Spring & Summer Original Designs by Lady Duff-Gordon - 1917
“When You Come Home” Costume from the Spring and Summer Portfolio of Lady Duff-Gordon's Original Designs. The Ladies' Home Journal (February 1917) p. 61. GGA Image ID # 105b90351a
LADY DUFF-GORDON'S plan to design clothes for all the women of America has met with the generous measure of success which it so richly deserved. American women have quickly estimated the value of having these beautiful, clever, original designs of Lady Duff-Gordon's within reach of a moderate clothes-allowance.
It is planned to be the most artistic and beautiful and helpful book of styles ever published in the fashion world. In addition to Street Dresses and Afternoon Dresses, Evening Gowns and Tailored Suits, the new Portfolio will include Corsets, Millinery, Separate Waists and Separate Skirts in original Lady Duff-Gordon designs. No item will be priced above $45.
The women who are already enjoying one or more of Lady Duff-Gordon's dresses or suits will be the first to appreciate the additional satisfaction of having all the accessories of her designing as well. It means a perfect, complete costume.
In the new Portfolio, some of these lovely summery things will be reproduced in exact colors. All of them will be pictured on living models so you can know how they look when being worn.
The new departments will tell just what kind of a hat looks best with the costume you select; what blouse should be worn with your new suit; what corset is best suited to your type of figure.
Lady Duff-Gordon, with her remarkable instinct for the dress and her wonderful understanding of a woman's needs, has solved the clothes problems which trouble women most.
In the new Spring and Summer Portfolio, she has given the answer to hundreds of questions which have been asked over and over in letters written to her since her plan for American women was announced.
Women who sincerely want to be well dressed, women who want to be sure that all the details of their costumes are correct, women who have any misgivings about their own judgment, their taste in clothes—will all find in the new Portfolio the key to the whole situation.
Lady Duff-Gordon is one of the greatest fashion creators the world has ever known or ever will know. There is no better guide for the woman who would be sure of her personal appearance.
Latest Models for Spring and Summer (left to right) “Joy o’ Life” - No. 43 A 205. Price $35.00; “Garden of Roses” - No. 43A 125. Price $23.50; “My Dearest” - No. 43A 130. Price $32.50. The Ladies' Home Journal GGA (March 1917) p. 54. Image ID # 105c08b961
To dress in harmony with the seasons does not mean to spend a great deal of money to have an extravagantly large and varied wardrobe. No, not at all. It means, rather, economy—the wise expenditure of the allowance you have, the exercise of good judgment and an understanding of your own good and bad points—your own personality. And it is in these things that I want to help you.
"I have tried to plan the clothes in this Portfolio to fit every need you might have in Spring and Summer. There is something here for your work time and, when that work is over, I want you to slip out of your work-time clothes and into one of these soft, cool, alluring things made for your play time and your rest time. If you are a very busy woman, that is particularly and especially what I want you to do, because it means putting a fresh dress on your tired mind as well as your tired body."
Portfolio of Lady Duff Gordon Original Designs Spring and Summer. The Ladies Home Journal (April 1917) p. 71. GGA Image ID # 105d08f25c
The paragraph quoted above is taken from Lady Duff-Gordon's intimate, friendly talk to American women in the new Portfolio.
In these talks, Lady Duff-Gordon strikes a human note which goes much deeper than mere clothes. Clothes in their relation to a woman's life, their inevitable influence upon life—this is the thought always back of her work.
In her rare understanding of this difficult woman-problem, she stands almost alone in the world of fashion. Where other style creators are influenced by a decree of fashion, a whim or a fad of the hour, Lady Duff-Gordon's exceptional insight carries her far beyond that point, enables her to create a fashion to fit the need.
Always unmistakably smart and modish, on the one hand, and, on the other, always bearing that fascinating mark of individuality which makes her designs so satisfying to the wearer.
Women everywhere are recognizing the helpfulness of Lady Duff-Gordon's
plan which she began putting into action last Fall. The new Spring and Summer Portfolio has already found its way into thousands of homes. Truly, it is a beautiful book and, we believe, the most helpful book of fashions ever issued.
Lady Duff-Gordon was a survivor of the Titanic Disaster in April 1912. The Ladies Home Journal (April 1917) p. 71. GGA Image ID # 105c134658
