Eaton's Garter Waists (1939-40)


Figure 1.-- Eaton's offered garter waists in its 1939-40 French-language Fall-Winter catalog. T. Eaton is Canada's most important department store and mail-order catalog. The garter waist here was done in sizes 2-14?. (The image is cropped. We see 2-12, but think that there was also a size 14.)

Eaton's offeres garter waists in its 1939-40 French-language Fall-Winter catalog. I at first thought this was a suspender waist, but a HBC reader tells us that garter waist is a more accurate description. T. Eaton is Canada's most important department store and mail-order catalog. This gartetr waist were done in sizes 2-14?. (The image is cropped. We see 2-12, but think that there was also a size 14.) All we can make out is that the waist was was only done in white ("blanc seulement". I am not sure what the French term for garter waists was. It is labeled a "Genre harna... " (Unfortunately the last fews letters are cut off.) The ad copy mentions buttons (boutons). I see several on the attached illustration. The model used to illustrate the catalog is a girl. We are not sure to what extent boys would have worn these waists. We do know that long stockings continued to be worn in Canada a little longer than in the United States. They seem to have been more popular among French-Canadians than English-Canadians.

Eatons

T. Eaton is Canada's most important department store and mail-order catalog. This Canadian retailer began publishing mailorder catalogs in 1881, at least that is we begin noticing them. We have catalogs from the 1970s, although we do not know about the company's current status. The 1970s catalgs were full of clothes which look like American styles. Timothy Eaton, founder of the huge all-Canadian department store chain bearing his name, was an Irish immigrant born on a tennant farm in northern Ireland. He was born in 1834 and followed his brothers to Canada in 1854

French-language Catalogs

Most of the Eaton's catalogs we have found are English-language catalogs. We have found some French-lanuage material showing that Eaton's did publish French-language catalogs. These would have been primarily distributed in Quebec. What we do not know if if these were simple translations of the English catalogs or was there a difference in the mdrchandise offered.

Garment Terminology

Eaton's offeres garter waists in its 1939-40 French-language Fall-Winter catalog. I at first thought this was a suspender waist, but a HBC reader tells us that garter waist is a more accurate description. We are not precisely sure what the French terms were for these and similar garments. A HBC reader offers fukller insights. "Although you refer to this garment as a it as a "suspender waist," this is not really the correct terminology. The suspenders do not hold up trousers. This is in fact a Canadian " garter waist"--a later version of what was originally called the "Dr. Parker Waist". See the Eaton ad for this from the 1910s."

Garter Waists

This category applies to a broad variety of devices for holding up long stockings. Theoretically it would apply to any garment worn on the upper body used for this purpose (including underwaists, pantywaists, and suspender waists). But HBC uses the term to apply specifically to waists with hose supporters already attached, even though in some cases these supporters are detachable. Most of these garments are designed to have the strain of the garters carried by the child’s shoulders. Some have waistbands and some do not, but all are worn under the outer clothing and therefore as a species of children’s underwear. One of the first such garments we notice was in the Sears 1902 catalog Sears refers to a "combination belt and supporter, but the garment was essentially a garter waist. The use of different terms somewhat complicates the assessment if the garments. Interestingly, even when the wearing of long stockings was supposedly declining in the late 1930s and early 1940s, a proliferation of styles of garter waist became very prominent in the Sears and Wards catalogs of this period. We have more different styles for this period than for any other on HBC. A good example is the Sears 1939 garter waists.

Garter Waists in Canada

The tradition of garter waists in Canada is quite old. Notice the Eaton waist advertized in 1901, there referred to as the Lindsey" or GHI waist. Fundamentally, its construction is similar to this one although the location of the hose supporters is somewhat different." We also notice a "Dr. Parker" waist in Eaton's 1914 catlog. We do not know if these brand names were also promoted in the French-language catalogs.

Brand Names

Sears in the United States used the term "Daisy" garter waist. This was the Sears version of the Dr. Parker style waist in 1939. The term "Dr. Parker" was used by Eaton and by Wards, but the Sears equivalent was called "Daisy". Notice that in the Sears Daisy garter waist the placement of the hose supporters at the sides (over the hips) rather than in front as in the Canadian model for the same year.

Long Stockings in Canada

An important purpose for gater waists was to hold up long stockings. We do know that long stockings continued to be worn in Canada a little longer than in the United States. They seem to have been more popular among French-Canadians than English-Canadians.

Actual Garment

Some information is available from the Eaton's ad copy. The garter waist offered was done in sizes 2-14?. (The image is cropped. We see 2-12 in the ad copy, but think that there was also a size 14.) A reader writes, "I agree that the upper age limit is probably 14 rather than 12. The ad copy reads "...10, 12 a 14" (I believe)-- i.e. ages ". . . 10, 12, up to 14" ("a" can mean "up to and including"). Here the Canadians would probably be the same as the Americans in regard to age sizing. All we can make out is that the waist was was only done in white ("blanc seulement". I am not sure what the French term for garter waists was. It is labeled a "Genre harna... " (Unfortunately the last fews letters are cut off.) A reader believes that the full phrase must have been "Genre harnais a jarretièrres". The phrase means "harness-style garter waist" in French. Checking in French dictionaries, I'm quite sure this is the correct term in French. I'm not sure because of the spacing that this full term was used here. I suspect that there were other garter waists shown in the ad. Or, it is just possible that the title was "Genre harnais" with "a jarretièrres" implied.

Gender

The model used to illustrate the catalog is a girl. We are not sure to what extent boys would have worn these waists. A reader writes, "The fact that the model is a girl does not indicate that it was only for girls because boys also wore these waists. And they would have been especially prominent in Quebec where long stockings were more commonly worn than in the non-French parts of the country."

Construction

The ad copy mentions buttons (boutons". I see several on the attached illustration. A reader writes, "There is one peculiarity of this waist that we have not so far seen in other models--namely the presence of two buttons on the hose supporters themselves rather than on the waist band, which was the more usual location for extra buttons. These buttons are placed rather low for holding up outer clothing. I think they are for bloomers or underpants. One wonders if there were additional buttons somewhere in back See the Sears ad for the same year, 1939, for Hose Supporters and Suspenders, which shows us the equivalent of this waist worn by a boy but with different placement of the buttons." There is another interesting difference here from the American garter waists--namely the width of the shoulder straps and hose supporters. A reader writes, "This version seems to be somewhat stronger and more substantial in construction, perhaps an indication that Candadian mothers wanted garter waists to last longer and survive hard use by boys and girls."







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Created: 11:32 PM 5/3/2005
Last updated: 3:35 AM 5/10/2005