As some of you may already know (because I have sort of been screaming it from the roof tops), I have paper doll book out from Paper Doll Review and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. The book is beautiful! It’s three dolls and over 60 clothing pieces from the years 1920 to 1929. There’s hats. There’s shoes. There’s dresses, coats, and knickerbockers for sports. The whole range of ladies dress.
But the project wasn’t just my hard work- Julie Allen Matthews did an incredible job coloring my linework. She has a post about it here. Julie has colored my paper dolls before (like these ones), so I had complete faith that she would do an amazing job. More than anything, I wanted to give her freedom to do whatever inspired her with the colors and the designs, so the results were a surprise to me.
A very. nice happy surprise.
To roll back time for a minute, the whole thing didn’t start as a project for Paper Doll Review. It began as a planned self-published book during the early part of the pandemic, but I got discouraged as things happened in the real world that got in the way and prices from Lulu Press went way up. I just couldn’t justify the prices from Lulu given the quality of the printing. So when Jenny expressed interest I was happy to hand over the linework and see what would happen. Paper Doll Review‘s books are always so nicely done.
In today’s post I want to more than gush about how much I love the book (I do love it very much), but rather show some of the original sources that led to the dresses that are included.
One of the exciting things in the last few years is that the date for things that are out of copyright has moved forward annually from 1923 to 1927, which allows for a lot more of 1920s magazines to be found online.
If you’re looking for your own sources, consider the Delineator, Harper’s Bazaar, McCall’s, Good Housekeeping, Vogue or Woman’s home companion. Plus, sources like the Vintage Pattern Wiki are also great places to find images of pattern covers. I wish I could find a complete Sears catalogs from this era, but they are hard to track down online. There are some of the Sears Catalogs here, plus I have a lot of books from Dover that reprint 1920s materials. There’s a few listed in the book, if you want to know more sources and information on 1920s fashion.
Needless to say, I didn’t use all these sources and now that I’ve found them, there’s probably another 1920s paper doll in my future (once I get done with the 1910s thing I am working on.)
I discovered my interest in historical costume from paper doll books. So, if I am going to do a historical paper doll, I want it to offer some learning along with paper doll fun.
So, if you haven’t picked up a copy, grab one from Paper Doll Review or wait until the Philadelphia Paper Doll Party in late May, as I will be there and have a few to sell as well along with some other paper doll prints (more about those later.)