, vintage Pucci -

I just acquired some early 60s silk Pucci cigarette pants, and although they're actually made in that early 'cut-away' waist style, they're relatively high-waisted by our standards. And again, tailored perfectly.

It seems manufacturers have completely lost sight of that model of having trousers fit a woman's curves, without necessarily hanging or pulling on any one part of them.

The two last new pairs of trousers I bought (a while ago, cos I've given up), I found myself buying Hobbs and Olsen suit trousers with too-wide waists (pulled in and hiked up with belts) and shortish or too-longish parallel cut legs.

The low waist/hipster trend has been one of the major things in the last two years to *really* screw up British sizing completely (30"waist? for a UK size 10? Come <i>onnn</i>!).

I've given up on jeans until (relatively) high waists are back in...

Know what you mean about the palazzo pants! I've bought three pairs (2x 40s and 1x uncertain) recently and they're great. Still in search of Marion Ravenwood's splendid red palazzos from Raiders of the Lost Ark though...

L
 
Oh yeah, those red palazzos were great.

I have probably mentioned before, but a friend of ours who I went to as a hairdresser as well up north also had a customer who had been a fit model for a particular company. I think for the size 2 or the 4. She was very evenly balanced. and had perfect posture, but she didn't really have any curves. She wasn't "mannish" at all, she quite looked like she was a ballerina...but clothing fit on her would not necessarily work proportion wise for the average woman.
 
I have a 24 inch waist with 38 inch hips as a result most trousers are either gaping at the waist or refuse to budge above knee level as I have plump thighs lol
Louise
 
Same dilemma...the inevitable "gap." Unfortunately, i don't have any inches in my hips to lose. I did improve the situation by buying relaxed fit jeans that are bigger in the hips and wearing them not relaxed but the gap still is there...just a little less.
 
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