"Colour and Your Clothes"

The following passage from Beauty for Every Woman touches on two things I am a bit obsessed with.  First is the idea of having a small, but perfectly coordinated wardrobe that you can conjure all sorts sartorial magic with, second is colour combining (I actually used to keep a small notebook with all my ideas for good colour pairings).  

    "The most economical and successful scheme is to adopt one or two colours as your own.  From a beauty point of view this plan will help to emphasise your personality, your colouring, and your type, whilst from the point of view of economy it is the greatest possible saving.  Everything you have will match or, at any rate, be interchangeable, and with only two outfits you will be able to ring the changes nearly every day.
    Here, for example, is what can be done with just a few well-chosen garments which all go together.  Supposing brown to be the main colour you have chosen, then you could have a brown overcoat, a brown matching skirt, a light wool skirt in a tweed or check pattern combining the same shade or brown with beige; two blouses or knitted jumpers, one in plain material to match the plain skirt and one to go with the patterned skirt. 
    One day you could wear the plain skirt and patterned blouse.  On another the plain blouse with patterned skirt.  Then the plain skirt and blouse and the patterned pair can also be worn together with a 2" wide belt of the material at the join of blouse and skirt, making them look like one-piece frocks.  So that with two blouses and two skirts you can have a complete wardrobe with a long coat which will go with all these changes, completing your outfit.
    Girls with fair hair and fair skin can wear white, all the pastel tints of blue, pink, yellow, and green, and black in the evening.  For day wear they can choose deeper blues and greens, brown and black.
    Brunettes should choose more vivid colours for both day and evening.  Clear reds, blues, and greens, black relieved with white, beige or pink.
    Red or auburn hair looks at its best against black, white, pale green, pale yellow, and brown, but pink, orange, and mauve should be avoided.  
    Having decided on the colours you are going to wear, you will find the following list of colour schemes helpful in the choice of accessories and trimmings: black with white, oyster, beige, all pinks, pale blue, pale green, bright green, clear reds.  Brown with white, beige, pink, bright green, coral pink, and turquoise blue.  Dark green with white, primrose, beige, and lighter greens in the same tone.  Bright green with white, beige, and brown.  Dark blue with any of the colours which go with black.  Mid-blue with white, primrose, and brown."

Beauty Tips from the 30's

Last night I pulled out my copy of Beauty for Every Woman for the first time in a while and was newly impressed by how many lovely photos and illustrations there are in it.  I shared a few earlier this year, but there is so much more to be had from this book.  Today, I have some eye, cheek and nail tips for you.      

Hello there!

I really must apologise for how I have neglected this blog of late.  I was in quite a funk over the loss of my old computer and I am only slowly coming out of that now.  Meanwhile I have still been collecting old things and will try to make more of an effort to share some of them with you.

So let's start today, shall we?  Here are a few pictures from Beauty for Every Woman.  As I've said before, I don't own a scanner, so in that good ol' make do spirit I'm just photographing them.  Apologies for the wonky edges.