Following on from our previous blogs highlighting the special fashion collection held at Chelsea library, we have gathered a few images and covers with a Christmas theme.
See our previous blog posts on Vogue covers, Japanese Winter kimonos and Chinese Lotus slippers.
Chelsea Library has copies of Vogue Magazine, going back to the mid 1920s. Vogue not only gives an idea of the fashions at the time, but also reflects society. The Christmas issue of Vogue in 1939 gives a picture of glamour in war-time Britain.
Vogue Christmas stocking ideas for the woman who has everything. Christmas gift ideas for ‘a glamour girl’ include brands still familiar today, such as Coty, Yardley, Bronnley and Innoxa.
Gifts of beauty, suggestions by Elizabeth Arden.
Auxiliary Red, by Cyclax, is the lipstick for Service Women.
Elegance and glamour does not have to be limited to outside the house. The coat below is desctibed as bright as a brazier and as warm, Balenciaga’s resounding red broadcloth coat buttoned down the front to a cossetted waist, spreading to a voluminous skirt (superb as a housecoat too). Match it with Cylax’s new make-up, “Auxillary Red”.
Debenhams and Freebody are advertising their fur sale.
‘In Paris Now’ women might go shopping wearing Schiaprarelli but they still have to ‘travel in crowded carriages’.
From Books to Beat the Black-out: There is a tendency to regard all evacuee tots as problem children. Possibly they would prove less problematic if given some of the books listed here. Titles include Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Chin Pao and the Giant Pandas by Chiang Lee and Joseph Haydn: The Merry Little Peasant by Wheeler and Deucher. Old Possum by T S Eliot is still a favourite, but I’m not sure how the others would be received these days.
We hope you enjoyed these images but nothing beats looking at the originals! So pop into Chelsea Library to slip back in time via the Vogue time-portal, each edition is bound in a very chic blue.
Useful links
by Debby Wale, Triborough Reference Librarian
Chelsea Reference Library
rbkc libraries blog 
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