Saturday, March 12, 2011

Pictorial Review 9051 - Boys' and Men's Windbreaker


Late 1930s.

This seems like an appropriate pattern to feature now that we move into blustery March weather.  Pictorial's patterns descriptions are always cheerfully breezy sales pitches:

BOYS' AND MEN'S WINDBREAKER. A sure way to any man's or boy's heart is by making this windbreaker. He'll like either the one- or two-piece back and slide fastener closing. Elastic webbing at wrists and waist and welt pockets feature View 1. View 2 has buttoned tabs at wrists and patch pockets.
This is a later incarnation of the 1920's windbreaker we saw in Butterick 7031.  By the '30s the waistline has returned to its natural position - in fact, by this time it's probably a little higher than natural.  The economies of the tail end of the Great Depression that led Butterick to believe that makers might knit their own banding have given way to purchased banding and those nifty new slide fasteners.

Illustrations for men's patterns frequently show the men doing manly things.  I'm not exactly sure what Mr. 1 is doing - checking his watch, or possibly a compass.  Master 2, throwing a stick for his fox tarrier, illustrates a suitably rugged activity. (There was a very famous fox tarrier at this time in Asta, who shared billing with William Powell and Myrna Loy in the Thin Man movies, the first of which came out in 1934.)  Smoking is one of the more popular manly activities illustrated, here seen on the back of the pattern envelope.


And in case you didn't quite get the drift from both the front and back illustrations, the illustrators take a moment on the instruction sheet to show you that this windbreaker is also suitable for fishing.