The papers had the dingy look of age, throwaways that someone no longer wanted. I could see that even before I got to the stacked sheets at the end of the auction table. But as I approached them, I saw that they showed drawings that looked far better than the papers that held them.
The black and white drawing on top showed three women with tight waists wearing full flowing dresses, puffed no doubt by petticoats. Peeking from beneath the sheet, I could see parts of other articles of clothing.
I slid the first sheet from the top and saw another drawing and then another and then another. The papers bore original designs of shoes, hats, lengthy fur coats worn by elegant women in stylized poses. I suspected that they were newspaper-ad illustrations for long-gone department stores.
There was a time when ad departments in newspapers had illustrators on staff who created works of art from clothes and other merchandise waiting to be sold at department stores. Some stores presumably had their own staff of illustrators.
Only two of the illustrations on the auction table gave me a hint of their origin. At the top of one was handwritten “Strawbridge Clothier,” a major department store in Philadelphia that no longer exists. Another was signed Patsi Littlejohn, and another simply Patsi. These original drawings looked to be from the 1940s and 1950s.
This was not the first time I’d come across newspaper fashion illustrations at auction. Some years ago, another auction house offered a grouping of them. Another time, the same auction house sold a lot of non-newspaper advertising art that featured African American images.
But these current illustrations were perhaps the loveliest (even though a lot of folks were not living the life they were advertising), and this lot was much larger. I was enamored just as much with the clothes as the history of the illustrations. I was not the only one. When the illustrations came up for bids, a number of auction-goers were both hovering and bidding.
Here’s a sample of what enticed us all:
