# 21592

ATLAS MILLS (NEW YORK)

[HAUTE COUTURE FABRIC SAMPLES] Fall 1929 broad silks.

$350.00 AUD

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New York : Atlas Mills, 200 Madison Ave., 1929. Small folio portfolio (305 x 230 mm), original cloth backed textured papered boards (faded and scuffed), housing two sample cards (by Chas. Green Co., New York) with a total of 72 vibrantly coloured silks; a few pencilled annotations (presumably made by a sales representative) and some minor handling marks to the edges of the cards, otherwise in fine condition – a simply dazzling array of haute couture silk samples with colours across the entire palette.

Atlas Mills employed a talented wordsmith to come up with a set of names for the colours of their Fall 1929 silk range. From the noble and classic (Jeanne D’Arc; Ondine; Castillian; Dauphine Blue; Nile) to the romantic, daring and exotic (Pandora; Midnight; Brown Sugar; Maracaibo; Goya; Independence; Passion Flower), to the nonchalant and informal (Chin Chin; Brioche; Meadow Sweet; Mother Goose), and the apt and topical (Byrd Blue; Navigator; Pilot), they are all wonderfully evocative. The irony is, of course, that the Wall Street stock market crash which heralded the Great Depression occurred precisely in the middle of Fall 1929 – even as the couturiers to the women of New York’s high society were selecting from this beautiful range of new silks.