As a librarian, I usually make it a point to cite my sources, especially when I talk about historical stuff. But I have to admit, I didn’t jot down all my references this time around, so… you’re just going to have to trust me.
I know all of these lovely dresses are from Good Housekeeping from the year 1926, but the exact months and page numbers remain unknown. You can read all the issues from that year, over on the HathiTrust website. It’s a cool online library run by a bunch of big research universities in the U.S., so there’s a ton of great info to explore. Seriously, I end up spending hours poking around there, if I’m left unsupervised.
Anyway, this is one of a collection of Cut and Color Couture series paper dolls that I have been working on that are historical. It’s been fun. I can’t wait to share it- even if I don’t have perfect citations for most of it.
Happy Labor day! I can’t quite believe August is over. Wow. That was an unexpected month off! But life has quieted down a tiny bit (okay, not very much). The least I think I can do is share the last of my 1930s sets, before I potentially disappear again.
(Nothing bad, but I’m teaching this semester for the first time and it’s a lot!)
Out of every 1930s fashion paper doll I’ve created, this one stands out with the most cohesive theme. This paper doll design hopefully captures the essence of a vacation wardrobe in around 1936. She showcases clothing for sports and summer activities. I keep thinking beach vacation, probably because of the swimsuit. (I could have labeled things here, but I’ve delayed in so long in sharing this that I decided to share and move on.)
For my 1930s fashion paper doll, I picked out pieces from the McCall’s Style News magazines of 1936. I really wanted to try to make a cohesive set. So, the mini-wardrobe has a stylish sports dress, ideal for casual daytime activities, with matching jacket. There is also a playful split skirt romper, which I assume you wear while playing tennis or other athletic activities. The trousers with top are there for golf or whatever a girl might do in trousers at the time. I’d say horseback riding, but an actual riding habit would be more for that.
To complement these outfits, I added a straw hat. It can be mix and matched with any of the clothing pieces. I decided on just one hat, though of course, hats were crucial for the era of the 1930s. Feel free to draw more or steal them from other paper doll sets.
I have an amazing time at the 2024 Paper Doll Convention in Indianapolis. I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I should have, but I will try to put together the small number I have into something. Overwhelmed for a million non-paper doll reasons at the event by other “real life” things that were happening at the same time, I just haven’t managed to quite get my feet back under me.
(Real life should not intrude on paper dolls, darn it! Though I am trying hard to be kind to myself about it, because as one very nice and friendly blog reader reassured me at the convention with something like, “I’ve been following along since the beginning and I know your life has gotten more complicated. Please don’t feel bad about missing posts.” )
As with all my 1930s paper dolls so far, I have a second page I’ll be sharing for my patrons at some point this month.
This steampunk dress-up doll can share clothing with all my other cut and color couture paper dolls, but she especially matches the other steampunk paper doll I made. I have one more 1930s paper doll to share, but I thought we’d take a little breather from the 1930s for the week.
My big goal was try out drawing gears. Any self respecting steampunk dress-up doll needs some gears on her clothing, doesn’t she? But gears are not easy to draw and drawing them digitally is a little easier than drawing them by hand for me. Mechanical things tend to be precise in their angles and I tend not to be precise in my drawing, so… Yes, there’s a conflict there.
Professional draftsman, I am not.
Today’s steampunk dress-up doll’s hair was inspired by the 1840s and styles that would sort of talk over and around women’s ears. There’s something very ballerinaish about the pose, the hair, and the skirts. She also sort of reminds me of a an old fashioned doll.
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Today’s creation is a 1938 paper doll with dresses from that year. I did a preview of these 1930s paper dolls a while ago. So, here we are, debuting the first member of that collection. I am super happy with how she came out.
In the late 1930s is the time, you begin to see some hints of what will come in the 1940s. Particularly, the strong shoulders that will be the big trend in the next decade. Skirts are also a bit shorter. It’s a fun time period, though the sleeves aren’t quite as wacky as they were earlier in the decade.
One new to me thing I tried out with these paper dolls was this jacket technique I’ve seen other do. Where the jacket can be a layering piece with the top of the dress as one piece. I’ve not really done that before. One thing I noticed when going through 1930s fashion magazines, was a lot of shrugs and jackets designed to match dresses. Bare arms were either a super casual or super formal- it’s like ballgown or tennis dress, but not afternoon shopping. Social rules are weird.
Most of the fashions in this paper doll were copied from Fashion Service Magazine‘s Summer 1938 Issue. This was the magazine of the Woman’s Institute. I picked up a digital version from Mrs. Depew. This magazines helped a home sewists create the latest fashions for herself or as a home business. I don’t know how popular it was, but it seems less trendy than some of others I have seen. I did use a few books from my own collection for hats and shoes, because the magazine was mostly about things people sew. Shoes not being known for being homemade, even in the 1930s.
Because planning projects fully isn’t really my jam (to the surprise of none of my long time readers), I had a few extra pieces that wouldn’t fit on this page for all my 1930s sets. So, those’ll be a paid patron exclusive while I post this series. My thank you for those folks who help support this little corner of the internet. I’ll probably post it on Friday, if I can (this is never a certainty.)
Lately, I’ve been immersed in the world of hiking gear, particularly on the quest for the perfect pair of hiking pants. That search has led me through countless hiking clothing websites and caused no small amount of annoyance. While I’m much more of a- go for a walk for an hour or two- than a -hike up a mountain with switch backs all the way up for five hours- sort of person. I do like being outdoors and I like walking.
