If you’re a fan of vintage fashion, you’ve probably encountered the name Modes Royale—a pattern company that embodied the glamour and sophistication of the mid-century era. Renowned for their elegant, figure-flattering designs, Modes Royale patterns gave home seamstresses the opportunity to create runway-inspired looks straight from the pages of high fashion magazines.

In this post, we’ll take a brief look at the history of Modes Royale, showcase the distinctive fashion illustrations that set their patterns apart, and celebrate the enduring beauty that continues to captivate vintage fashion lovers today.

1950s Fashion: 1950s Fashion Illustration from Modes Royale sewing patterns featuring elegant evening gowns for women.

Image Description: 1950s Fashion Illustration from Modes Royale sewing patterns featuring elegant evening gowns for women.

Disclosure: Some of the links on my blog from Etsy , eBay are Affiliate Links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

NOTE: If you click on any of the items featured below and they are not available, don’t fret! Hit the search button and see what else is on the websites. There are 1000’s and 1000’s of items being listed daily.

Modes Royale Patterns-The History & The Fashion Illustrations

About Modes Royale:

Modes Royale Patterns (1940s through 1960s) was an American pattern company, at 253-255 Seventh Avenue, New York. In the 1950s Mode Royale featured French patterns by “Jardin des Modes“. Like other patterns companies, Modes Royale featured “Mother & Daughter” fashion, but keeping the same number, adding a C for the child version (Source).

Liz Note: I dug deep to try and find more information on this company and the blurb above is it. If any of my readers can supply a bit more info, please do in the comments section below. Thanks!

Who was Jardin des Modes?

1940s vintage magazine cover for 'Le jardin des modes' featuring a woman in a 1940s dress and 1940s hat. Year: 1947.

1947 Cover for le jardin des modes. Source: Etsy-VintageMagArchive

Le Jardin des Modes was a French language women’s fashion magazine published monthly in France between 1922 and 1997.

The magazine was first published in April 1922 as L’Illustration des Modes and aimed to a cutting edge group of fashion passionates. The founders were Lucien Vogel and his brother-in-law Michel de Brunhoff. It offered a mix of beautiful illustrations, pattern making examples and cooking recipes. In 1923 the magazine was acquired by Condé Nast.

Modes Royale Pattern Examples-The 1940s-1960s Fashions

Note: Several of the pattern’s featured below can be digitally downloaded to start making your own today!

Spring /Summer 1951 edition of Modes Royale pattern book featuring ‘Budget Design Patterns’. (Available as a digital download HERE)

1950s Fashion / 1950s Sewing Patterns: Spring /Summer 1951 edition of Modes Royale Pattern Book featuring 'Budget Design Patterns', beret patterns and free towel bathrobe pattern.

Inside the pattern book: “Playtimers” 1950s summer fashions for women featuring skirts and dresses that can come off to reveal a swimsuit or romper / playsuit. I have always been a big fan of these “2-1 fashions”.

1950s fashion: Women's playsuits from 1951 featuring detachable skirts and dresses. Fantastic 1950s summer fashion illustrations for women by Modes Royale patterns

Source: Etsy-vintage4me2

One more 1950s Summer playsuit sewing pattern illustration (“Summer Playmates”), because they are just so fantastic (avail as a digital download HERE)!

1950s Fashion Illustration / 1950s Sewing pattern illustration from Modes Royale for women's 1950s playsuits for the summer. Fantastic summer fashion inspiration and avail as a digital download to sew!

Source: Etsy-DontSassMe

Polka Dot’s for the win! Modes Royale Pattern Book Spring / Summer Edition 1953 (sold before I could go live with the post). Love the matching umbrella.

Further Reading: What to wear when it’s raining

1950s Fashion / 1950s vintage sewing patterns-Modes Royale Pattern Book Spring / Summer Edition 1953. The cover illustration features a woman in a 1950s dress with polka dots.

Source: Etsy-Passagems

Fall and Winter 1960s Modes Royale pattern book (24 pages) featuring stylish looks like these dresses and 2 piece suits for women (avail as a digital download here).

1960s Fashion / 1960s Sewing Pattern / Vintage Fashion Illustration as seen in a Fall / Winter 1960s Modes Royale Pattern Book page. Fantastic women's 1960s dresses & suits.

Source: Etsy-vintage4me2

I sure do love a good colour block dress, like the two 1940s dresses seen in this 1947 Spring / Summer sewing pattern fashion illustration. Also great hair on our lady on the left (so me!).

Further Reading: The Colour Block Fashions of the 1940s & 1950s

1940s Fashion: Spring/Summer Modes Royale catalogue sewing pattern fashion illustrations from 1947 featuring 1940s Color Block dresses.

I am currently rewatching Mad Men, and when Betty Draper showed up on my TV in this stunning 1950s colour block evening gown, I felt like I had seen something similar to it before. Please see the next image.

1950s Fashion as seen on Betty Draper from Mad Men-A 1950s Color Block Full skirt, evening gown.

