A 1920s Costume

I wrote about the Coats-Patons donation in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection in my last post, and said there that some of them are knitted from vintage Patons & Baldwins patterns. I have identified some of the replica garments as knitted from  Beehive Recipe Cards, which I wrote about here. Although we only have a few of the cards in the collection, the British Library has a complete set of 86, and four of the replica garments given to the collection can be matched to the cards. Here's the first: 

And here is the illustration on the card:

Illustration from
Beehive Recipe Card No. 31

The description on the card is: 'The "Pauline" Costume, being made in TEAZLE Wool, is suitable for sports wear, it is knitted in two colours which, if tastefully chosen, will make a very distinctive one.  The skirt is worked in one piece and knitted so as to give a pleated effect.  The coat is worked in plain knitting, with a vest — knitted in the same manner as the skirt — fastened into the front of the coat.'   

So although the top looks like two separate garments, it is just one: the 'vest' is actually just a piece to join together the two sides of the coat.  It is not easy to see in the photo, but there is a deep band of fabric showing above the top of the vest — the model is wearing something like a camisole, and the outfit is more modest than it looks at first glance. 

Teazle wool was so called because you could create a furry effect on the finished knitting by brushing with a wire brush, though in this case the finished outfit is not intended to be brushed.  A few years ago, I recreated a tam pattern originally intended for Teazle wool, as I described here, and used Rowan Felted Tweed as a substitute, though without seeing the original Teazle wool it's impossible to know how similar they are. 

The back of the jacket is knitted first, and then continued into the two separate fronts (so there are no shoulder seams).  The broad collar, forming a full-length lapel, is knitted as a separate piece.  The skirt and vest are knitted sideways and the pleating is done by working alternate bands of garter stitch and stocking stitch, alternating the two colours.  

The suggested colours are Light Saxe (blue) and Pearl Green.  There is very little contrast between the colours in the black and white photo on the card, and I think that in colour the stripes would have given a subtle green-blue effect. The colours chosen for the replica are not subtle at all, and even in black and white it looks very obviously striped, but again if it was intended for showing on TV, the colours might have been chosen deliberately to show the stripes.

The Beehive Recipe cards in the British Library have British Museum date stamps (because the British Library used to be housed in the British Museum) showing the accession date.  The dates are December 1921 for cards 1 to 37, November 1923 for cards 38 to 74, and June or July 1924 for the rest.  Yarn shops advertised the cards from January 1921, and I think that the Pauline Costume can be dated to 1921.  

Another of the replicas is based on Card no. 26 for a Lady's Knitted Dress.

 

Here's the image from the card:

Illustration from
Beehive Recipe Card No. 26

The description from the card is "The 'Alicia'  Knitted Dress being light in weight is suitable for indoor or outdoor wear. The skirt is worked in a rib which gives a pleated effect, the remainder of the dress is knitted in a plain smooth fabric, with a simple pattern introduced at the neck and cuffs, whilst a thick twisted cord is used for the sash.  The garment being knitted in one piece — with the exception of the sleeves — is easily made and can be worked by any average knitter."  

Here's another photo showing the "simple pattern" at the neck. 

As the description says, the body of the dress is knitted in one piece, starting at the lower edge of the front, continuing up to the shoulders, casting on stitches in the centre to replace those cast off for the front neck opening, and then knitting the back of the dress downwards.  The sleeves are knitted from the cuff upwards, finishing with a straight edge.  This kind of construction was common in 1920s jumpers, though often the sleeves were also knitted in one piece with the body. 

There are no instructions for making the cord belt.  The card just says "make a cord — with tassels attached at each end", of the same wool used for the rest of the dress.  Evidently in the 1920s knitters were expected to know how to make cords, tassels, pompoms and the like, without further direction.  Personally, if I were making the dress I would like some indication of how many strands of wool to use and how long they should be, because a thick cord with tassels, like that shown on the card, would use a lot of wool, and mistakes could be expensive. 

I think it's an unexciting design, but it must have been so much more comfortable to wear than the fashions of 10 or 15 years previously (let alone Victorian fashions) that I can understand women wanting to wear a dress like that.  Pleated skirts (or rather skirts with a pleated effect) seem to have been popular in 1921, at least according to the Beehive cards.  Here are two more designs from the same  1921 tranche. 

Illustration from
Beehive Recipe Card No.30

The title of Card No. 30 is 'Lady's Knitted Dress', but actually it's a skirt and jumper.  The back and front of the jumper are knitted in one piece, as in Card No. 26, but there are separate ribbed pieces to go either side under the armholes.  I don't know why knitting designers of the 1920s were so averse to shoulder seams.   

Illustration from 
Beehive Recipe Card No. 41

Card No. 41 is another Knitted Costume ("Doreen" design), but unlike the Pauline design, above, the jacket is a proper jacket, without the awkward 'vest' piece.  It has some similarities to the jacket of the Pauline costume - the broad striped collar forming full-length lapels, and the belt going under the lapels at the front.  And the back and fronts are knitted in one piece, as before.  

(What's wrong with shoulder seams?  I avoid unnecessary seams where I can, and often choose to knit jumpers top-down, in the round, in one piece so that there are no seams at all, but these designs have seams elsewhere, just not shoulder seams.) 

If I were choosing a knitted costume to represent early 1920s knitting, I would choose the 'Doreen' design rather than the 'Pauline' design.  And I wouldn't choose the 'Alicia' design because it's not very interesting and doesn't seem characteristically 1920s.  But when the replicas in the Coats-Patons donation were made in the early 1950s, I have no idea what the purpose was, or why particular designs were chosen, so I can't judge.  

In my next post, I'll write about another replica garment that was knitted from a Beehive Recipe Card, and is much more attractive, in my view.