FASHION: The shirtdress - decades of a popular classic
By Janice Ferguson
The shirtdress has made an impact on women’s golf and mainstream fashion since the early 1900s. The comfort, ease and versatility of shirtdresses get credit for its age-defying status on designers’ sketchpads.
Popular again for the 2008 spring and summer seasons, it is worth a walk back in time to see how the shirtdress has managed to find such staying power.
According to the Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion, the shirtdress, also called the shirtwaist, began as a cotton nurse’s uniform at around the turn of the 20th century and continued in this mode into World War I, where it became the uniform for the Red Cross and other organizations needing practical, washable clothing for their female workers.
The silhouette was becoming on many body shapes, and could be cinched in at the waist with a belt or left loosely fitted. It was this flexible styling that created post-war enthusiasm for wearing the shirtdress for active sports.
By the 1920s, occasional sports dresses based on the shirtdress, but not using the name, were adopted for golf and tennis. In 1926, retailer Best & Co. promoted its shirtmaker frocks for sports. They were made of cotton and were able to be monogrammed.
As a fashion, the shirtdress hit its stride in the 1930s, in large part because of the upscale men’s shirt manufacturer, the McMullen Co. of New York. The company, attempting to overcome the falling market in fine men’s shirts during the Depression, introduced a line of shirt frocks for women in 1935. The frocks were two-piece cotton, linen, or lightweight wool dresses, with choices of either skirts or culottes — the skort’s beginning — that looked like shirts.
Another influence on the shirtdress style was designer Claire McCardell (1905-1958), who is known as the creator of women’s sportswear.
A 1928 graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York, McCardell became the first designer to use zippers, popularize leotards, wear tweed evening coats and put spaghetti straps on evening gowns.
After World War II, when American women sought versatile, comfortable, practical and affordable apparel, and no longer wished to be dependent on Paris couture, McCardell answered this desire. She introduced clothing that fit into her own active lifestyle as a skier, golfer and traveler. She originated mix-and-match separates, pedal-pushers, bareback summer dresses, strapless swimsuits and feminine denim fashion.
The 1930s also began the breakdown of rigid distinctions between morning wear, tea gowns and dinner dresses, making it possible for women to dress once for the whole day. A jacket could be worn over a top with skirt or a casual dress for a morning walk, lunch with friends, to the golf club, and then back home for a cocktail gathering without having to change clothes or look unsuitable for any of those activities.
This one outfit a day concept is also cited as the reason female golfers always wore skirts, jackets and dresses, and did not convert to the more practical slacks or pants for the sport until much later in the century. It was a fashion trend based on social life, not athleticism.
Women’s magazines from the 1930s and into the 1940s referred to the shirtdress simply as the “button-down-the-front-style” or, more vaguely, the “sports dress” even as they acknowledged that it had become a classic of American style. In a very early version, Simplicity offered a shirtmaker sewing pattern in 1937, but The Ladies Home Journal did not consistently use the name in its articles and advertising until sometime around 1941, when Best & Co. called its dress a “golfer” that same year.
The 1950s and early 1960s brought full-skirted versions of the shirtdress to street fashion, and became the outfit of choice for the American housewife. It is probably safe to say that the advent of television and shows like “Ozzie & Harriett” and “I Love Lucy” helped vault the poofy, not terribly flattering style into most women’s wardrobes.
Knee-length skirts, some with inverted kick pleats that allowed more ease of movement, worn with tailored shirts and sweaters were gaining popularity. Bermuda shorts hitting just above the knee and worn with knee socks were the sportswear darlings, and became preferred garments for both men and women at that time.
But the new styles didn’t mean the shirtdress would be relegated to the back of the closet. For six years during the 1970s, fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg supplied women who were torn between wearing mini skirts and dresses or pants with a practical, comfortable, flattering alternative —the wrap dress, which mimicked the shirtdress without the buttons. The dress was moderate length, made of Italian fine cotton jersey, and usually printed in a bright floral or geometric pattern against white.
Before the fad played itself out, Von Furstenberg’s company had sold more than 300,000 of the dresses at around $70 each — a price considered expensive enough to act as a status symbol in those days. For a few years in the 1980s Von Furstenberg focused her attention on other design avenues, but thankfully had successful plans to bring back the wrap dress in 1989, and its popularity hasn’t slowed since.
A wrap shirtdress is not considered conducive for playing golf in, but today’s lifestyle designers are using more practical details like zippers and beautifully crafted snaps that give female golfers a dress that’s sporty yet feminine. Today’s designs are a throwback to the shirtdresses original beginning, in that it can functionally be worn on and off the course. Modern fabrics add the mobility necessary to swing clubs, and various styles of thin fitted shorts can be worn underneath a shirtdress for comfort and obvious modesty.
They say what goes around, comes around. In the case of the shirtdress, it’s a style that has stood the test of time and just stayed around.
