1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection

Archives Collection: The 1920s Children’s Clothing Collection

One of my favorite projects I did over the years for the blog, was this collection of 1920s children’s clothing I drew for the Poppet paper dolls. I love 1920s clothing and I especially love 1920s children’s clothing.

So in 2017, I drew a whole wardrobe of 1920s outfits for the Poppet’s paper dolls. I thought it would be fun to gather them all up and share them here in a single collection which I’d never done before.

The 1920s Children’s Clothing Printable Paper Dolls

I still love 1920s children’s clothing, but drawing 13 pieces of it over a year did probably get that urge out of my system for a while. I did enjoy the simplicity of just picking up a book and drawing from a reference image which is sometimes very soothing for me. I should do more of that. And the 1920s are nice, because the silhouette is really pretty simple. It’s not like drawing the 18th century or something.

And if you wanted a new stuff for the Jewel and Gemstones today, join us on Patreon.

The Poppets Paper Dolls Get 1927 Dresses for School and Parties

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Montgomery Ward Fashions of the Twenties
A printable 1927 paper doll dress with matching hat from paperthinpersonas.com. The dress is a "school dress" with a blouse and matching pleated skirt. The hat is a cloche with contrast trim.

printable 1927 paper doll dress with matching hat from paperthinpersonas.com. The dress is a "school dress" with a blouse and matching pleated skirt. The hat is a cloche with contrast trim to color.

Today I am doing something special and posting two Poppet’s dresses- a school dress and a party dress from 1927. First up, the school dress.

When I was a kid, I loved the idea of a school dress. Despite my mother’s horror stories of wearing patent leather shoes to school, I imagined the idea of having a school dress as something very romantic and old fashioned.

Despite realizing that there’s nothing magical about having special dresses for different activities, I still love the concept.

As anyone who has been following this blog for any length of time has probably figured out, I love the idea of changing clothes several times a day for different events.

I do realize in reality, this would be a total pain in the butt, but hey, it’s a neat idea.

So, I knew I wanted to find a school dress for the Poppets for their 1920’s children’s wardrobe collection. This choice is from the Montgomery Ward catalog of 1927.

The pleated skirt makes me think school dress even though there’s no other reason to associate it with such.

I picked out the hat, because I thought the detailing was similar to the dresses piping details. The dress and the hat both come from Montgomery Ward Fashions of the Twenties. I don’t highly reommend this book, unless you already have a lot of 1920s books. It’s just from 1927, so it doesn’t really give you the range of years that some other books do.

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Montgomery Ward Fashions of the Twenties

A printable paper doll party dress from 1927. The dress is trimmed in ribbons and roses.

A printable paper doll party dress from 1927. The dress is trimmed in ribbons and roses.

When I was going through the Poppet’s 1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection, I noticed that they didn’t have a party dress. I poured through the different books I have until I found this one in the book Montgomery Ward Fashions of the Twenties.

Something about this dress made me think of spring time, even though outside the weather is chilly and there was even snow a few weeks ago. Snow in Alabama is a big deal. Everyone buys milk and eggs. Even I buy milk and eggs and I don’t even like milk or eggs very much.

I digress.

The point is that I decided to color this dress pale green, because I thought it seemed like a summery dress. The ruched waistline was tough to draw and I am not sure I was entirely successful. I really had fun drawing the ruffles.

I like drawing ruffles.

Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing some clothing probably? I mean, I haven’t really decided yet what to share about the new series. So, I should get on that. 🙂 Friday will be B&B Sorceress gowns.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

Poppet’s 1920s Apron Dress: A Paper Doll Dress to Print in Color or Black and White

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Montgomery Ward Fashions of the Twenties
A paper doll dress based on a 1927 design for an 'apron dress' with a matching hat in blue and coral pink. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

A paper doll dress based on a 1927 design for an 'apron dress' with a matching hat to color. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

First off, Happy Hanukkah to anyone, like me, who is celebrating. It’s the second night tonight and my menorah is burning in the window. No Hanukkah paper dolls this year, which I am a little sad about, but I didn’t manage to get one done in time.

