Sunday, January 4, 2009

McCall 3347 - Ladies' House Dress


1923.  The 1921 patent date may be for the layout or the instructions. This is a nice house dress pattern. The waist line has dropped but the lines aren't as severe as they'll become in another year or so.

The artist seems to be a bit vague on how to draw a chicken - at least, I think that's what is supposed to be on the platter.  If so, that invests the illustration with some additional meaning.  "A chicken in every pot" would become part of a campaign slogan for Herbert Hoover in 1928.  So in this case we can read the chicken as a mark of prosperity.  A prosperous housewife dresses nicely in a housedress she's made from a McCall pattern, and she is able to serve her family a chicken.

McCall patterns at this period offer wonderful details. This is before separate instruction sheets, so they take advantage of the pattern pieces themselves.