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Pettigrew & Stephens Sale, 1933

Mitchell Library, Glasgow Collection

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Pettigrew & Stephens Sale, 1933

Ladies' dresses and afternoon and evening gowns illustrated in Pettigrew & Stephens' sale catalogue, January 1933.

The higher waist line, longer skirt and complex cut of women's clothes in the 1930s produced a silhouette more elegant and more natural than the schoolgirl shapes of previous years. The evening dress exploited femininity to a greater degree than the day costume, and a gulf developed between the average woman's ideal of a "glamour" dress and her almost uniform-style day attire, which was largely the result of mass-produced clothes and diminishing class distinctions.

Intricacy of cut compensated, particularly in evening dresses, for a certain simplicity in the fashions that was probably dictated by the Depression.

Reference: Mitchell Library, GC 381.14106541443 PET

Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Archives

Keywords:
department stores, economic recessions, evening dresses, fashions, gowns, Great Depression, Pettigrew & Stephens, sale catalogues, shopping, shops, skirts, women



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