It’s fashion week here in New York, when designers introduce their spring 2009 collections and Bryant Park is taken over by tents and TV crews.
With clothes and style setting the city’s mood, let’s go back 39 years and look at this full-page Bergdorf Goodman ad, from the March 1970 Cue magazine, trumpeting their new Pauline Trigere collection.
What’s startling is that the collection begins at a size 6. Today, dress sizes begin at zero! A size 6 is about as high as any self-respecting fashion chick is willing to go.
Ephemeral New York 
September 10, 2008 at 1:52 pm |
Funny, I was just looking at old NYTs for ads and I was amazed at how much of the ad space is taken up with fashion – even in the 1920s, and certainly later on too.
This one is great – and that is quite a hat the top lady has on!
September 10, 2008 at 2:13 pm |
I’ve heard of a phenomenon called “vanity sizing” which basically means designers have increasingly been labelling sizes smaller, so it’s possible that a size 6 in the 1970s is the same actual size as something labeled size 2 or 3 today.
September 11, 2008 at 12:10 am |
Madame Trigere was a master. She could mold and cut cloth directly on a live model into a fabulous garment. She designed Patricia Neal’s costumes for Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Our modern day size (8) missy (a term for woman’s clothing widely used in the industry) at that time was a (12) or a (14). So the (6), would yes fit like a (2) or (4). Sizing varies widely from label to label. Vanity sizing is up to the designer’s discretion. Either cutting generously to make the wearer feel she’s “gone down a size” or the reverse, cutting very “close to the body” because say the designer is petite or thin boned or the designer’s wife is petite or thin boned.