Depression Age Christmas Cards had a very Fashionable Edge.
The clothing shown in these vintage card illustrations is often stylized and a bit romanticized, but looking at them, you can still get a good idea of the fashion trends of the day.
All of the cards shown here are from the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Even though many people were either making their clothing from cheap fabrics like feedsack or just plain doing without, the clothes depicted in vintage cards from this era were often extravagant, with fur trimming on coats and suits. Gloves were not illustrated to show their functionality but were treated as huge decorated gauntlets. And hats were not just for warmth; they were high fashion fantasies.
These cards also show fun and bliss being had by all,great for chearing one up. It is the hopes and dreams that keep people going in tough times, so the cards were like little promises of better times ahead.
I appreciate the posts. I am fascinated with so many images that repeat: the colonial clothing, or the Victorian clothing with men in top hats and women in bouffant dresses, the ubiquitous red stage coaches w/four horses, the Tudor houses or cottages coated with snow in the winter or thatched roofs, So many scarves flying high and candles beaming all sorts of glow. Scotty dogs. Deluges of flowers. Skies either starlit or snowing. Full moons or big gold suns. Pink skies. I have loads of these images and don't mind sharing.
ReplyDeleteRebecca
rfransway@gmail.com
Could the illustrations not only promise hope for the future but also nostalgia--memories of days before the automobile, and well before the electric light--the clothing of Mom & Dad, or Grandma & Grandpa, riding to Christmas dinner in wagons pulled by horses? Candles and lamplight. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteRebecca