I’m going to start out by apologizing for getting all soapboxy today, but something came up on one of my FB vintage pattern groups and for the sake of all of our sanities, I would like to say a piece about it.
“Women were smaller then.”
“I don’t have a 1940s figure.”
“People were built differently.”
Etc.
Humans may have been smaller/thinner on average, but they certainly weren’t all smaller or thinner. You do have a 1940s figure, you just aren’t wearing a 1940s girdle. People were not built differently.
The women featured in clothing ads and sewing books were models. They were selected for their figures to present clothing as appealingly as possible. Then, as now, they were the exception.
Remember, though, that sewing patterns are, of necessity, drafted to averaged measurements. They cannot fit every figure perfectly right out of the packet. The whole reason those sewing books exist is because so many women didn’t, and don’t, have the median figure and needed to alter their sewing patterns to fit. If everyone had looked like that, there would have been no need for those books.
Please, please, go through your family albums and pictures of non-model women online and observe all the shapes and sizes; big hips and thick middles; short legs, broad shoulders, and flat chests; plus sizes and hollow chests, and be kind to yourself.
