Lessons in Class: The 1961 Spiegel Catalog

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (7)

Seventies fashions were funky, eighties fashions were rad, but fashions from the early sixties were straight-up class.  John F. Kennedy was the US President, and the First Lady was the fashion plate by which all Western women were measured. The 1961 Fall & Winter Spiegel Catalog contains page after page of fashions that Jackie would have almost certainly approved of.  For me, looking through these dusty pages is bittersweet – it’s a treat to look into styles of the past, yet it’s also a little sad to note that this level of elegance, class and indefinable mid-century optimism has somehow been lost along the way.

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (4)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (5)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (6)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (8)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (19)

“You are now Chic”

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (23)

“Delightfully Debteen”

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (33)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (31)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (35)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (25)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (37)

“You… a shapely SWEATER GIRL”

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (39)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (49)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (56)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (58)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (61)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (65)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (62)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (63)

Spiegel Catalog 1961 (60)

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