Her Last New Years Resolutions for 1937 - Me, Myself

Our smart Delineator gal saved the best for last. 

                            Me, Myself

• To try to see the good points in my face, my figure, my disposition, and quit worrying about the flaws I can't do anything about.
• To confine my raptures about Robert Taylor to my girl friends. 
• To learn to drive like a man. 
• To diet, if necessary, without talking about it.
• To be aware of my high moments and give them all I've got without too much thought of tomorrow. 

Her New Years Resolutions in 1937 - My Home

Our Delineator gal makes New Year Resolutions about her home too. 

                          My Home

• To have two comfortable chairs, each with a good reading light.
• To smash - of course it was an accident - the hand-painted rose jar his former flame gave us as a wedding gift.
• To have the furniture re-upholstered, at least once in my lifetime, in the gay colors I adore instead of the drab stuff that won't show dirt. 
• To let the dust gather, occasionally, if the alternative is all work and no play.
• To insist on modern kitchen equiptment even if his mother did make perfect biscuits on a coal range.
• To have one large closet for myself alone. 

Her New Years Resolutions in 1937 - My Looks

The Delineator gal turns her resolutions toward her own mirror. 

                            My Looks

• To buy a fresh supply of cold cream, skin tonic and hand lotion before the old is exhausted.
• To get myself the face powder I want, no matter what my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas.
• To cancel all dates, neglect the family darning and go to bed at sunset as soon as my mirror shows I'm getting a "death and taxes" expression. 
• To take enough exercise so I won't look like a marshmallow.
• To get a good permanent, or none.
• To replace the liquid polish on my nails at the first crack.
• To try a new way of wearing my hair at least once a year, and dye it yellow if I feel like it. 

Her New Years Resolutions in 1937 - My Clothes

For today's list our Delineator corespondent looks at her wardrobe. 

                                   My Clothes

• To develop enough sales resistance to wave away that "too, too divine" feathery  hat which will make me look like an Englishwoman on the Riviera.
• To own at least one dress or negligee which makes me feel feminine, clinging, luxurious and slightly wicked.
• To wear good clothes, that fit, even if I have to learn to make them myself. 
• To be firm with myself at the first sign of "doo-dad" disease (the yen to wear all my bracelets, earrings, clips, ect., ect. - at one time). 
• To wear, always, the kind of underwear I'd be proud to claim as my own after the train wreck- if any. 
• To face myself critically in a long mirror before I leave the house and deal promptly with yawning plackets, undecided hemlines and skirts that bulge over the derriere.
• To risk having runs in my stockings rather than crooked seams due to loose gartering.
• To get a lift in time at the shoemaker's when my heels start to run down.
• To keep some dark gloves on hand so I'll never be compelled to carry the light pair that's too smudgy to wear. 
• To get rid of shabby clothes before my economical streak convinces me they're "good enough to wear around mornings."
• To tell neither my husband nor my friends what I spend on clothes.
• To buy six pairs of silk stockings at one time.
• To pay real money for a foundation garment if my figger needs a lift.
• To have a tailor press my suits at least once a month.
• To sew fasteners in my clothes to keep shoulder straps from slipping.

Her New Years Resolutions in 1937 - My Man - If Any

Continuing the resolutions made by the writer in the 1937 Delineator Magazine. Here is her list concerning the Man in her life. 

                                                My Man - If Any

• To let him walk off with the morning paper because I've ordered another copy for myself. 
• To flatter him to the point of believing he is a grand cook, so he can prepare the victuals when he invites ten people to dinner on the maid's night out.
• To make him take care of his own dog even if I must resort to a little well-timed carelessness in feeding the pooch. 
• To give him advance notice of anniversaries and birthdays, and subtlety be hanged. 
• To admit I hate prize-fights and cigar smoke.
• To admire his hair-cut and his new suits, willy-nilly. 
• To be a veritable lamb and honey-child with women he's interested in, so they'll like me better than they like him. 
• To develop a few personal extravagances when he starts squandering the family income on stag dinners, green fees and fancy fishing tackle.
• To encourage him to have his secretary buy gifts for me, so he won't pay outrageous prices in gift shoppes for things I never can use.
• To make him stop talking about girth and baldness and do something about it. 
• To have for myself a handsome doctor and a fascinating dentist.
• To keep him waiting, occasionally, for the good of his soul.
• To expect orchids (all right, gardenias then) and get them or else---
• To agree with him, always, in company, but be reasonably firm about my convictions when we're alone. 

Her New Years Resolutions in 1937 - Social Life

"New Years Resolutions, with a dash of enlightened selfishness, that will make a new woman out of you." 

This fine advice comes to us from the Delineator's Magazine in 1937. There is no author listed, but she was a pretty smart gal with good advice for then and now.                              

My Social Life

• To be firm about not entertaining uninvited visiting relatives and friends who bore me. 
• To teach my maid to lie with convincing charm so I can avoid dull callers and telephone conversations.
• To keep a list of all books borrowed from me and send postcard reminders to all borrowers. 
• To leave a dull party early, even if my hostess is counting on me as a fourth at bridge.
• To yawn openly, start emptying ashtrays and as a last resort, slip into a negligee, and appear in the doorway rubbing cold cream into my hands, if any guests linger on after midnight on weekday nights.
• To spend my free evening seeing "Lovers Alone" (or it's equivalent) at the movies if the local culture club meetings put me to sleep. 
• To denounce swing music as cacophonous tripe if I prefer sweet jazz and symphonies.
• To entertain to suit myself and my budget, no matter what the crowd does.
• To remember funny stories and repeat them only if I, too, can make them sound funny.

