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Retro Color Palettes Straight from 1968

And here I bring you a fun little blog post I worked on for a few days... a late 1960s color palette story!

You can thank Timehop for making me remember that a book I have on my shelf has a really cool page of color suggestions in the 1960s for dress design.

The book is "The Co-Ed Sewing Book" by Marian Ross which was apparently published in 1968. (See below image.)


It's taken a bit of a beating, and upon further inspection, it appears that my mom may have stolen it from a library when she was a kid (haha). There is evidence that there was a library log card envelope on the back page. So, thank you mom for stealing this book all those years ago so it can reside in my collection!

If you haven't had the chance to run into this book yourself, it is chock-full with beginner sewing information: from the absolute basics, like choosing colors for you and making fashion work for you, to measurements, talking about thread basics, cutting procedures, as well as seam finishes, pressing, and helping you essentially design your own handmade wardrobe.

This book is littered with super-cute illustrations like this:


Or this:


My favorite page that I took a photo of three years ago (and then saw on Timehop this past week) was of the color suggestions. If you didn't have an idea of which colors would go well together, this book basically had it's own retro color forecast in it for you. The page itself is very bland and uninspiring but I instantly could see the color palettes in my mind while I was on the train one evening.


Those color palettes were so vivid, that I took it upon myself to create a set of seven boards based on this page, incorporating the illustrations that randomly appear in the book.

Have a look and see which retro colors you love the most all put together! Perhaps it will inspire your next sewing project.











Comments

  1. These are fabulous and what cute illustrations! The dark brown and navy palettes are my favourites.

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