Paper Doll Girls Latest News

It's been a long time since I've had time to blog, but my New Year's resolution is to start blogging again and sharing our vintage finds!

I've been in Paris since November 25 on a buying trip for the shop, and I'll be returning to Australia on January l with HUNDREDS (not kidding) of lovely vintage French fashion ads!  I can't wait to share them with my customers in our etsy shop, Paper Doll Girls.

Here's just one of the beautiful 1920's Art Deco front magazine covers of a woman in a gorgeous pink dress.  This is an exceptionally large magazine with a heavy embossed card cover which could be beautifully framed.  It will be listed in the shop the first week in January.  Stop by and have a look at all our news ads that I will be adding over the month of January. 

Apologies for the quality of the photo, but it had already been wrapped in plastic for shipment home.  I will scan it when I get home and the listing will do it justice!

We've just made a Facebook page for the shop, as well, Paper Doll Girls, so please stop by and LIKE us!

L'Illustration 1928

Patty

Peep Toes Need a Good Home

I found these gorgeous 1940s French peep toe heels a couple of years ago and have been holding onto them.  I've decided I've just got to let them go and I'm hoping someone will see them in my Etsy shop and decide they can't live without them!

I can still remember how my heart started racing when I found them.  They were French and in exactly my size--it seemed as though fate had made it happen!  But, I rarely ever wear high heels anymore and I'd love to find them a new home.  Have a look in my Paper Doll Girls shop if they're "calling your name".  Free postage to anywhere in the world!

Here's all the important details about these beautiful shoes:

 

 Etsy Listing # 68953869

This gorgeous pair of 1940s WWII peep toe heels is in excellent vintage condition. The brown suede and leather are still very soft. These shoes must have been very special to the owner because they were obviously well taken care all these years since the war.

The label inside the shoe reads: Pinot, Bottier, London and Anvers, with two seals, one of which is stamped "Brussels" and the other is marked "London". The inside of the shoes is tan leather. The sole is leather, and of course, has wear, but is still in very good condition. The tip of the toe and the bottom of the heel still have the original metal taps to protect them. The leather in the sole is embossed with "Roberts 744", which I assume is the style name and number.

Each shoe features a small leather bow at the peep toe and small arrows of leather interwoven in the suede along to top of the shoe from the bow to the back heel.

There is a small scuff on the suede of the outside of the left shoe near the top of the heel and a small scuff on the outside of the right shoe, plus a tiny nick in the leather of the sole at the point of the right toe. Aside from these small imperfections, these shoes are absolutely fantastic. I have never personally seen another pair of vintage 1940 shoes in as good condition as these shoes are.

I wear an Australian size 7 shoe and these shoes fit me perfectly. I would suggest that they might be more suitable for someone with a slimmer foot. Please check the measurements below to assure fit:

Insole length 9-1/4 inches (measured inside shoe)
Width at widest part under shoe 3 inches
Heel height 3 inches

I like to imagine that a very stylish gal back in the 1940s spent time swing dancing with these beautiful shoes on her feet!

Elsa Schiaparelli and Marcel Vertes--a perfect combination

One of my favorite illustrators is Marcel Vertes, and I especially love his work for Schiaparelli perfumes.  Here are three of his ads that you will find in our shop:

  Harpers Bazaar

September 1945

Etsy Listing #70216138

Harpers Bazaar 

April 1945

Etsy Listing #70216224

 Vogue

April 1952

Etsy Listing # 71019728

Hungarian illustrator,  Marcel Vertes was born in Ujpest, near Budapest, Hungary.  He studied to become an aviation engineer, but instead turned to drawing and painting.  In the early 1920s, Vertes went to Paris, where he worked for the satirical magazine Rire, and for the Gazette Du Bon Ton.

Vertes was an outstanding painter, printmaker, illustrator and fashion designer.  His work was characterized by its economical use of line and color.  He moved to Paris during World War I, and established himself as one of the most important artistic figures of the 1920s; following the footsteps of Toulouse-Lautrec, Boutet, and Forain.  His work consisted mainly of portrayals and scenes of Paris street life, women, the circus, and cabaret acts.  Vertes went to school at the Academie Julian in Paris.
 

He became popular in France since the mid 1920s particularly for his lithographs, and illustrations.

Due to the impending World War II, Verte traveled to America where he lived and worked for some time.  His reputation as a great artist got him work as a book illustrator and costume and set designer for films, theater and musicals.  He worked briefly for Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar in New York before traveling to London to illustrate for Schiaparelli perfumes.  The collaboration between Vertes and Schiaparelli was an inspired one.  Verte's whimsical, and modern illustrations perfectly complimented Elsa Schiaparelli's avant-garde style and irreverent attitude.

John Cavanagh 1956 Paper Taffeta Evening Dress Illustrated by Rene Bouche

John Cavanagh Paper Taffeta Evening Dress
UK Vogue
November 1956
Etsy #71291823

Very little detail is known about Rene Bouche himself.  Born in Europe in 1906, he arrived at what would be his "bread and butter" career at age 33, when he persuaded the editors of the French-edition of Vogue to allow him to contribute sketches of the latest fashions.  His work appeared in both the French and British versions of the magazine, and he produced one of the prettiest covers of the year, showing a milliner's shop full of the summer's bows and flowers, ribbons and laces, straws and tulles. 

It was that spring of 1941 that Bouche's career effectively began.  Almost immediately he made a considerable "second impression" on Vogue's New York editors, and he quickly became a regular contributor to the magazine.  His work was almost exclusively black-and-white sketches, with a few full-color pieces offered up when the assignment or subject-matter warranted. Stylistically, his sketches often resembled what one critic called "frantic calligraphy," yet their mood was always soft and gentle.

Mad Carpentier 1954 French Haute Couture Assymetrical Collar Cocktail Dress

Mad Carpentier Assymetrical Collar Cocktail Dress

L'Officiel de La Couture et de la Mode de Paris

October 1954

Etsy Listing #70544942

The firm's two partners—Mad Maltezos and Suzie Carpentier— banded together when Madeleine Vionnet, their former employer, closed in 1939.

The two women represented a continuation of Vionnet's bias cut and elegance in fashion combined with a discreet social model, always proper. Twins seized from a most inspired rib, two women balanced to equal one, and perseverance through the war years established an interesting mystique around Mad Carpentier. As Mary Brooks Picken and Dora Loues Miller, authors of Dressmakers of France: The Who, How, and Why of the French Couture (New York, 1956) passionately enthused, "When it was almost impossible to think of luxury, of the richness of colors, of the beauty of fabrics, in a city without joy and without light…these two talented women carried on."