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1950's Thanksgiving Dress

funkkatherine
Oct 7, 20203 min read

I decided this summer that I had no choice but to make a few themed dresses, so I was pretty thrilled to find this Thanksgiving toile print fabric at Michaels! I decided on this gorgeous dress pattern from Vintage Vogue because I loved the full skirt and thought that it would a nice, easy, quick make.


This was absolutely not a nice, easy, quick make. I have always found that Vintage Vogue patterns fit my measurements and proportions really well. For some reason, this pattern was completely off pretty much everywhere. Since I was so confident about this being an easy make, I only checked the waist measurements when cutting it out, the barged right on ahead. Like always, fate laughed in my face and let me make my mistakes.

It actually didn't end up being the worse thing altering it to fit, but I definitely complained as much as I could about having to figure out the issues on the nice fabric.

The biggest issue was how ridiculously low the waist was on me - I took it up a good 3 inches, and I could have even taken it up a centimeter more. Luckily, there is a good amount of ease, so I didn't have to take the waist in at the side seams at all.

The second issue took me the longest to figure out. The top detail at the bodice was 4 pieces (outer and interfacing pieces for front and back, since there is a side closure), and while the front pieces fit the bodice absolutely perfectly, the back was 2 inches too short. After a good month of avoiding the project completely, I finally decided that there was enough extra ease that I could just cut the back bodice piece down so that it fit the top piece and move the armhole over. While it did work, it was not the best way to fix it. To begin with, now the bust is a bit tight, which gives a kind of funny look to the dress if it doesn't have a belt, since the waist has ease but the bust is tight. Also, now the back darts are slightly off center because I only cut the inches off of one side.

Oh well, I am just glad that I finally finished it!


I didn't have any specific inspiration in my mind with this, which is very unusual for me. The pattern was originally designed in 1952, and like all years, it had some really interesting events!

One event that has had a lasting effect is the publication of Anne Franks diary in Great Britain and the US. Her father, Otto Frank, first published it in 1947, under the name that she chose for it (The Secret Annex). It was so successful that the Netherlands actually encouraged him to publish it elsewhere. Throughout the rest of his life, Otto read all of the letters that he got about the book.


Another few events that you may be familiar with if you have watched season 1 of The Crown is the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 27 and the death of 4000 people from the Great Smog in London. 4000 is the amount of deaths reported, but it is actually estimated to be closer to 12000 from breathing problems caused by the smog. It was likely from the amount of coal being burnt by citizens and power plants. The smog shut down the entire city, forcing transit and ambulances to stop and events were cancelled because of smog getting into buildings. The Clean Air acts were created in response to this in 1956 and 1968.


The year 1952 also includes the first testing of the hydrogen bomb by the US (on Marshall Islands in the Pacific ocean, and the Soviet Union would test their own during the next year), a polio epidemic killed 3300 and paralyzed 57000 children in the US, Albert Einstein refused the Israelian presidency, the Big Bang Theory was first proposed, Nasser headed a coup d'etat in Egypt, and a lot more activity with various nuclear weapons occurred.

All in all, 1952 was an incredibly busy year (something that we can relate to today).


Thank you for reading about my sewing mistakes and some of the most interesting events of 1952 (this blog post may be a bit of a peak into my thought process...)!


~Katherine

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