Wednesday 31 July 2013

1950s travel packing tips

1959, via

" ... This leads me to the raft of so-called "Basic Travel Wardrobes" available from department stores, airlines, travel bureaus, and so on. I don't know who writes these macabre little guides, but they are either men who wear the same suit for ten years or women who have never travelled."
Anne Fogarty, The Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife, 1959

I intended to do a post in the style of my vintage summer style post - a range of advice on how to pack for your travels from throughout 60 plus years. But, as I worked my way through my books, I realised that, with the exception of Frances Patiky Stein's typically detailed travel wardrobe, all the examples I had found came from the 1950s. I imagine this might because it's the point where foreign travel for amusement reaches a wide-enough market to make it worth writing about, but is still a unique enough experience to require specific advice. By the time you get to Cheap Chic in 1975, the advice is all about what clothes to bring back from each corner of the world, rather than what you should take with you.

My three 1950s sources all have a great pedigree - there's designers Anne Fogarty, writing in 1959's The Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife, and Claire McCardell in her What Shall I Wear? from 1956, who each devote a chapter to what to pack for your vacation. Representing the Brits, Madge Garland - founder of the fashion course at the RCA - writes a chapter on holiday packing for 1958's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Good Taste. And, perhaps it should be her advice we trust the most as, after all, Christian Dior comments in his 1954 Little Dictionary of Fashion:

"I think British women know perfectly how to dress for sports and holiday. For these occasions all the world has to learn from them."

The advice is much more uniform than that offered by the tips on summer city dressing, even looking at a limited period (think of Vreeland vs Woolman Chase's difference of opinion on open-toed sandals, for example). Could this be because these three were all women who thought about designing for other women, and so more practical advice wins out? Though I think practicality - in twenty-first century terms at least - definitely goes out of the window when it comes to their thoughts on baggage allowance - those bits of advice definitely weren't written in Easyjet times!

1951, via

Take it away ladies:

PREPARATION FOR PACKING

"Cold ruthlessness and steely nerves - the unseen but much-felt basic requisites for planning a travel wardrobe."
Anne Fogarty, The Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife, 1959

"It take imagination to pack for a trip. Dream about the things that will never happen - they might."
Claire McCardell, What Shall I Wear?, 1956

"Among the many qualities required by the successful traveller two stand out as essential - imagination and resource ... try to imagine what you will do, where you will go, and count up the possible demands on your wardrobe. The 'oh, I never thought' traveller is one who often debars herself from pleasure and you stand to miss delightful opportunities of a bathe or a ball because you had not imagined what you might do and need."
Madge Garland, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Good Taste, 1958

"Make travel broadening not burdening. You can live out of a suitcase if you've packed with care and imagination."
Anne Fogarty, The Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife, 1959

WHAT TO PACK

"There are six important S's in your travel wardrobe: Shirts, Skirts, Slack, Shorts, Scarves and Shoes, and the more interchangeable they are the better dressed and carefree you will be."
Madge Garland, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Good Taste, 1958

"Travel with clothes that can take it: jersey, good wool, cotton. Don't think that everything has to be nylon. Some nylon is a godsend but cotton can stand wear and tear and still look fine and clean. I think of those first nylon dresses that went to Europe in '52 and '53. Those poor marked women - it didn't take long for everyone to know they had only one dress to be washed each night and worn again the next day."
Claire McCardell, What Shall I Wear?, 1956

"Choose materials which will co-operate with you and crease as little as possible. This does not mean an all-nylon wardrobe - far from it. Avoid transparent nylon dresses as you would the devil. They achieve nothing, for since they are transparent you are not covered and another layer is required beneath them; they are not warm, so you want extra woolies and coats to go over them; but neither are the cool and so can never ben worn in a really hot climate, so where are you? Better start with a fabric that fulfils at least one useful function and does something more than expose your underwear and shoulder straps to the gaze of the uncharitable."
Madge Garland, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Good Taste, 1958

"Travel irons cause more arguments than politics."
Anne Fogarty, The Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife, 1959

"Shorts are a matter between you and your mirror."
Madge Garland, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Good Taste, 1958

HOW TO PACK IT

"Your suitcase should be the length of your skirt so that no skirt (except a long evening one) need ever be folded in half."
Madge Garland, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Good Taste, 1958

"Once at rock-bottom minimum ... add the few goodies that will really make your travel wardrobe ... Don't leave behind with regret something important to you, even if it doesn't belong in the accepted travel wardrobes we read and hear so much about."
Anne Fogarty, The Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife, 1959

1957, via

TRAVEL LIGHT ... OR NOT!

"Bring too many changes rather than too few."
Anne Fogarty, The Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife, 1959

"It's amazing to me how many people will spend thousands - or at least hundreds - on a vacation yet limit their baggage to the prescribed forty-four or sixty-six pounds. The point is that these weight restrictions are for free transportation. If you're willing to pay for the extra poundage, you can take as much as you like. The added cost should be regarded as a legitimate travel expense, not something to be avoided at all costs. Magical places lose their magic if you know you're not dressed as well as you might be because of the weight limit."
Anne Fogarty, The Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife, 1959

"If your holiday will be spoilt because you have run out of reading matter, or you wish you had your embroidery with you, or you have missed the ideal moment to deal with your accumulated correspondence for lack of your typewriter, then be brave, pay the extra few pounds and take everything you want."
Madge Garland, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Good Taste, 1958

FIRST IMPRESSIONS MATTER

"Don't forget that the moment you leave the privacy of your own home, you are in the public eye. Travel, like the goldfish bowl, removes privacy. You are instantly subjected to the critical eye of station masters, porters, hotel clerks, stewards, bellboys. And what a really educated eye they have when it comes to appraising a traveler!"
Claire McCardell, What Shall I Wear?, 1956

"Do not make your first appearance everywhere clutching a heterogeneous collection of odd receptacles."
Madge Garland, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Good Taste, 1958

DRESS APPROPRIATELY

"Travel has its codes, rather rigid ones, and if you don't conform you may be inconvenienced or downright embarrassed."
Claire McCardell, What Shall I Wear?, 1956

"As for clothes etiquette in general, Americans have a reputation for scantiness which is rightly resented."
Anne Fogarty, The Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife, 1959

DRESS FOR THE WEATHER

"Whatever the season, carry a heavy topcoat. Weather is almost as tricky as political situations."
Anne Fogarty, The Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife, 1959 (on travel in Europe)

"Bed socks and a warm nightie might be advisable for touring Britain, even in summer."
Anne Fogarty, The Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife, 1959

"No country is too hot for a good Scotch woolly."
 Madge Garland, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Good Taste, 1958

AND, FINALLY, BE PREPARED FOR CHEESE PURCHASES:

"Always pack a collapsable canvas duffel bag at the bottom of your suitcase; this will save you the mortification of bulging packages and will come in handy for the extra things you are bound to acquire, the winter wrap you no longer need, the damp suit from a last-minute bathe, or a delightful unknown cheese which you could not pack with your clothes."
Madge Garland, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Good Taste, 1958

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Any favourite travel tips of your own? And do you pack an extra bag for cheese?! 

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2 comments:

  1. This is just too much fun! My, how things have changed.

    Looking at the ad at the top of your post, it looks to me as if she could pack the entire contents of her closet in those six bags!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I think she's definitely used her imagination in her packing! And she's almost certainly got a spare bag for her Scotch wooly, and delightful unknown cheese too...

      Delete

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