(More tomorrow)

Delineator Magazine - 1888 Hall's Bazar Portable and Adjustable Dress and Skirt Forms

"Endorsed and recommended by all Fashion Publishers as being a long-felt want admirably supplied."
And this must be true because:
"We consider these the most perfect Forms ever introduced, and cheerfully recommend them to our customers everywhere. THE BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY [LIMITED]"

MISS MEDDLESOME (to her mamma).--Ah! We have now discovered the secret or her gracefully draped dresses, which have been the envy or our lives. Look! She has HALL'S BAZAR FORM. We shall send for one at once! It can be adjusted to fit either of us.

MISS FASHION PLATE (soliloquising).-The effect Is simply charming. It would have been Impossible to produce this result without HALL'S BAZAR PORTABLE FORM. I can now make over and drape my own dresses and not become worn out standing for the dressmaker. This Form was a happy thought, and is worth more than Its weight In gold to ladies easily fatigued by standing.

Delineator Magazine - 1888 Pattern for a Donkey

This is a very realistic looking donkey!
"The parts are joined by seams which are so curved as to produce "a fine figger of a donkey"."

Delineator Magazine - 1888 "Styles For Little Folks"

This is a group of childs clothing, mostly girls dresses and some infant gowns. Note the military influence, sashes, cording, buttons, and the little boy in his kilt has his bugle ready!"

Delineator Magazine - 1888 Patterns for Dolls

We don't have the typical fancy girl doll and her fancy outfit. We get a boy doll, his sailor uniform and the nightgowns and underwear for babies and "Lady" dolls. But look at these. The details and the work..."may be trimmed as simply or as elaborately as little mamma desires".

Delineator Magazine - 1888 Electric Corsets, Florance Ladies' Waist and Madam Foy's Skirt Supporting Corset

So many choices! Go for "health and comfort" in a "Graceful Form" skirt supporter, use "An embodiment of hygienic principles in a Ladies' Waist", or even go Electric!

Delineator Magazine - 1888 Hats! Toques, Bonnets, Turbans

"The beauty of the materials this season - the "piece stuffs" as the milliners call them - has given special prominence to hats and bonnets with soft, full crowns. They can be made demure in cloth or quite gorgeous in gold brocade, and the trimming may be provided by dainty wings in gold or silver, loops of ribbon, fancy aigrettes or clasps, ect.

Feathers are arranged in coronet bands to encircle turbans, and they make a very handsome trimming. The golden pheasant, the merle and the peacock are robbed of their finest plumes to crown the chapeaux of womankind. The large hats obtain, but on a windy day a small closely fitting chapeau is a desideratum.

The capote in every possible size and outline finds many admirers. Probably the newest is that which has a brim not unlike the Directoire and yet retains the close, compact shape of the capote at the sides. The very close capote, however, is still worn by those who like it."

Delineator Magazine - 1888 Would You Like To Dress Stylishly?

If you do want to dress stylishly you should get your wardrobe custom made from National Cloak Company and use some of these amazing trims from the Kursheedt Manufacturing Co.!

Delineator Magazine - 1888 "Ladies Four Gore Skirt" - An Inside View

Here's a chance to see the inside of one of these amazing skirts and the description from the magazine.

"No. 2375.-This skirt is portrayed made of dress goods and plainly finished. Its three dart-fitted gores and full back-breadth are shaped to produce a graceful, even hanging; and across the back-breadth two reeds are adjusted in casings and tied into curves by tapes or elastics. A belt finishes the top of the skirt, and the placket opening is made at the left side-back seam. A small pad bustle is a feature of the skirt; it is shaped in two parts that are narrowest at the top and rounding at the bottom. A filling of moss or curled hair is used, and the parts are caught together in upholstery fashion. The top of the bustle is caught to the belt.

This skirt is the fashionable shape for Autumn and Winter toilettes, and will be worn without an adjustable tournure. It accords in its hanging and in the arrangement of its pad and steels with the fashionable arrangements of drapery and also with the new styles of long top-garments. All kinds of seasonable dress good and also plain, corded, striped and figured silks, velvets, etc., will make up handsomely by the mode. Trimming may be added if desired, flat applications being especially favored.

We have pattern No. 2375 in nine sizes for ladies from twenty to thirty-six inches waist measure. To make the garment for a lady of medium size, will require five yards and three eighths of material twenty-two inches wide, or three yards and a-half thirty-six inches wide, or three yards forty-four inches wide. Of fifty-four inches wide goods, two yards and a-half will suffice. Price of pattern, 1s,. 3d. or 30 cents."

Delineator Magazine - 1888 "Health Braided Wire Dress Forms"

Wow. Just wow.

Delineator Magazine - 1888 Ladies Costume and Toilette

Looking at these I was thinking about storage. These are dresses and hats are huge and must have had to hung in some sort of closet. And go into suitcases. And all those trims! How did this work? Wouldn't things get crushed? And did you just have an army of laundresses?

This is Butterick 2387, also shown below.

This "Ladies Toilette" - a Basque and a Walking Skirt. Don't miss her bird hat!

Delineator Magazine - 1888 "Ladies Top Garments"

This group is coats, cloaks, wraps. They must have been made of heavy fabrics and weighed a ton. Suggested fabrics are wools and velvets. And the trims were ribbons and silks. I can't imagine they were very practical in rain or snow.

These are labeled 434, 435, 436, 437.
The "Ladies Wrap" shown in 434, Butterick 2379 is below.

The "Ladies Walking Skirt" with 434 is Butterick 2349.

Number 434 is "Ladies Irish Peasant Cloak" Butterick pattern 2362.

In 436 we see a "Ladies Cloak" with subtle differences, Butterick 2365.

For 437 it's Butterick 2386, a "Ladies Wrap" with otter fur trim.