One last vintage coat...then Winter gets the boot!

Early last month, when I was still starry-eyed over all the beautiful snow we'd been getting in Minnesota, I posted a few of my 9 vintage coats with a promise to share more of them soon. 

Well, even though Minnesota winters last forever, my excitement over the cold & snow and wool sweaters & coats faded very quickly.  We've had 52 inches of snow in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area so far this season, with another 25" or so expected to fall between now and April - and I've had more than enough of this white stuff for one year! 

But before I give Winter the boot...let me just show you one more fabulous vintage coat that I found...

I'm acting a little giddy modeling this coat partly because I'm seeing sunlight shining through my kitchen windows after a long streak of dreary, overcast days!

What intrigued me most about the coat were the unusual fur-trimmed bell sleeves, which gives it a bit of a Victorian look.

The fur on the sleeves and collar is so soft and cozy.  I believe that it's  mouton fur - which is "a high-grade lambskin that’s specially processed to mimic the density and radiance of sheared beaver or mink fur." Most commonly mouton fur was dyed to a chocolate brown, like my coat - but it was also dyed in other shades, including white.

One thing I don't like about the sleeves is that they are oddly about an inch too short, as you can see in my photos. I'm pretty sure that I don't have unusually long arms, so I don't get it.  

Was this look intentional? maybe to show off gloves? - or was this coat simply meant for a much shorter woman (I'm 5 ft. 5 in.)?  I know that the trend in the mid-to-late 50's was to push long coat sleeves up on the arm to three-quarter's length.  But that doesn't make much sense with this style.  Any thoughts?

Okay, enough about the flaws!  Back to why I adore this coat..   I love the double-button detail.  The buttons match the chocolate brown coat perfectly, and have pretty gold lucite centers.

        

I've mentioned this before - I think that vintage clothing labels are so beautiful!  And this coat has three lovely labels:  "Friess Original", "Forstmann 100% Virgin Wool", and "Brucewood - Maurice L Rothschild - Young-Quinlan Co."

There's a wonderful guide to clothing labels on the Vintage Fashion Guild site, which is a big help in dating vintage clothing. The guide includes quite an extensive A-Z list of label samples, and my "Forstmann 100% Virgin Wool" label was noted as being found on an early 1950's dress.

Do you think this coat looks early 1950's? Or possibly late 1940's?  

In paging through my Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs from the 40's through the 50's, I didn't find any coats with a similar sleeve design - and just one coat in a 1950-51 Ward's catalog with a mouton collar of the very same shape. Maybe this shouldn't be a surprise, though. The Young-Quinlan Department Store sold a lot of higher-end designer fashions, and these sleeves might have been too unusual for the average Sears and Ward's customer.

Back of card: Young Quinlan, 901 Nicollet Mall, combines the decor of old world elegance with the most famous names in apparel for both men and women. This Twin Cities landmark also offers a gourmet galley, exquisite home furnishings gift shop and the well-known Fountain Room restaurant.

Here is an early 1960s postcard of the Young-Quinlan building, erected in downtown Minneapolis in 1926.  (Postcard courtesy of  Remembering Great American Department Stores.)

The building is still there, but the Young Quinlan department store, where my coat was originally purchased in the 50's, sadly went out of business in 1985 after a 59-year run.  The store's founder Elizabeth Quinlan (1863-1947) had been in the retail fashion business since the 1890's. She was the first merchant to sell ready-to-wear clothing west of the Mississippi. A fascinating woman, The Saturday Evening Post did a four-page spread on her in 1927, and in the mid-1930's Fortune magazine named her one of the country's top businesswomen.

Here's a pert little Mabel Ellsworth brown hat, ca. 1940's, that would probably have gotten Miss Quinlan's approval.  Isn't it sweet?  This was another estate sale find this past summer.

Unfortunately, my mannequin looks much better in it than I do, so I'll probably be selling it next year after I've squeezed every last bit of enjoyment from it...

Ta Da!  So that's it - we're done with Winter now...

From this point on, even if it's 10 degrees below zero outside, in this blog it's going to start feeling like Spring...

...beginning with a song from the 1945 film musical, State Fair:  Rodgers & Hammerstein's "It Might As Well Be Spring."  The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year.

Shirley Jones in Oklahoma - photo by J. R. Eyerman

In this 1950's video clip from The Danny Thomas Show, it's sung by the lovely and talented Shirley Jones.

I grew up knowing Shirley Jones as Keith, Laurie and Danny Partridge's mom in the early 1970's Partridge Family television show.  But before that, she had an amazing career as singer and actress, starring in the wonderful film musicals Oklahoma (1955), Carousel (1956) and The Music Man (1962).

Happy (it might as well be) Spring!  Enjoy...

It Might As Well Be Spring

Lyrics by: Oscar Hammerstein II
Music by: Richard Rodgers
From the Film: State Fair 1945

I'm as restless as a willow in a windstorm, I'm as jumpy as a puppet on a string
I'd say that I had spring fever, but I know it isn't spring
I am starry eyed and vaguely discontented, like a nightingale without a song to sing
O why should I have spring fever, when it isn't even spring

I keep wishing I were somewhere else, walking down a strange new street
Hearing words that I've never heard from a man I've yet to meet
I'm as busy as spider spinning daydreams, spinning spinning daydreams
I'm as giddy as a baby on a swing

I haven't seen a crocus or a rosebud, or a robin on the wing
But I feel so gay in a melancholy way, that it might as well be spring.
It might as well be spring.