1957 Florida Fashions Catalog

Last summer I went to a beast of an estate auction and was able to come home with hundreds of zippers, more vintage juice glasses than I will ever be able to use, a trunk load of vintage Tupperware, and a plethora of other knick-nacks and what-nots. One thing that I brought home was a box of random papers, which happened to include this wonderful catalog, quite a few ration stamps from WWII, and a whole heap of junk mail from the 80s.

Each and every time I look through this booklet I imagine myself sitting by the pool at my 50s ranch style house, sipping an iced beverage, and picking out all the wonderful dresses I plan on wearing to all of the fabulous parties and backyard barbecues that I will attend. I decided that I would share this wonderful catalog with my lovely readers so that you too can imagine yourself in your own 50's fantasy.

Note: This catalog is about 50 pages so I am going to break it up into a few separate posts, so stay tuned for more to come!

I need one of those polka dot dresses in my life!
Blue dress: $6.98 which is ~$53 in today's money
Polka dot dress: $8.98 which is ~ $68 in today's money

These little dresses look so sweet, and given their pastel colors they would make wonderful Easter dresses. It seems that less than $7 would have gotten you both the dress and the cardigan. Once again, $7 in 1957 ( the year this was published) is about $53 today.

( I had a little harder time getting decent pictures of the black and white pages.)
Those play suits, which the catalog calls shortalls or rompers, are so cute. It would be very interesting choosing a color without seeing it, especially with their color descriptions simply stating things like red of blue.

This may just be my favorite page from the catalog, though I am sure I will pick half a dozen other favorites as I post these.
The dress in the lower right corner sold for $3.98 which is about $30 today.
Below is a more zoomed in picture of the 2pc "weekender" shown in the middle of the page.

It seems that this "weekender" is a pair of shorts that have a removable skirt that buttons on top of the shorts. How cool is that? (Note: When you read how cool is that you must use your best Ina Garten voice to impersonate her saying how easy is that.)  The weekender also retailed for $3.98 or about $30 today.

I will post the rest of the pictures over the next few days.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts. Which ones are your favorites? Would you wear these styles today?

Happy Sewing!