Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Deutsche Moden-Zeitung, Verlag Otto Beyer

I found one! Funny how when you know what to look for you find it. On a bike ride along what once was part of the Berlin Wall, there was a flea market. Just a quick walk through produced this magazine:
It is in fragile condition, but it is in its entirety meaning, the pattern is included. 

First some history before we take a small tour and I point out somethings that are very different from how we do things today.

First note that unlike the black and white DDR copy, this one is Verlag Otto Beyer, Leipzig-Berlin This woman's magazine, Deutsche Moden-Zeitung was published between the years 1886 to 1944 The circulation in 1939 was 110,195 copies.  This one is issue number 3 and it says that the magazine in it's 41st year of publication. The year does not match the 1886 start date, but there were mergers to this magazine which might account for this. The year is 1931/32 and the cost for the issue was 50 pfennigs. Using United States inflation figures makes this a $7.30 magazine in today's dollars. Not a bad price for all of those patterns.

Just like the French Magazines I have collected, this one is done in the same manner. the difference between the two appears to be the number of patterns included. Just about every drawing for a pattern you see is included. 

My favorite pattern is this one:
The one to the left to be more specific, although the one on the right is just as nice.

Now here is where the French magazine differs from the German one. Here is the pattern sheet. (Shown below is a different dress, the one I like is on the inside and I do not want to unfold the pattern sheet more than I have to.)

On the left column is the drawing for the dress you might want to sew and all of the parts you will need to trace off are listed. I still have to work out the sizes. It is not clear like the French magazine, but I will figure it out. Fist I have to stumble over the old German. It makes reading it a bit hard for me.
Now for the pattern page itself:
Does your head hurt yet? I know mine does. Far more busy than the French ones. But,this makes sense as there are so many more patterns included in the issue.

Now what about the rest of this issue? Well, there was an article that caught my eye that I thought was interesting. After WWI, Germany went through a period (June 1921 to January 1924) of hyper inflation. They had already suffered the loss of WWI and were now paying large monetary costs for war reparations. In reading about it, it makes the United States Great depression sound like a cake walk. I can imagine that people became very frugal during those times and that thought process was still with them in everyday life in the 1930s. So what is a thrifty sewer to do? In today's world, you can see all of the ideas on Pinterest and there are books out about refashioning out right now as well as lots of blog ideas. Here are some from The Renegade Seamstress. Just page through, there are all types of ideas.

Now lets look at 1931 post-WWI Germany and see what the  thrifty sewer did. She raided her husband, brother or Father's closet! You need a new ski jacket? No problem and the upper right in picture pattern is included, you just need to make a small modification of a pattern in this issue. They even included what type of coat you are looking for to make this jacket.
Lastly, before we leave this issue, if you need to order any of Verlag Otto Beyer's books, here is the listing 
Left in the picture above is the post card for ordering the magazine. I have always wanted to fill on in and see what happens. Oh, and delivery to the house will cost you an extra 5 pfennigs.
Here is the second page of publications you can order:
When I bought this magazine I also got 2 others. The vendor had 3 of them and gave me a good price for all of them together so I bought them. Once I investigate when they were published  you will get to see those too.

I have linked up with My Salvaged Treasures

4 comments:

  1. Great post, Jean, and what a treasure! I love the coats! When I was in high school, I remember hearing the stories from our neighbor, whose sister had lived in Germany during post-WWI inflation. They sold their bakery for what seemed like a huge price, then days later could barely buy bread with that money. I suppose that's how the family decided to emigrate to the US.

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  2. Love these old publications. Don't know how anyone ever figured out those patterns. I recently bought a Burda magazine because it said "pattern included" but it was almost as bad and I gave up easily. Love you posts

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  3. Isn't that cover lovely!!
    The picture of all the superimposed pattern lines actually made me gasp. Is there a way to hang it on a large window for a lightbox, to help you follow and trace only the lines you need?
    This post is giving me the incentive to get cracking: must clean my Featherweight and find the fabric to make my (extremely simple!) dress pattern.

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