I have not been in a retail store in a couple of months, but from what I’m reading on blogs, summer stuff is getting scarce. I’m not surprised; I received an invitation to our local Brooks Brothers summer pre-clearance in June! I can’t, however, complain that this is just one more sign of how fast fashion has become in recent years, because as this August 1954 Charm magazine clearly shows, this business of rushing the fashion season has been going on for a very long time.
Lovely as this image is, when this magazine arrived near the end of July, women in most of the country would not be able to wear her ensemble for another three months. They were able to buy it though, which really was the point, no?
She looks gorgeous, but knowing that this took place some 40 years before Photoshop tells me… wow… that is a helluva corset!
Yes, she is quite slender, but still that has to be a world-class waist cincher!
I’ve been dipping again into Dariaux’s Elegance, which led me to your wonderful site. What a pretty suit this model is wearing. The cover teases us with an article about “the best dressed woman in the world”–please tell us who that was!
Katherine, it was actually not a specific person, but rather the ideal to which all Charm readers could aspire!
They really do rush the seasons. For my taste anyway.