As I mentioned Monday, all the latest 1920s Poppets stuff comes from Montgomery Ward Fashions of the Twenties by JoAnne Olian. This dress was described as an ‘apron dress’ which is a term I’ve seen as far back as the Edwardian era to describe dresses with that flap tabard like thing in the front. This one was one of the less expensive dresses on the page, so I suspect it is meant to be more of a home dress, rather than a school dress.

I loved the piping in the design and the patterned contrast cuffs and pockets.

The hat was on a different page and might not have been worn with the dress, but I really enjoy drawing hats and I thought it was awfully cute.

If you pop over to my Patreon page you’ll find a pastel based version of today’s 1927 apron dress that you might like better. I was fully divided on which version I preferred, I confess.

So, if you like this than check out the rest of the 1920s Children’s Wardrobe collection which is full of 1920s goodness. There will be another Poppet outfit on Friday- it’s a fantasy ice skating toilette.

Tomorrow, there will be a post about the future of the blog! With pictures! Tune if you like. Otherwise, I shall see you Friday.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

The Poppets 1920s Pajamas for a Printable Paper Doll

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Montgomery Ward Fashions of the Twenties
A pair of 1920's pajamas based on designs sold by the Montgomery Ward department store in 1927 for the Poppets printable paper dolls from paperthinpersonas.com in color.

A pair of 1920's pajamas based on designs sold by the Montgomery Ward department store in 1927 for the Poppets printable paper dolls from paperthinpersonas.com..

One of the books I treated myself to recently was Dover’s Montgomery Ward Fashions of the Twenties by JoAnne Olian. It was on sale as I recall. Anyway, the book is fashions from one year- 1927 and all from Montgomery Ward which was a higher end department store. So, this next batch of Poppet’s 1920s Children’s Wardrobe collection  all comes from this book.

Today’s addition to the 1920s Children’s Wardrobe collection is a pair of pajamas. One of my Patrons asked for Pajamas a while ago and I realized I’ve done very few pajamas over the years. So, here we are. Pajamas!

This week will be all Poppets paper doll posts. I have a bunch done and I wanted to share them. In fact, this whole month will be a bit random, because I am clearing out the backlog I have of current paper doll series.

In January, all the of the current paper doll series will cease updating and a new series, as of yet unnamed, will take their place. I know this is a big deal and I know there are probably questions.

But at the moment, I have limited answers.

Two things I can promise:

1. The blog is not going anywhere.
2. None of the old content is being erased.

So, I’ll share more as I sort it out in my head, but until then, please feel free to ask questions in the comments and I hope everyone enjoys today’s foray into the 1920s.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

Poppet Paper Doll’s Get a 1920s Coat to Wear With Matching Hats

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: 1920s Fashions from B. Altman & Company

A 1920s coat design for the Poppets printable paper dolls from paperthingpersonas.com. One of dozens of historical paper doll designs.

A 1920s coat design for the Poppets printable paper dolls from paperthingpersonas.com. One of dozens of historical paper doll designs.

I’m writing this post on a Sunday night, as I often do. Outside, it is raining very hard and I am reminded of how much we all need outerwear. So, it seemed fitting to post a 1926 coat for the Poppet’s 1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection today.

But paper doll outerwear poses a unique challenge, because paper doesn’t exactly conform to the shape of the coat in question. So, when I create outwear for paper dolls, I tend to size up in the hope that the layering will all work out all right.

There’s a lot of complex 1920s coats in magazines. Fur trimming was popular and so were asymmetrical styles. But I didn’t really feel like drawing all that. I just wanted a coat. Nothing too complex.

I haven’t really drawn many coats (or any?) for the Poppet’s. So, I figured if the coat could be both part of the 1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection and serve as a regular coat than that would be useful.

This is the last piece I have ready to go for the 1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection, but don’t worry. There’s four more pieces in my sketchbook that I inked today, including some really cute pajamas.

