A Little Bit About Vogue Cloth Labels

Have you ever opened up a vintage Vogue sewing pattern and found a lovely little woven cloth label inside?

(Vogue Couturier Design pattern no. 862.)

If you have, that is a lucky find indeed, as these little gems can be somewhat scarce!

You see, they weren't sold in stores. They were distributed in stores only at the pattern counter upon request if you purchased one of the following special Vogue lines:

Vogue American Designer Original,
Vogue Americana,

Vogue Couturier Design,

Vogue Designer Menswear (not pictured),

Vogue Designer Original,
Vogue Paris Original,

Vogue Special Design,
Vogue Young Fashionables,

and Diane Von Furstenberg for Vogue Patterns (not pictured).

Above are some of the orphaned vintage Vogue labels that I recently acquired from an estate.

They became even more hard to find in the wild as they were sometimes sewn into finished garments, lost, and often, simple not requested at the time of purchase.

Accounts vary as to how the labels ended up with the patterns. Some of the garment maker's I asked in the Vintage Sewing Pattern Nerd Group say that the label was always present in the envelope when they bought their patterns. Others say that they had to request them, or send away for them by mail. One pattern counter employee of Minnesota Fabrics in the 1970's stated,

 "The labels were not already inside the patterns. If a person purchased one of the designer patterns I would put the label in the pattern envelope and then give the pattern to the customer after the pattern had been paid for."  

Another remembers, " (the labels) were on the counter. I purchased a couple of Vogue Designer patterns in Liberty's, mid 80s, and you picked one up from a dispenser if you wanted it."

Here are some of my vintage labels and the Vogue patterns they belong with.

Note that the label above is not the earliest Vogue Couturier Design label. This one comes from about the mid 1950s to early 1950s. According to the Vintage Fashion Guild, previous couturier pattern labels from the 1940s had the text woven in navy blue.

(Vogue Couturier Design 854 from 1955.)

As you can see, some Vogue pattern envelopes have the label illustrated on the cover and even reminded customers to "Ask for this label at the pattern counter".

As you can see from the 1970 Vogue Couturier Design 2325 pattern below, the label design had changed. This pattern included the original label inside when I found it.

(Vogue Couturier Design 2325 Fabiani of Italy with cloth label. Featured in Vogue Pattern Book April/May 1970.)

(Vogue American Designer 1243 Designed by Jerry Silverman from circa 1975.)

(Vogue Americana 2812 designed by Teal Traina. Featured in Vogue Patterns February/March 1973.)

(Vogue Paris Original 1472 design by Christian Dior from 1959.)

Later on the Vogue Paris Original label was redesigned, losing the Eiffel Tower and gaining a collection of 5 fleurs de lis.

A label like this would likely have been given at the counter with this Vogue Paris Original pattern in the mid-1970s.

(Vogue Paris Original 1332 Pierre Balmain circa 1975-1976.)

These Vogue Special Design labels below likely date to the 1960s. As with the gold couturier label shown earlier, previous special design pattern labels also had the text woven first in navy blue, and then in gold, before red was introduced.

This early 1960s Vogue 5847 came to me with its label included.

(Vogue Special Design 5847. Featured in Vogue Pattern Book June/July 1963.)

(Vogue Special Design patterns No. 4847 and 5524 both feature an illustration of the cloth label.)

Vogue appears to have begun the Young Fashionables line circa 1960-1961. The designs appear in my December 1961 counter catalog. The section devoted to them featured about 2 dozen designs.

(Vogue Young Fashionables 5324 One PIece Dress and Jacket as featured in my December 1961 store counter catalog.)

Happy pattern hunting!