Sunday, October 28, 2012

Weldon's Children's Fancy Dress, c. 1920s


I found this catalog on Sharon Yarter's table at the convention. Some of the costumes are wonderfully creative, a few are outlandish, and two are downright offensive. Costume dress up tells us so much about a time and place. Today and tomorrow, some pages from the catalog. Click on images for detail.

A mail box or "pillar box" costume and the merry- go- round outfit are delightfully eccentric.



I love the idea of dressing up as a window. Some of the flower-type costumes were a popular theme in antique paper dolls.


The spider dress and hat has an appropriately creepy effect. The champagne bottle with the cork hat is oddball. The Christmas cracker dress is cute. You can see some costumes were inspired by popular plays and literature, too.

5 comments:

  1. These are very special. I can remember magazines of dress up ideas for children from the 50's that were absolutely magical to me. Although these are from a completely different era they have the same type of appeal.

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  2. Glad you enjoy! And thank you for posting under your name. I'm no longer posting anonymous comments because of spam. Look for more pages from this fascinating catalog in the next few days.

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  3. These are fabulous. I am particularly inspired by the costume of the window with curtains. What a great idea.

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  4. I have a booklet of 1920 era costume patterns from Pattern Review that you might like.
    I have posted them all on a Pintrest board at:

    http://pinterest.com/whatifound/masquerade-costumes/

    There are a few in there that are from other sources, but the brightly colored ones are all from that one booklet.

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  5. I love "Danger Signals." Just cracks me up.

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