If you haven’t checked it out, there’s about 8 posts in the 1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection including 2 different dolls.

Just in case you are curious, today’s paper doll coat comes from 1920s Fashions from B. Altman & Company by Dover. I now own all of Dover’s 1920s fashion books, so clearly they need to publish more of them for me. I am running out of places to find my 1920s children’s clothing designs.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

A Vintage Historical Printable Paper Doll Dress from 1926

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: The book 1920s Fashions from B. Altman & Company
A historical vintage 1926 printable paper doll dress with matching hat for the Poppets printable paper doll series from paperthinpersonas.com.

A historical vintage 1926 printable paper doll dress to color with matching hat for the Poppets printable paper doll series from paperthinpersonas.com.

This month, as some of you may have noticed, I’ve been posting a historical paper doll outfit each week. I decided to do that, because I had the content and I really love historical stuff.

I know a lot of you enjoy the historical paper dolls as well.

This week’s contribution to the historical paper dolls is a Poppets paper doll dress from 1926. It’s part of the 1920’s Children’s Wardrobe Collection that I’ve been adding to all year. Right now, there’s seven posts in the collection including two different dolls.

The design for today’s Poppet paper doll dress was taken from the book 1920s Fashions from B. Altman & Company which is a collection of reprints of pages for the catalogs issued by the B. Altman & Company.

B. Altman and Company was a luxury department store founded in New York City.

An interesting thing to think about is that Sears, the dress I posted here is from there, was a middle class store. B. Altman was a luxury store and their styles are much more cutting edge than Sears. That’s one of the reasons multiple sources are so useful when thinking about historical fashion.

Today’s dress feels later in the decade to me than 1926, but that’s partly because it is more “fashionable” than what you might see in a less fancy catalog.

There’s one more piece I’ve got finished for the 1920s Children’s Wardrobe collection and I have to ask, should I continue it? Are you all enjoying these forays into 1920s kid’s clothing? Let me know in a comment. I always enjoy your feedback.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

A New 1920s Poppet Printable Paper Doll

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Children’s Fashions 1900-1950 As Pictured in Sears Catalogs
A paper doll of the Poppet series with brown skin, black hair and brown eyes. She has a 1920s set of underwear and two pairs of shoes.Today’s paper doll is a new addition to the 1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection. My love of 1920s fashion is pretty well documented on the blog, just check out the 1920s tag.

So, for the last year, I’ve been drawing a lot of 1920s children’s clothing. The late 1920s to the early 1930s are perhaps my favorite era in the 20th century. None of the looks would look decent on me, but I adore them.

So far, I’ve drawn 5 dresses for the Poppet’s paper dolls 1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection. It seemed high time that I added another new doll to the project. So, now my Louise Brooks clone paper doll has a friend.

Along with her shoes, today’s Poppet paper doll to print has a pair of combinations based on several different sets I’ve seen. I drew her so long ago, that I confess I’m not certain about my sources.

So, this may be a 1920s experience in feel, more than a precise act of historical research.

Anyway, I super hope you enjoy her and I really think she’d pretty cute. I’ve got a few more 1920s pieces drawn before I need to work on more. And there will be more.

Need a some clothing for today’s Poppet paper doll? Pick Out Some Clothing Here.

The Poppet’s Printable Paper Dolls New Dress from 1923

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Children’s Fashions 1900-1950 As Pictured in Sears Catalogs
A 1920s doll dress from Sears catalog designed to fit the Poppet's printable paper doll series. The drop waisted blue dress with white medalions around the skirt that feature flowers in the center. The dress has a dark blue sash and white collars and cuffs. White shoes with knee high socks complete the outfit.

A 1960s inspired vintage paper doll outfit with a jumper over tights. The jumper is over a puffed sleeved blouse. The jumper is trimmed in piping and the shoes have cross cross straps. Sized to fit the Poppet paper doll series.

First up, I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words on Monday. I meant a lot to me to hear from you.

