Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Clara's 1930s Day Dress

The 1930s saw a big change in fashion design compared to the Roaring Twenties. Tucks, ruffles, ribbons, and more structured designs were added to more feminine shapes. In the 1930s, many women sewed their own clothing because of the Great Depression. Sewing patterns became more popular, and women copied the clothing of movie stars, using many of the same patterns worn by the most popular actresses. 
Clara's dress has a square neck and a nice ribbon trim on the bodice. The skirt is gathered at both sides, emphasizing the hips, and creating a very feminine outline. Compare this to Clara's striped 1923 dress, which has a very straight, dropped-waist outline.

Clara also has a cute, floppy cloth hat trimmed with a pretty bow. The hat was worn low over her eyebrows to frame her face better.

Finally, Clara also has some soft suede leather shoes with low heels and a plain ribbon trim.

The original dress was a bronze-brown wool. The original hat and bow were lemon yellow. The original shoes were seal grey with a grey ribbon. Clothing colors from the 1930s were generally darker or soft, dusty tones, and patterns (if used) were very understated.

To print Clara's Dress, use this PDF file:

Clara is a free, printable paper doll. Clara will be available on this blog as long as I continue to post new fashion pages for her. You can read the introduction for the Clara paper doll here.

To print the Clara paper doll, use this PDF file:

1 comment:

  1. I like square necks. They're so hard to find in real life, though.

    ReplyDelete

Clara's 1841 Easter Rose Dress

Clara's dress for this week is a reposted copy of her pretty day dress trimmed with roses, suitable for Easter. In the 1840s, the slope-...