The Closet Historian: Which Way to the Library?

March 13, 2017

Which Way to the Library?

I was at the store to buy lining...but I got distracted by the nice happy wool section, so a yard and a half of this really fine plaid wool came home to be turned into a new 1930s style skirt. I keep meaning to make a solid dark brown skirt and instead I come home with plaid, green, or grey wool! One day, brown skirt, one day.

Researching 30s skirts I found this image and fell for the simple shape and fun pocket detail. I cut the skirt on the straight grain since I only had a yard and a half, but I put the pocket on the bias and used the same button tab detail as the inspiration skirt. It's the first time I have ever done a pocket like this and it was rather fun to make! This was a new skirt pattern for me, instead of using a full A-line shape (which is created by closing both of the waist darts opening up the skirt to flare) I closed only one of the darts at the waist for minimal flare to try and achieve that slimmer 1930s shape. I really like the resulting silhouette and I think I'll use the pattern again in the future, possibly for in navy blue wool as I could use a slimmer blue wool skirt for fall and winter.

The skirt isn't the only new item in this ensemble, as I recently expanded my brown accessory collection! As I have written about recently, I love a set of accessories, and I have found it a bit difficult to find dark brown accessories I like. I still don't have a full set of either dark brown or lighter reddish brown so you see here I am wearing a combination of both. I recently went on a web wide search for dark brown heels and I finally stumbled upon these fun heels at Unique Vintage. I have seen some shoes from the brand Pin Up Couture before but was always a bit wary about them as for some reason I just imagined they looked uncomfortable. In the end, these heels are indeed, not very comfortable, but they sure are cute! Some shoes are just prettier than they are comfortable, and these definitely fall into that category. The brown leather belt and clutch were vintage finds and happily match quite well. Both are from the 1980's I'd say, and the 80s are just such a great resource of belts with a covered buckle and basic fold over clutch styles that work really well for earlier eras.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, I got to watch Moana again so I was pleased about that! I think tonight I'm going to watch Allied, has anyone seen it? The costumes look gorgeous!