So, I promised myself that the next batch of 1920s clothing for the Poppets paper dolls, I would make sure to note where each dress came from. Today’s 1920s doll dress is from a 1923 Sears catalog. Children’s Fashions 1900-1950 As Pictured in Sears Catalogs provided the reference image for today’s 1923 paper doll dress.

Sadly, the Children’s Fashions book is out of print. I wish there were more good reference works on children’s historical clothing, but that’s a different problem.

The original 1920s dress illustration was in black and white, as most of the illustrations in catalogs were in those days. The description just says a crepe dress which really doesn’t mean much.

I decided on a monochromatic blue color scheme, because I wanted to do something a little unexpected. I tend towards traditional when I think of flowers, but I love how this came out.

Meanwhile, you can see all the other 1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection dresses and see what else your 1920s Poppet needs. I just bought a new book on the 1920s, Montgomery Ward Fashions of the Twenties, so there will no doubt be more of this series as I look through that one for inspiration.

If you have a moment, think about becoming a Patron or liking it on facebook. It really does help.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

A 1920s Children’s Playsuit for the Poppet’s Printable Paper Dolls

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: 1920s Children’s Clothing

A 1920s playsuit in navy and red for the Poppet printable paper doll series from paperthinpersonas.com.

A 1920s inspired paper doll play suit for the Poppet printable paper doll series. Free printable in black and white to color from paperthinpersonas.com.

Playsuits were the 1920s version of overalls for small children. Overall out start being worn by both sexes in the 1930s, but before that the play suit was the thing to do.

Playsuits are bloomers worn under a short dress like tunic. They usually have a high waist and a aline shape to the dress and then the bloomers just peep out the bottom.

It’s really a very girly look for play clothing, but still is pretty practical, all things considered.

Normally a style for younger children, I had some conflict about drawing a play suit for the Poppets.

In my head, the Poppets are between 7 and 9 years old. The playsuit is really a style mostly for younger children, but I found a few that were cited as fitting children up to 8 years old. I decided that they were on the edge of the age range, but I would go for it anyway.

I didn’t record where I got this design from. This is shameful behavior for a librarian and I swear the next batch of the Poppet’s 1920s Collection is all properly cited.

However, I am pretty sure this play suit is from the book 1920s Fashions from B. Altman and Company. I can’t say for positive, but I am pretty sure.

(Mostly, because I am too lazy right now to get off my couch and double check the book which is sitting on my bookshelf.)

If you feel like you need a Poppet to wear this outfit with the right hair or you are just feeling like you’d like some more 1920s styles, you can check out the whole collection under the “1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection” tag.

So, what do you like today’s 1920s paper doll playsuit? Let me know in a comment. Always love to hear from y’all.

If you have a moment, think about becoming a Patron or liking it on facebook. It really does help.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

A 1920s Poppet Paper Doll to Print and Play With

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:1920s Children’s Clothing & Frannie Fisher on PBS
A 1920s paper doll with underwear and two pairs of shoes. Part of the Poppet printable paper doll collection from paperthinpersonas.com.

A paper doll coloring page to print with underwear and two pairs of shoes based on 1920s clothing. Free printable in black and white to color from paperthinpersonas.com.

So, with all the 1920s paper doll clothing I have been drawing lately, it seemed dumb not to have a 1920s Poppet paper doll to wear it. This is the first of what I hope will end up being two or three 1920s Poppet dolls, but for now I am calling one a victory.

I am also a huge Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries on PBS fan and it seemed to me that the best 1920s doll would be one with Phryne Fisher’s coloring which means dark hair and pale skin. This was very fashionable look for women of the 1920s thanks to the movie star Louise Brooks. The paper dolls hair is based on Louise Brooks.

I gave our 1920s paper doll a period slip with attached drawers and lace accents. I also wanted to give her two pairs of shoes to wear with any of the 1920s collection dresses or any of the other Poppet clothing. She has the same skintone as Poppy, Paradisea and my Vintage 1950s one.

Her side-glancing eyes are a nod to Lenci dolls, one of my favorite doll companies of this era.

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Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.