One thing I have learned about being out doors is how important is to wear the right clothing. Comfortable hiking clothes make a huge difference in the experience. No one wants to be cold or sweaty while also trundling through the woods.
So, in honor of the importance of hiking clothing and despite my somewhat frustrating shopping experience (I haven’t found those ideal hiking pants yet!), I’ve decided to channel my inspiration into creating a collection of paper doll outfits suitable for hiking.
Plus, our hiking paper doll is practicing good outdoor safety with her map and water-bottle. When I was in high school, Nalgene water bottles were super popular and very “cool” even though if you try to drink from them, you run a real risk of spilling water all over yourself. (When people complain about the current trend for whatever expensive water bottle, I think of the Nalgene I begged my parents for in high school.)
By the way, I am going to be at the 2024 Paper Doll Convention from August 15-18, 2024 in Indianapolis. I did some designs for the menus and I can’t wait to see how they turned out. If you’re planning to attend, please come way Hi! I love meeting PTP readers.
Today’s paper doll with outfits to color is the first of two steampunk designs I did for the Cut and Color Couture Series, which are totally interchangeable, should you wake up one morning and want to do that. That other paper doll isn’t quite ready for primetime yet though, so it maybe a few weeks before the steampunk wardrobe gets to expand. I drew these outfits from my Pinterest Board devoted to Steampunk Fashion. As happens often, I did not keep good notes on my sources here.
I have been trying to be more careful when I am designing paper doll with outfits to color. I spent some time coloring with my niece and it was harder than I’d thought to get into some of those tiny spaces. I still had fun, of course, but I was never a big “coloring” kid. I don’t have as much experience with coloring paper dolls as I do drawing them.
For today’s paper doll, I attempted to draw bandu knots (a protective style for natural hair, as I understand it). I think I needed to place the knots more forward on the head to get the right angle… Next time! That’s one of the fun things about paper dolls- I can always try again. Drawing hair is challenging for me (not as hard as hands, but it’s up there) and so I just think you have to keep practicing.
When people ask me how to learn to draw paper dolls, the only advice I have to just draw and then draw more. It’s not very helpful advice, so I usually just keep my mouth shut.
Inspired heavily by Snow White’s costumes in Once Upon a Time, a TV show which I was watching since I’d never seen it before. However, I confess that I got to the 4th season and I just can’t seem to get up the motivation to finish it. This is partly because of a thing which I genuinely dislike and that is the Disneyification of fairy tales and classic stories. It is as though we can not as a culture engage with them without ending up back at Disney. Now, I realize the show is an ABC show and ABC is owned by Disney, but I think fairy tales and classic stories are such a rich text. I was far more fascinated by the show when it was working within a framework.
So, long story short, I’ve struggled to get motivation to continue watching.
But none of that has to do with this paper doll or the costume design, which has been overwhelmingly excellent.
To give a little backstory on this new paper doll series- I drew this doll for the newsletter before I realized that with all the things happening in my life (new job, house hunting, etc) that I really needed to strip back down to basics. And basics do not include the newsletter.
But I had so much fun coloring my Valentine’s paper doll with my niece that I wanted to do more. She colored the paper doll in a lot of reds and blues and then drew her swords and surrounded her with skulls and told me she was a “goddess of doom.”
And I could not be more proud of my niece.
Anyway, I decided to rename the series the Cut & Color Couture which I thought was a cute name. ChatGPT helped me brainstorm names for the series, so thank you AI for helping me come up with a name, which- while not very inspired- at least is simple and has alliteration.
I don’t want to promise anything in terms of future frequency of posts, but know that I am fine.
As I mentioned a while ago, learning to use Procreate (which I am now using for my paper dolls) has been a learning curve. One of the things I dislike about it is that it is not easy to draw a perfectly straight line between two points as I would like. Either way, I am coming around to it slowly.
When I first started using Procreate last year, I decided that learning to use the program was a large enough ask without adding “create totally original art every time” with it. So, I set about drawing paper dolls inspired by pervious paper dolls I’d created.
This set was inspired by Seagulls & Seaside, a set I first drew a decade ago. I still think that paper doll feels pretty modern, though color blocking is not as strong of a trend as it was at the time. I kind of think color blocking is never not in style. The original set’s color scheme was inspired by signal flag colors for ships. I really loved that inspiration. I hadn’t planned on matching the color scheme so closely, but I realized that it looked really good. So, I kept it.
I really do love nautical and ocean themed things. It’s probably because I grew up commercial fishing.
I don’t know why this paper doll looks Russian to me. I have no explanation for that one, but something about the hair just screamed “slavic fairytale” to me. Once I decided that, than she needed to be blond, because if I was going to go slavic fairy tale, I might as well lean into all the stereotypes.
For some reason, and I don’t know why, I’ve found that working digitally means I am less drawn to doing fantasy as I was in pencil. Again, I’m not sure why. I suppose I’ll figure it out.
Actually, I’ve been frightfully unproductive over the last few weeks/months. I mean, I’ve been very productive, but not paper doll related. I’ve been working on a million other things. I have some work to get done for the convention and so that’ll get me motivated I hope.
Meanwhile I do have lots of thing “in-progress”, but I am struggling quite a lot to get those things over the finish line. We’ll see where it all ends up, I suppose.
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