Dressmaking was a very popular subject course to follow and most women could manage to make a dress if they attended for about 10 sessions. The choices set against curriculum subjects were such that most academic girls felt obliged to opt for qualifications that would help them get jobs or college entry.Įven so, Local Authority night classes abounded in the 1960s. So for most girls by the time they chose a selection of examination subjects these creative subjects were effectively squeezed out by the Grammar School curriculum. They usually had to choose between Art, Domestic Science (Cookery) or perhaps Geography or Housecraft by their third year in school. Those who went to Grammar Schools were less fortunate in acquiring textile arts mastery. Many were easily able to make dresses that fitted closely to the body and had fully lined bodices or slips. Most young girls with a secondary modern education in UK left school at 15 with good craft sewing skills. There, female pupils often had two half day sessions of dressmaking and needlecrafts a week. Many people think that this is the perfect length for a dress as any style that ends on a body joint has a natural look that helps the body seems well balanced.įashion sewing was very popular during the early sixties and was a major subject in secondary modern schools in the UK. By the early sixties skirt lengths were as you can see just on, or just skimming the knee. Skirt lengths had gradually become shorter at the end of the 1950s. The mini skirt length was not really a mass fashion until the mid 1960s. Those unschooled in 1960s fashion history often wrongly assume that all 1960s fashion was extremely short. Or use them as inspiration for fashion designing and pattern cutting with an early 1960s feel. Click the thumbnails for those enlargements.
All the images below will expand to fit an A4 sheet when printed out. 1962 was scribbled on the original pages and they are so typical of early 1960s clothes. These illustrations were some I had torn from an old sewing pattern book, decades ago and kept as reference. 1960s Fashion History Colouring-In Line Drawings - 1962Ĭolouring In Fashion Drawings 1962 Imagesġ960s Fashion History can be traced very accurately by looking at old sewing patterns.