Junk Love: Lilli Ann

Think of the last time you saw Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland. Imagine Alice finding that charming little cottage in Wonderland, and the White Rabbit rushing in, screaming, "Mary Ann! Mary Ann!" Now replace that with "Lilli Ann!", and you will understand how my brain works sometimes.

But on to other matters, like the fact that the Blackbird girls love Lilli Ann clothing, especially from the 1960s and before.... We're all about a tiny waist, dramatic collar and unusual sleeve--all things that epitomize Lilli Ann. Oh, and did I mention coats? (But we'll save those for the end....)

The company began in 1933, and they used a lot of unusual fabrics after WWII that became characteristic of the line. We have a fabulous variegated tweed suit in our shop (shown below) that was made of a silk/wool blend. Unfortunately, due to the fact that silk tends to become very fragile over time, and the nature of the weave itself, the wool strands often exert too much pressure on the silk threads, thereby causing the fabric to shred at stress points. Ours has this problem at the shoulders, which broke our hearts. But it's still gorgeous!

In our shop

Here's a near-perfect suit in a variegated silk blend:

On Etsy

A side view of another near-perfect example of the same design:

www.lulusvintage.com

And here's the original ad for it from Vogue (1955):

Love that accordion sleeve? Here's another version, with mink trim:

On Etsy

 The company's designers definitely loved fur collars, which you'll see on suits and coats. This green suit is another to-die-for example of Lilli Ann perfection:

On Etsy

And some great fur-trimmed coats:

On Etsy

On Etsy

I absolutely fell in love with this 1940s beaded suit. Even though there's some damage, it's fabulous:

On Etsy

This 1950s dress came as a bit of a surprise, as it was vastly different from most of the other Lilli Ann pieces that I've seen (but I have always focused mainly on suits and coats, so I suppose it makes sense). This one is pale gray with a pink, green, and metallic gold print.

On Etsy

But the thing I love the most is the wasp-waisted princess coat. This brown one is a fine example:

On Etsy

But THIS ONE IS MY DREAM FANTASY. I want to hold this coat, and love it and squeeze it (but not hard enough to damage the fabric!)...!

On Etsy

Could a coat possibly be any more fabulous than this? Why yes, actually. If you add Persian lamb to the sleeves:

www.1stdibs.com

And...I just went into cardiac arrest. I think we're done here.

The Skinny: Lucky Star

In-house fashion models, known as "mannequins," became popular in the mid-1800s house of Charles Frederick Worth, but it wasn't until the 1940s that the mannequins started gaining reputations of their own. One of the most famous of these ladies was Lucie Daouphars, later famously nicknamed "Lucky."

She started out poor, a miserable, married teenager with a baby. Her husband left, and she went to work in a metal factory as a solderer. That could have been her life--a single mother, struggling in a factory job in a war-torn country. But, the fashion world offered a nugget of hope. Agnes Drecoll was in desperate need of a short-term mannequin, and Lucie was everything she could have hoped for. As someone who is gorgeous, ambitious, and who walks like a goddess, she gained fame and a type of freedom that most mannequins had never known before: the ability to freelance for different brands as her own reputation grew. Lucie worked her way up the Mt. Olympus of French fashion, from Hermes, to Jacques Fath, to Zeus himself--Christian Dior.

Lucky became Dior's muse. He once said "that to design a dress on Lucky was to be granted a constant source of inspiration." As he preferred to design clothing by draping fabric on live models, we can only imagine how many iconic Dior looks started out in a brainstorming session with Lucky. Le sigh....

Lucky and Dior; Here

She eventually quit modeling to start a rights group for other women in the mannequin profession. Sadly, she was diagnosed with a rapid-growing cancer in her early 40s. The pain kept her in bed most of the time, but she insisted on dressing and attending her birthday party. She died two days later.

The funeral was quite an event. It took place at the Church of St. Pierre de Chaillot in Paris, the same church that had hosted Dior's and Fath's funerals previously. The guests included dozens of models, seamstresses, and fashion delivery girls, as well as the bankers (and their wives)--the trendsetters of Paris fashion. Lucky was dressed in a red satin evening gown, embellished with jet and pearls, that Dior made for her as a parting gift when she resigned. It was a melancholy day, perhaps made more so for those who remembered the closing line from Lucky's book: "Fashion moves us because it dies so young."

*Information obtained from: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19630723&id=BRUmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=d1IDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7061,1648724