A Complete Course in Dressmaking/Lesson 1/How to use your fashion magazines
HOW TO USE YOUR FASHION MAGAZINES
Do you get full value out of your fashion magazines? Do they bring the style centers into your sewing room? Do they talk to you and tell you that sleeves are long, or three
quarter, or short, this season; that necks are oval, or boat shape, or perhaps square; that skirts are so long and so wide? Do they give you a list of the dresses that you can wear, and those that are suited to Mrs. Somebody Else?
Now don’t blame your fashion magazines if they are not doing all these things for you. The information is there. It’s just a case that you haven’t digested it.
Study your magazines.
It’s really a pleasant pastime for an odd fifteen minutes or so. First, take the question of sleeves. It isn’t necessary to read endless printed pages to find out what they are like, and what they are not like. Run through the pages and look at just sleeves. Make a mental note of what they are like. You can’t take in everything about all the styles at one time, you know.
After you have mastered sleeves, study the neck line. Perhaps, you will find there are two outlines that are equally stylish.
Then there is the question of the placing of the waistline. It needs watching. What it does one season it hardly ever repeats the next. Look through all your fashion magazines and make a study of just waistlines.
The width and length of the skirt is another question that ought to be looked up. It’s helpful also to classify trimmings just by themselves.
Once you have dissected the dresses, coats and suits, part for part, you will have a good mental picture of the general lines of the style for the season.
Knowing the styles is really a most important step toward having “style sense.” Go back to our second rule in selecting a really stylish garment on Page 2. The dress must suit the season.
Now try something which may prove a little more difficult. Classify the styles. Turn to the first page of the magazine and decide for what purpose and occasion each costume is intended. You may be surprised to find out that you haven’t been observing in times past. If you are in doubt regarding any of the pictures, refer to the rules of Clothes Etiquette.
If you want to select a style for yourself, it’s a good plan to mark the designs that suit your purpose and that also will be becoming to your type. When you compare them, eliminating those that are not suitable for your purpose or your appearance, it will be an easy matter to make a choice.
Here is where making your dress yourself is going to help out. You can adapt the style to your purpose or to suit your individuality. In fact, the placing of a waistline one inch lower, the shortening of a collar, or the lengthening of a tunic may be the difference between a becoming and an unbecoming frock. If you make your own clothes, you will have stylish clothes, prettier clothes—clothes that suit your individuality.