Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Teenagers and some more social history through knitting

I've been doing the Time Warp again.  This morning I scored 12 lovely leaflets from my dear friends at Fontana, Kaiapoi, Shepherd, Aotea, et al, for the princely sum of $2.

I even found another Fontana Teenage Knitteds booklet.  I have a few of these now; 1950s and 1960s, boys and girls.


The concept of teenager seems to have changed over the era - the 1950s teenagers are very young, the models look about 14, and the patterns are sized accordingly with 28" to 34" busts for the girls.  These teenagers are rather more adult, with sizing to a distinctly grown up 38 inches.  I do wish they had dated these booklets, it's doing my head in trying to date them. The LP on the cover is from 1960 (Charlie Digs Dixie - gotta love Google), and bulky knits in long, boxy styles over capri pants screams early '60s to me, so giving things a year or two to reach our far shores I'm guessing '61 or '62. 

This is my favourite - Down Beat:

Check out her beaten copper bangle! Dig those bongos!  I'm so knitting this, but not the 60's way.  That yoke is knitted separately and sewn on.  No way!

All a lot more down beat than this get up:


I can date this one pretty confidently because attractive SUIT is conveniently modelled by Miss New Zealand, Elaine Miscall, who went on to be 1st runner-up Miss World 1963.  She's pretty cute, but she lost to the even cuter Miss Jamaica.  Check out the va-va-voom swimsuit figures in this newsreel.  There must be some serious support in those togs!


A NEW MISS WORLD

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