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No Accounting for Taste

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  • Saybury display in a Madison, Wisconsin store, 1944
  • Evelyn Pearson was born Evelyn Brown in Tennessee in 1909. Pearson was not a married name but an adopted one; her mother Leona split with her father some time after 1910 in 1918 married a wealthy lumberman. She went to college in Georgia and eloped with a law student at the age of 19, but that union didn’t stick and she moved to New York in the early 1930s. . Her first foray into fashion was at Russeks department store, who had posted a modeling job for a southern college graduate for some reason, and Evelyn thought she’d have little competition for such a specific request. “There must have been at least 500 girls there,” she later recalled, but she won the job, modeling the new French imports. In 1936 she went to Saybury, again to model but found she had a knack for fashion and soon her duties included design and sales. She stayed at Saybury until 1944 when she left to lead merchandising for Textron’s new housecoat line. . Here, Saybury housecoats from 1939, 1942 and 1943, showing a transition from glamour to wartime practicality. // #1940sfashion #saybury #evelynpearson #fashionhistory
  • (4/4) Around 1947, Louise Mulligan joined Carlye, where she would stay for the next few years. She had remarried in 1941 but continued to work as Louise Mulligan until at least 1954, when it appears she mostly retired from design as the paper trail goes cold. Here are a few of my favorite illustrations from the time she was at Carlye: 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, and two from fall 1952. // #1950sfashion #vintageillustration
  • (3/4) After the death of her mother and through the ensuing chaos of her father’s life and death, Louise Norton lived with her aunt Mary Cartwright, who owned her own firm, Cartwright Dress Co. Louise found success early after working for her aunt’s company as a designer, giving her the confidence to leave Cartwright and start her own label in Chicago in 1935 at just 24 years old. She was briefly married at 18 and acquired the surname Mulligan, which she used throughout her professional career. Louise Mulligan dresses were extremely popular in the 1930s among college age girls and she became something of a local celebrity in the midwest. Over the next decade she worked for various firms in the midwest and New York, including that of her sister and brother-in-law, Joan and John Irwin (though Joan also became a well known designer in her own right). She was even hired at Townley in 1939 to start a new junior division, just months before Henry Geiss dissolved the business following the ruinous success of Claire McCardell’s monastic dress. Here, a sampling of Louise’s clippings from 1934-36. // #fashionhistory #1930sfashion
  • (2/4) About a year after her mother’s death, Louise gained a stepmother. Adrienne Epping was a local sportswoman from Hood River who, like John, was a member of the automobile club (she drove a Chevrolet) and a tennis champion. She was the first woman to swim across the Columbia River. Adrienne was also a skilled horsewoman, ice skater, and was working on getting her pilot’s license. In 1926, Louise’s sister Joan married John Irwin in Minneapolis and the couple moved to Los Angeles. It was in their Beverly Hills home where John Norton, who was visiting his daughter from Portland, died suddenly in 1927, reportedly found in the bathtub. Adrienne, who was competing in a tennis tournament at the time, never recovered from her grief. She continued to compete in sporting events until June the following year, when she won an event of the Portland Hunt Club (pictured), retired to her hotel suite and, still wearing her riding habit, consumed enough cyanide to end her life. She was described posthumously as “erratic and brilliant.” Louise, meanwhile… check in tomorrow for the rest of her story.
  • (1/4) In the early 1950’s, Carlye’s head designer in the Midwest was Louise Mulligan, who joined the firm around 1947. When she was two, Louise and her sister moved with their parents from Minnesota to Hood River, Oregon, where her father John Norton was vice president of Hood River Apple Vinegar Company. The family was active socially and philanthropically in the area, and were maybe among the first in their community to own a car—John registered a Dodge in October of 1916. Tragically, this car killed Louise’s mother Helen in 1919, when, as they drove home from the theater in Portland, the vehicle struck a rock and John lost control, plunging the car over the side of a bridge into the Sandy River. John was able to escape, but Helen, wearing a heavy coat and possibly knocked out by the impact, drowned in the river. The girls were sent to live with their aunt back in Minneapolis during the school year, and their father remarried soon after their mother’s death. Here, Louise in 1936 and (swipe) the aftermath of the 1919 accident. To be continued…
  • We’ve made it through Physical Distance Week 2! How is everybody doing? Flattening that curve? One of the many things I’m looking forward to is regular visits to my local grocery (shoutout to @coopportunitymarketdeli and all the farmers, store workers and delivery drivers making it possible to stay safe at home). For this imaginary trip to the store, I’m wearing an early 1950s windowpane plaid flannel dress by Carlye, technically a “junior” dress but 🤷🏻‍♀️ Carlye was a junior label out of St. Louis, established in 1938 by Carl Glaser and his wife Ruth. St. Louis was a major center for this burgeoning junior dress business at this time (thanks in part to Washington University School of Fine Arts), and Carlye was one of the largest and most well-known houses. In the early 1950s, Louise Mulligan served as Carlye’s head designer in the Midwest, with Margot McClintock in New York. More on Louise to follow… Original image source unknown, found via library of Congress // #ootd #carlye #vintagefashion #1950sfashion #truevintageootd #vintagestyle
  • “New view on Red, White and Navy Blue—the classic spring color scheme given a 1950 twist. The suit, dressed for travel here, has this year’s straighter skirt and tailored jacket, with a narrow belt added, a chiffon helmet, a tulip tucked in one pocket. Suit, by Sacony, in Palm Beach cloth. $22.50.” Photo by Richard Avedon for Harper’s Bazaar, April 1950. // #1950sfashion #avedon #vintagepalette
  • “The strict line melts into motion—in soft Stonecutter tissue faille with a gently shirred bodice,” reads the ad copy from a 1951 newspaper describing today’s dress. Navy blue for spring, with a thrifted linen blazer, my favorite poodle belt and an I Voted sticker. Dress from @victorygirlvintage 💙 // #ootd #truevintageootd #clairemccardell #1950sfashion #vintagestyle

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My name is Jessica, and I love old things. I wear, collect, research and sometimes sell vintage clothing. This is some documentation along the way.

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No Accounting For Taste is a personal blog of Jessica Parker. All words and original photographs are copyright Jessica Parker, 2007-2018