Electric blue dress, silver hotpant suit, and a label too!

[Vmode]

So I have 3 very different items up for everyone's dating opinion

First is this gorgeous heavy tafetta feel dress in electric blue. Slightly lowered waist with piping 'V' detail to the center, very dinky little 'Flash' metal zip fastening with lovely matching bow- the 'legs' of the bow are very long. The inside of the bottom hem is stiffened with crin which I've never seen before. Mid 50s?

Second is a micro hotpant suit in thin PVC, quite hard to photo properly due to the flash, but has plastic zip and no inner labels aside from the M. It has the vintage 'feel' but I don't think it's as early as the similar '60s pieces- would have been nice to see a big 'o' zip pulley!

Finally, a label I took out of a late 60s dress as it's clearly earlier. Anyone know anything about the Mademoiselle label/company? The only examples I've found online are from the 60s + early 70s, that have a totally differently styled label. This seems to have a 50s look to me.

-Ava

 

[Vmode]

Oop, and the dress has a brilliantly full skirt!

 

[Pinkcoke]

we used to sell the stiffening trim you have on your blue dress on our Haberdashery stall, no longer available from our supplier now, it was called 'horsehair braid' but it hasn't been made from horsehair for many many centuries!! It was a kind of nylon/plastic woven thread that is very maneouverable in a snake like way - very stiff vertically but still moves in other directions. I've never seen it that wide before but it could be manufactured to any size really.

 

[Vmode]

Hi PC, yes it's referred to in millinery terms as 'horsehair crin' and is used loads in modern hat making for trims- I have some myself, very playful! But I've never seen it used to keep the shape of a hem before.. There are no labels in the dress so perhaps the maker had a brainwave and re-purposed some craft materials!