McCall's 6999 circa 1940
In 1913, situated from 236 to 246 West 37th Street, New York, NY, House of McCall (founded 1870), employing 882 persons, was the leader in publications of home and fashion literature for women.
Annually the company printed over 35 million fashion sheets, 13 million copies of McCall’s monthly magazine, 2 million Ready Reference Catalogues and hundreds of thousands of copies of the McCall Large Catalogue, McCall Embroidery Catalogue and the Quarterly Book of Fashions.
But the House of McCall’s claim to fame was undoubtedly its dressmaker patterns. The company produced more than 150,000 dressmaker patterns monthly. Selling to housewives and others in the United States, Canada and Paris at the time; House of McCall set itself up as the leading manufacturer of dressmaker patterns in the world.
Today, because of their rarity there are many online sellers of vintage pattern reproductions. Most reproductions are crudely drawn onto inappropriate papers with inappropriate writing utensils only to be stuffed into generic envelopes with a set of barely legible photocopied instructions.
But how were authentic patterns originally manufactured in masses?
Here’s how the House of McCall did it in 1913:
A subcommittee of correspondents submitted fashion designs to McCall’s Board of Critics.
The Board of Critics determined which designs were reflections of the day’s fashion trends. Approved designs were made up in muslin by professional drapers based on measurements of a single live model.
The Board of Critics made final determination on approval, modification or rejection of the muslin mock up.
If approved, the grading department ripped the muslin apart, traced it onto heavy cardboard and cut the pattern out. Because the original muslin was made from a single live model, the grading department also revamped the design to conform to various standard figures.
The grading department also wrote pattern envelope instructions and drafted cutting charts.
An art department of professional illustrators designed garment and model depictions for the pattern envelope.
Next, the garment of cardboard pieces were set atop a bundle of 1000 sheets of tissue paper, clamped down, outlined in pencil and marked with appropriate pattern marking symbols: squares, circles, and notches.
The final pattern sloper was then submitted to the cutting department where the pattern pieces and markings where cut following the tracing lines from the grading department.
Cutters, mostly men, were also responsible for checking for flaws in the final pattern. One piece of each and every lot of patterns was verified for accuracy by laying the original cardboard model onto the newly developed pattern. If there was the slightest of flaw the pattern was immediately rejected.
Passing this final test, meant the pattern would be tied into bundles of 200-500 patterns each, dropped through a chute down to the folding room where the pattern pieces were folded and placed in envelopes for shipping.
Not the most glamorous processes, but it worked.
For more info: How to read vintage Butterick sewing pattern perforations
Photos: Calandra Ferguson
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