Winter snow swirling around you? Need a coat for your 40s look and want to make one yourself? Can't decide on a pattern or simply need a little inspiration? Well how about this one from 1940? Today for Free Pattern Friday I offer two coats (from one pattern) with darts and seams to create a smooth, fitted look with no distinct waistline seam (unless you count the dart, I don't because it's a dart). These coats are very different in design but use the same foundation in their construction. Upon further investigation too, you will have noticed that the coats have different necklines but use the same pattern. How can this be so? Simple, the coat on the left uses the typical notched collar lying flat on the chest while the one on the right has the collar and lapels overlapping each other to create that asymmetrical buttoning.
In making this coat, note that the front has two pieces, the back has two pieces, and the sleeve also has two pieces. For the front, the two pieces are the front (duh) and the facing for the front! Normally, the facings are omitted completely as the book assumes you can add them in all by yourself. Since the facing is here for you, you are lucky indeed. or the sleeve, if you look at the sleeve cap there are darts indicated. For me, I normally lose the darts and do gathers. Why? Because on these patterns it can be really hard to determine their depth and size.
Illustrated, the coats make use of some fur trimming and detailing but you could easily omit that and do only a lovely and warm winter weight wool for all the coat. For fitting this coat, you could adjust each seam until a fit is achieved or else take it in or let it out at the side seams which would be located under the arms. Pockets? The illustrated coats have pockets and even cuffs which are not given but could be added if desired. For adding cuffs, I would use the coat sleeve patterns as a guide in making that pattern up.
As a side note, I want to talk about this very masculine styling of these coats. I find things like this so very interesting because they almost contradict Nazi ideology in a very blunt way. Nazi ideology prescribed that women be feminine, confined to the home raising children for the Reich. With such a feminine role doled out to them, their clothing often followed suit with feminine lines and cuts dominating the fashion scene. Throughout Der Goldene Schnitt, most clothing is quite feminine but this page is in clear contradiction with a very square shoulder and masculine tilt hats resembling men’s hats. I think that this page in particular is very interesting and worth taking another look at because it shows that in the 40s no matter where you were, women were gravitating towards masculine lines in coats, suits, dresses, and head wear. THIS masculine styling is not localized in only the United States or France but can be seen even in Nazi Germany where women were given limited and feminine roles. As a final note, although women were meant to stay at home and rear the children, many women in Nazi Germany took up masculine occupations in the farms, factories and other places. So, although they were to have feminine occupations, this was not always the case but that is another long story . . .
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