Knitters of Yore

  Knowing I have an interest in such things, people sometimes offer me their old knitting patterns before they end up at the charity shop, or the local recycling centre. Occasionally a gen turns up, and such was the case with this Woman's Weekly Chunky Wool Designs For All booklet from what looks like the late 1940s or early 1950s. The fabulous skinny-rib sweater designs were the first things to catch me eye, but then I noticed the strikingly attractive model on page 5 wearing a V-neck cardigan. This was none other than Hazel Court, the Birmingham-born actress who gained lasting cult fame in horror films such as Hammers The Curse of Frankenstein and Quatermass and the Pit , and Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe adaptation The Masque of the Red Death. Court moved to Hollywood in the mid-1960s and turned up in various TV shows before returning from acting in the mid-1970s. But before her years as a horror-movie star, Miss Court, rather in the manner of a female Roger Moore, suppleme...

Stitchcraft May 1970 Good old Stitchcraft magazine in 1970 shows us that there were still plenty of 1960s influences on fashion as the Seventies dawned. Some of the fashions, particularly the use of belts on both jackets and mini-dresses, bring to mind a watered-down version of Pierre Cardin's famous Cosmos range, which debuted in 1965. These space age designs were highly influential, and were even lifted by Gerry and Sylvian Anderson for their 1967 puppet SF extravaganza Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Belted crocheted cardigan from Stitchcraft in 1970 Unisex top from Pierre Cardin's Cosmos range in 1967 Belted dresses were also popular, and Patons offered new yarns with a shimmery texture that were machine washable. They even offered a shilling off, though sadly this offer ran out on August 29th 1970!

This knitting pattern for a buttoned top by Lee Target has managed to attract a lot of comment from the moment I bought it from a charity shop in Horsforth, near Leeds. The lady on the till gasped at the model’s tiny waist. I then showed it on a couple of vintage fashion Facebook groups, partly because I had to do quite a lot of digital retouching of the original patters, which was quite badly damaged. An absurd argument broke out in the comments when I mentioned that the poor woman could probably hardly breathe due to the undergarments needed to squeeze her into such an unnatural shape. Dior foundation garments to fit into the New Look Self appointed experts came out of the digital woodwork to tell me that women were just thinner in the 1950s and 60s, thankfully countered by others sharing memories from relatives who were around at the time, and actually wore these type of clothes. One comment was especially insightful: “Looks like the Dior New Look inspiration that came after the Sec...

Trust Woman's Mirror to be on top of the burning issues of the day - that day being some point in the mid-1960s. From this fascinating artifact we can discover the knitwear preferences of a host of household names. Some of these are now forgotten, but a select few have become showbusiness legends. Definitely in the latter category is Peter Finch, the Australian actor who would become the first performer ever to win a posthumous Oscar for his barnstorming turn in the 1976 film Network . Of more importance than this from the point of view of Kntters of Yore is that Finch can't resist a pink jumper. Although he never attracted the attention of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, dancer and general purpose celebrity Lionel Blair remained a firm favourite of the British public over a long career until his death in 2001 at the age of 92. One riddle remained throughout Lionel's life - what would a girl have to do to attract Blair's roving eye? If only they had loo...

  Our chap here is displaying style cues of the post-war Beatniks at that point when the style had been so thoroughly integrated into the mainstream that elements of it morphed into Mod style and the menswear revolution that we now know as ‘smart casual’. This opens up the chance for me to discuss one of the favourite subjects of Knitters of Yore: how fashion spreads from the streets and is assimilated into the mainstream. This process was memorably termed by George Melly ‘Revolt into Style’, with the opposite process, from the drawing boards of elite designers to everyday life, probably best termed by Tom Wolfe as ‘From Bauhaus to Our House’ (the latter was about architecture, but seems appropriate in this context). Anyway, I digress. The Beakniks might seem a mild and harmless development now, but they were look upon with a mixture of scorn and horror by large elements of Britain's ever-conservative press when their influence began to be felt in the UK. Check out this review of J...

  Sometimes you see an image which looks quite ordinary, but with a little background knowledge a fascinating story emerges. Take the chap on the cover of the knitting pattern below. He's clearly very pleased with his new knitted waistcoat, but check the other details: the small collar, the thin tie with bang up to date pattern and the neat, but stylish haircut. Our hero aspires to Mod style. Similarly, check out the young man on the right. Banished are the chunky cable-knits, pipe and the general impatience for the arrival of middle age which were so often the hallmarks of the knitting pattern aimed at young men. Instead we see a close fit, a stylish  houndstooth check pattern and an air of youthful confidence and style.  If you grew up in the seventies, as I did, there was always the feeling that the sixties was a huge party to which you weren’t invited. The music was better (sixties Soul and Jazz versus seventies Disco – no contest!), typography and graphics were crisp...