Tea at Trianon: The Great American Knits of 1965

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, March 9, 2019

The Great American Knits of 1965

From Smithsonian:

On a recent trip to visit my family in Delaware I dropped off my overnight bag in my childhood bedroom and found a stack of papers and books my mother had left on my bureau that belonged to my grandmother. As I sorted through the pile of 1950s barbecue how-to booklets, 1970s Valentine’s Day cards and other miscellany, I found this gem of an advertisement from the New York Times, August 29, 1965, “The Great American Knits Fall 1965.” How timely with the first fall chill in the air! Printed on newsprint, the 20-plus-page advertising supplement showcased DuPont’s newest synthetic fibers via a catalog of sweaters.

Orlon! Dacron! Antron! Following on the heels of the nylon’s invention in the late 1930s (in my hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, no less!) forever changing women’s hosiery, these pseudo-space-age-sounding textiles made from DuPont fibers also transformed the way we dressed. When Orlon acrylic, Dacron polyester and Antron nylon, the branded names DuPont gave to these synthetic fibers, were first available, the company went to great lengths to target Parisian couturiers who incorporated them into their runway designs in the 1950s. Then, with marketing campaigns like this one, Orlon, Dacron and Antron hit the ready-to-wear knitwear market in the 1960s. (Read more.)