Sunday, May 18, 2014

Chintzy Camouflage Fashions

Blending camouflage by Starr Wood (1921)
Above A camouflage-fashion related cartoon by British artist Starr Wood, as published in Punch magazine, August 3, 1921, p. 81. The caption reads Unfortunate Situation for a Lady Who Paid a Local Call in a Chintz Costume.

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Anon, DAZZLE FASHIONS, in the South Wales Weekly Post (Wales), March 29, 1919, p. 1—

"The very latest spring fashion will be a dazzle suit," said a West End tailor. "The colors instead of being woven in stripes or checks will blend in a kind of futurist combination, artistic but not outrageous.

Popular taste is running to color in clothes. Neckties and socks will be much more gorgeous, and in masculine modes generally there is a demand for the picturesque, and a revolt against severe tones and lines."

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Eleanor, FASHION NOTES: The Camouflage Skirt, in the Sunday Times (Sydney AU), April 28, 1918, p. 18—

The name camouflage is generally applied to those skirts of crazy silks, cretonne and the heavily patterned silk and woolen mixture, made with myriads of small pleats, or large ones which extend over the hips hiding the true outline of the patterned material except where the skirt flared some inches above the hem. When carried out in striped or checked material, the pleats are sometimes arranged to obscure one of the colors, giving the top of the skirt a plain effect, the stripes only being visible where the fare of the hem commences.

Modified editions of camouflage skirts carried out in the new crazy silks are really graceful. Some of them are gathered at the waist instead of pleated, others introduce plain panels at the front and back with pleats at the sides. Checked material is fashionable, and the larger designs make up well in camouflage style. These skirts are serviceable and smart for morning wear, and combine admirably with plain shirt blouses.

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Coatless Brigade, in SHIRT REFORM: Badly Needed, in the Sunday Mail (Brisbane, Queensland AU), January 14, 1934, p. 6—

…something will have to be done about those [outlandish men's] shirts. Some of them are positively indecent and revolting—by indecent is meant those that offend the eye, not the morals. None, except a crazy camouflage expert, can see beauty, grace, purity, or even coolness in a portly figure draped in little more than the mistaken glory of a pale, green shirt with purple trimmings. Such a sight has a shocking reaction on the optical nerves, causes a rush of blood to the head, and provokes a fever of prickly heat on the body of anyone who can lay the slightest claim to have aesthetic tastes.

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 Anon, Carmarthen Weekly Reporter (Wales), March 22, 1918, p. 3—

[A certain military officer] in the course of his address on Friday night said that he had seen a lady make a "meat pie" without any meat in it. The explanation was that it tasted like a meat pie. It is evident that the art of camouflage is making its way from the firing line to the kitchen.

additional sources