February 26, 2011
How To Choose Your Mid-Century WardrobeToday, we are going to learn how to choose a wardrobe from the amazing assortment of ready-made clothes available to young teens today.
Well, Your Home And You is going to teach us.
This home economics textbook was printed 1961, and is pretty much awesome. It tries, in 470-odd, large-print pages, to teach teenagers how to be adults. It covers cooking, homemaking, dressing, decorating, caring for children and even personal and family relationships.
My question is: What ever happened to this book? I never saw anything like this when I took home ec in high school. My home ec was all about cooking pancakes and planning my wedding.
Thank goodness this book is here to save me now, and to teach me how to put together a good mid-century wardrobe.
Whew.
A full-skirted basic dress in a solid color is a good choice for any girl’s wardrobe. Accessories are chosen to suit the occasion.
A Dacron (polyester) and cotton plaid shirtwaist dress may be a good buy. When selecting plaids, it is important to see that the lines are matched carefully.
The girl who is active in sports in her leisure time might choose to build part of her wardrobe around a short double-breasted corduroy coat which has a warm but not bulky lining. Corduroy skirts and slacks with blouse and sweaters complete the outfit.
Select a raincoat of the type and color suited to your needs. Check labels to see if it is fast drying, water repellant, colorfast, and resistant to shrinkage and mildew.
For that one special suit for all occasions, this girl has chosen a hounds tooth check material. There is a wide choice of accessories for this type of suit.
Let’s recap.
1. A few solid color, full-skirted dresses.
2. An adorable plaid dress.
3. A corduroy coat for play time.
4. The world’s most adorable raincoat.
5. A Jackie-O suit.
Consider yourself educated, my dears! Now, go forth and shop!
Alert! Alert! Alert! New Steel Kitchen Cabinets Available!!!
by Sara In AZ - 2 Comments
Sara In AZ: Refinishing Our Heywood Wakefield M328 Desk Bookcase…….The Definitive Post on Refinishing!Sara In AZ: Finds Friday – Or What My Vintage Scores Were This Past Week!Sara In AZ: Alert! Alert! Alert! New Steel Kitchen Cabinets Available!!!
Keith: Refinishing Our Heywood Wakefield M328 Desk Bookcase…….The Definitive Post on Refinishing!
Andrea: Finds Friday – Or What My Vintage Scores Were This Past Week!
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Sara in AZ
February 26, 2011 at 9:58 am
Yeah, where was this book when I was in Home Ec????? LOVE all those full skirted dresses!
Sweet! Now I finally know how to dress. 
Becky
February 26, 2011 at 10:34 am
Love it! Honestly – I miss people looking more “together” when out in public. Sloppy seems to be the name of the game these days.
Andrea
February 26, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Yeah, when I was in Home Ec, it consisted of sewing boxer shorts one year, and a sweatshirt the next (which I breezed through, too easy!) and cooking things like tea biscuit cinnamon buns. However, it’s gone even more downhill! When my daughter was in home ec last year they learned to “cook” trail mix and microwaved nachos! Perhaps they need to bring back this book …
If I had that first dress in black, I would wear the heck out of it!
Jennie from Mrs Beckinsale
February 26, 2011 at 5:18 pm
When selecting plaids, it is important to see the lines are matched to your peg leg.
sablemable
February 27, 2011 at 10:32 am
I don’t remember anything like this in home ec, either and I had that class in 1966.
This was a fun post, Ruuuuuuuuuuuuth! I’m always looking through my vintage Spiegel/Ward/Sears catalogs, “planning” my wardrobe!
jamie in Hollywood
February 27, 2011 at 5:12 pm
This is a treat. I think many of the fashions are classic, like the full skirted dress but I thought that the girl in the dacron skirt had a wooden leg from the way she was posing! For a moment I thought, how fun, even her peg leg is MCM! The bangs, however will never appeal to me. They never looked good on anyone. Cute on some children, maybe but never on an adult.