Test your vintage style knowledge by dating patterns.

Circa Vintage Clothing

Circa Vintage Clothing

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I've posted a quiz of sorts to my blog - twenty vintage sewing patterns that have printed dates on them, it's a fun tool to test your knowledge, by guessing the dates and seeing how close you get.

You can see the blog post here. Good luck!

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Nicole, just finished your quiz. That was great! Thank you so much for posting it. I was able to date all within 5 years except for four. I've learned more in the past two years than I realized.
 
That is a great idea - I used to collect patterns because they were such good documents of fashion in reality, but they just got so massive. Of course now I wish I had scanned the images and kept them sorted in date files...

I am embarrassed to say that apparently my 80s IDing needs brushing up!
 
I did better than I thought I would. The 80s ones, I had the right decade, but more than a 5 year gap on my guesses
and the actual dates. Fun!
 
What fun! I actually surprised myself, and got all of them except 1 (the first one) dated within 3-4 years, a lot within 1-2 years, and on 7 I got the exact year. So I give myself about a C+ or B- on this test!

This is a great idea Nicole. Happy New Year!
 
Good fun, I had one exact hit, two misses and the rest I got within 4 years.
That wedding dress WAS my mum's wedding dress!
 
Wow Melanie - I hope that means you got the wedding dress right too? It looks so much like Princess Diana's, I thought it was early '80s too. I should have remembered that bridal fashions don't change very fast and are inherently conservative.

Glad you enjoyed them everyone - it's not often we get exact dates with vintage styles, especially every day wear like these.
 
I did pretty well, too, except for the wedding dress which I thought was early '80's. I think that one is an example of a popular pattern being available for many years after the original.

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I thought the last one was a little bit later because of the hair styles. I guessed three years later.

This was a lot of fun! Thanks, Nicole!

Linn
 
I agree Linn, I thought that was a copy of the lady Diana dress too!

Gosh Nicole, there is nothing like starting the date with a fashion history exam!! It was fun, I even got 7 dates exactly right :cheer: but I did one really wrong :oops:- that raglan tshirt looked so early 80s to me, but was 60's- oh dear!
And my mum actually made me that outfit- from :Simplicity pattern # 5707 Girl's bell bottom pants, shorts and halter top 1973 !!
 
Gayle, I suspect the t shirt pattern is the hardest - or should I say "T" shirt :)

As someone pointed out on Facebook, it's highly unlikely that anyone would sew a t shirt these days. They're ridiculously cheap to buy.

Linn, regarding the dates I mentioned on the blog post that many patterns were reprinted for many years, but the date should be the date it was first produced. Diana's wedding dress was such a big influence on bridal fashions, ladies were still wearing similar ones into the early '90s when the strapless '50s style took off (and has remained with us ever since).
 
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