The Sun – Annual for Girls 1973,“Sewing it in STYLE” article by Glynis Holland

To carry on the theme of teen girls, sewing and the Seventies, as seen in my contribution Of Course You Can Sew! by Barbara Corrigan, here is an article in The Sun Annual for Girls 1973, which was one of a batch of three girls’ annuals from the early 1970s which I owned very briefly in the latter half of the last decade before promptly giving them away in a house move and fortunately decided to photograph some of the more interesting pages while they were still in my possession. Some are regrettably out-of-focus, but this article is luckily pin-sharp and the front cover, too, with the stunning photograph of the model wearing a timelessly stylish outfit, which makes one wonder if one is looking at something approaching half-a-century old, as I write this, with the The Sun masthead in similarly timeless Univers, along with the rest of the text on the front cover.

Although I have talked of things ‘timeless’ there is something so ‘Seventies’ about the Bookman Swash and Ringlet heading of the article, with body text set in Univers. Indeed, thinking of ringlets puts me very much in mind of the women’s hairstyles of the period, which revived the ringlets of Regency times, which themselves had been inspired by Ancient Greece and Rome and which was also reflected in the architecture of the time, where Regency-inspired blown glass windows set in small frames were all the rage in new housing developments. It appears that, in that year, Valérie Čižmárová herself had felt those influences over the former iron curtain in Czechoslovakia in time for the photo-shoot with Vilém Sochůrek for her singles sleeves from 1974 to 1977, having her hair done with a distinctive ringlet, in her case lending a new ‘twist’ by having it done only on one side!

Regarding the article itself, it draws the reader’s attention to a particularly notable name on the fashion scene at the time, Danish-born Margit Brandt, described as ‘second only to Mary Quant’ at one time in her Wikipedia entry. Unfortunately, information on the writer of the article, Glynis Holland, is not so forthcoming!

It is very useful that actual pattern reference numbers are mentioned in the article, so I have managed to track some of those down. First, the Butterick pattern 6362, where our 'old friend’, Bookman (with swash) appears to be in evidence again! Second, the Vogue patterns 8168 and 8154, where Cooper Black (also with swash) can be seen. In the case of Vogue pattern 8154, it’s very strange for the Valérie Čižmárová fan that I am to see one of the illustrations showing an outfit in yellow with a hood attached, like she wore for a front cover of the teenagers’ magazine Ahoj na sobotu (“Hi There On Saturday”) in the preceding year, as can be seen at the Valérie Čižmárová: A Life In Pictures page of my fan Blog, Bananas For Breakfast. I do wonder sometimes if she might have been a ‘wizz’ with a needle and thread and had somehow come by that Vogue pattern 8154 in Czechoslovakia!

To continue with the theme of fashions as worn by Valérie Čižmárová and to return to the probably (but not definitely) Margit Brandt-designed Butterick pattern 6362, if one takes a look at that pattern for a ‘long shorts’ hemline, as modelled both in the photograph taken in front of the vintage car and on the pattern’s packaging I do get the same sense of feminine attractiveness as seen both in the second of the aforementioned Vilém Sochůrek photographs – very briefly, with the scalloped hemline just visible to the left of Valérie Čižmárová's upper right arm! – and in Vladivoj Burjanek’s rear cover shot for Valérie Čižmárová’s album of 1975.

To bring these remarks to a close, it’s a great pity that I cannot give any credits for the photography, so if anybody can fill in those details please do so in the comments.