Home Fashions Good Dressmaking for Spring (1950)

In a fascinating glimpse of the impact Dior's New Look had on the regular consumer and home sewist living in still-rationed postwar Britain, this pattern catalogue from 1950 comes with the following introductory remarks from "the Editress":

The "new look," with the longer hemline, is uppermost in our minds when choosing clothes for Summer wear. However askance we have regarded those extra inches on skirts and coats, those nipped-in waists and rounded hips, we have found ourselves casting very critical eyes on our present wardrobes. Hems have been hastily unpicked and pocket flaps have been added at hiplines, in an attempt to give a this season's look to last season's outfits. The result of all this has confirmed the new fashions and we have all of us found how feminine, how charming and how flattering they are to one and all. 

Those of us who have material to make up are taking a very forward look into the world of fashion, and so this month we have. prepared advance designs to meet the need. 

A glance through our pages will show the attractiveness of the new clothes, modelled with the strictest economy as regards material. The shorter jacket, with its simple cutting lines, and the close-fitting bodice, allows, in most instances, for the extra material required in the fuller and longer skirt. Exaggerated fullness has been avoided and in its place we have devised by means of seams a simulated skirt fullness that is pleasing to the eye and fair-play with coupons. 

We know that you are going to enjoy the new fashions with their soft "little woman" charm. All are so easy to wear and so simple to make and suggest, we think, a more gracious way of living