Everyday Fashions of the Forties As Pictured in Sears Catalogs

by JoAnne Olian (Editor)

Few publications illustrate so comprehensively what American men, women, and children wore in the 1940s than the Sears catalogs of those years, when the company's fashions typified the tastes of the American mainstream. This book is a compilation of 122 fully illustrated and captioned pages selected and reproduced from rare copies of Sears catalogs of the World War II era.
Over 120 large-format pages have been carefully reprinted on high-quality glossy stock. They reveal in sharp detail the broad range of clothing fashions available during a period when wartime gasoline rationing made mail-order shopping reach new heights of popularity.
Hundreds of accurately detailed drawings depict articles of clothing and personal accessories, including hats, overcoats, shoes, dresses, sportswear, undergarments, neckties, and more. Styles for children range from play clothes to "Sunday best." Men's clothing reflects the conservativism in male fashions during the period. Women's wear ranges from slacks, newly popular with women in the workforce, to dresses with plenty of "Oomph."
Here is a richly revealing document that historians of costume and readers interested in fashion, social history, and Americana will find endlessly fascinating. JoAnne Olian, curator of the Costume Collection at the Museum of the City of New York, has written an introduction that appraises the fashions of the 1940s and the many ways in which they reflected the times.

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction, History, Fashion History, Reference, Art

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 1992

Reviews

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of use interested in all aspects of history, including what people wore, this is an excellent record of fashionable clothes in the 1940s.

[raffaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this for sewing inspiration and had to flip through this relatively quickly because it's due back at the library. I'll admit the 40s aren't my favorite decade style-wise, but it was still an enjoyable glimpse into the fashions of the past *for ordinary people* and not just high-end fashion.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic reference

[Camilla Tilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent "little" book to use as an encyclopedia/companion when purchasing vintage clothing or sewing patterns on ebay. Often the sellers are only guessing from which year their items are from so if one wants the authentic look it's best to check things out from catalogues from the time one wants clothing from. All the pictures are in black and white.
Remember though that this is US fashion and that the European fashions would differ somewhat thanks to stricter rations and shortage.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice to flip through, but I wish the year of the fashions had been labeled or otherwise made more evident? The introduction was a nice summation of trends. I think I wish it had been incorporated into the book itself.

The book also just...ends. No wrap-up, no warning, no rhyme or reason. Here's a some shoes, and ta-da, it's the last page. Not even, like, a bibliography citing specific catalogs...? An index? I'm not sure what I'd expect, but it was so abrupt.

I'm imagining a version of this book that goes year-by-year (or season by season, or by social occasion -- any kind of structure with clear chapter breaks, really) that would have included some brief historical context relevant to that section to introduce whatever was about to be shown. I think the clothing was in chronological order -- an early page as an explicitly 1940 peacoat -- but most of the pages don't declare a year like that ad did.

All the images were black-and-white. Doing some Google searching, it looks like a non-zero number of pages came in color back in the day... why weren't a few of those included? Perhaps it was a rights procurement issue, or perhaps they just wanted to produce/print this book more cheaply, but it's disappointing.

Now, I know editions vary, and this isn't the kind of thing I'd normally note in a review, but it was pretty distractingly egregious. The ebook version on Hoopla I read was very sloppily digitized. Tons of simple typos throughout: wooi (wool), wrarm (warm), wbite (white), emplhasis (emphasis), on and on and on. Oh, and the main content area was named "Chpater"! (This last taunted me the whole way through, since it was at the top of all the pages.) Prices tended to be missing the decimal -- I don't think anyone in 1940 was spending $2300 on a suit from Sears that I'm sure was actually $23.00. Page numbering was off, too: it said it was 219 [awkwardly laid-out] pages but the final page was actually 230 (and the counter at the bottom even had the nerve to say "Page 230 of 219". Fine work.).

[Dinh Hong · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting historic fashion one to go through

[Skie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great selection of ads that tell the story of fashion at the time (and great for inspiration too). I just wish the date of each ad were more obvious.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was really fun to look through this book, which chronologically highlights pages from the Sears catalogs from each year of the 1940s, and see how styles--and advertising/copy--changed throughout the decade.

[Susan Elizabeth Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love everything from the 40s!

[Ruth Bollinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

If your a person, who like myself love vintage clothing then you should get this book.