Wonderful Weigel's

I've been obsessed with Weigel's patterns for awhile now. It began with my first Weigel's pattern, found at my local Salvos a few years back...a rather smart men's waistcoat.

 

Since then I've been avidly seeking out Weigel's patterns. I'm gradually cataloguing as many as I can find on the Vintage Patterns Wiki. When I began there were around 20 or so Weigel's listed...now there are over 700! Still, I believe that in the lifetime of the Weigel's company, 1880 - late 1960s, approximately 10,000 patterns were made. I've got a long way to go!

Madame Weigel's Journal of Fashion, published up until 1950, is a great source of Weigel's patterns too. I've been collecting them for a little while now, the next step is to find some time to go through them all and scan the patterns for the Wiki. The other amazing source for Weigel's patterns are the scarce-as-hens-teeth Weigel's pattern catalogues. I'm the proud owner of ONE.

 

These were published at least quarterly...where have they all ended up? I've seen evidence of past sales on eBay, before I was collecting. I tracked down a beautiful, fragile 1920s catalogue to the State Library of South Australia. I had to request to view it, then register as a user for their special collections room where they presented it to me in a cardboard folder. Scanning was not an option as the pages were too fragile, so I spent two afternoons painstakingly photographing each tiny garment image. Nearly needed a stretcher after hunching over the table for all those hours. I'm yet to find the time to upload and edit all those photos, then to add them to the Wiki, but here's a sneak preview of the cover.

And another recent discovery was that the National Library of Australia has several original Weigel's catalogues and magazines. Digital copies can be requested online and are reasonably priced, delivered via email as a lovely scanned file. I ordered two catalogues from 1953 and was delighted to see this gorgeous cover appear on my computer screen.

So, I have many hundreds of hours work to do on the Wiki! Oh, and if you ever find an original Weigel's catalogue in your travels, you'll know who to tell.