Now they are NOT the exact same dress, but the skirt is almost the same in design (not colour) and the colour-blocking of the bodice and skirt is the same as Betty’s above. I am not sure if the dress in Mad Men was vintage, but if it was made, I feel like this 1950s evening gown was it’s inspiration. Do you agree?

1950s fashion illustration of a women's color-block evening gown from Modes Royale Sewing patterns. Stunning!

Source: Pinterest

1953/54 Modes Royale Fall/Winter pattern catalogue (avail as a digital download Here).

1950s Daytime dresses with career blazers and “Pert and Pleasing” dresses for stylish women who lunch in the afternoon.

The “Pert” dress in the left image is 100% a Liz dress. I would give anything to be able to sew and be able to wear it.

1950s Fashion Illustration as seen in a 1953 / 1954 Fall & Winter Modes Royale Pattern book. The Fashion illustration is for a sewing pattern for womens dresses featuring one with a blazer.

1950s Fashion Illustration as seen in a 1953 / 1954 Fall & Winter Modes Royale Pattern book. The Fashion illustration features afternoon 1 piece dresses for 1950s ladies who lunch.

Source: Etsy-backroomfinds

“Pretty as a Picture”- 1940s dresses with patterns of polka dots and plaid.

Fun fact! Polka Dots are making a comeback this Spring / Summer of 2025 (Source). So start thinking about how you wish to add it to your wardrobe.

1940s Fashion: 1940's Sewing pattern fashion illustration for women's dresses featuring a polka dot dress and a 1940s dress with plaid accents.

Source: Pinterest

1960s pattern-Simple and elegant is this “After Five Dress”, featuring a softly rolled collar highlighted by a fabric flower.

1960s Fashion: 1960s Sewing Pattern fashion illustration - Simple and elegant is this after five dress featuring a softly rolled collar highlighted by a fabric flower

Source: Pinterest

The 1950s world of smoking while in your cocktail dress. It is a glamorous dress though (avail as a digital download HERE).

1950s fashion for women-A sewing pattern for a women's 1950s Cocktail dress from Modes Royale Patterns.

Source: Etsy-Vintagepatterns2sew

1947 Modes Royale Spring/Summer eveningwear dresses.

1940s Fashion: 1947 Sewing pattern fashion illustration for women's evening wear dresses as seen in Modes Royale spring/ summer catalog.

Source: Pinterest

I am going to end this post with the next series of 1950s sewing patterns, which highlight the fabulous worldwide places you could wear your stylish Modes Royale outfits too—I’ll be sharing a few of my favorites below!

What to wear when staying at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore? How about these darling 1950s numbers?

One is a “a daytime dress featuring a modified version of the Empire look complete with a capelet.” And the second is “An attractive bolero, pencil-slim skirt, draped blouse and cummerbund”. Love it!

1950s vintage fashion illustration / 1950 sewing pattern from Modes Royale featuring a fashion illustration of two women. One is wearing a 1950s dress with cape and the second is wearing a skirt, belt, jacket and top. Perfect for traveling to Singapore as shown. Fantastic 1950s fashions!

Source: Pinterest

And because I love history….In the 1950s, Raffles Hotel in Singapore was a prominent destination, known for its luxury and historical significance. It hosted numerous Hollywood celebrities, including Ava Gardner and Elizabeth Taylor, and continued to attract international travelers (Source). It is still open today.

Fun fact, the “Long Bar” in the hotel created the famous “Singapore Sling” cocktail in 1915.

Historical Hotel-Raffles Hotel Singapore. Image is from the 1920s or the 1930s.

Source: Historic Hotels

Here is a photo of a 1958 fashion parade at the hotel. Look at those dresses? Right out of Modes Royale (100% not, but they could be).

1950s vintage photo: Raffles Hotel fashion parade-1958 in Singapore. The women are in 1950s fashions like, 1950s dresses and pants and tops. There is even a young girl in the middle.

Photo Credit: National Archives Singapore

Let’s escape to São Paulo, Brazil, and stay at the luxurious Excelsior Hotel—soaking in the sights and sounds in our wiggle dresses and swing coats made from matching fabrics. Swoon-worthy, right?

1950s Sewing Pattern fashion illustration from Modes Royale featuring 1950s dresses and matching jackets to wear while traveling in Brazil. Fantastic 1950s fashions!

Source: Pinterest

1940s / 1950s 4-panel, double-sided promotional brochure for the Hotel Excelsior in Copacabana Rio and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Beautiful art deco style color illustrations on the front and back panels.

Vintage Travel Brochure: 1940s / 1950s 4-panel, double-sided promotional brochure for the Hotel Excelsior in Copacabana Rio and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Beautiful art deco style color illustrations on the front and back panels.

Source: Worthpoint.com

1954 Modes Royale pattern for a daytime dress with bolero jacket perfect for your “Travel Dreams” of the Palace Hotel, Milano, Italy & Hotel Del Prado, Mexico City.

Travel Dreams! 1950s vintage sewing pattern fashion illustration from Modes Royale 1954 featuring a woman wearing a 1950s slim fitting dress and a bolero style coat while visiting Mexico. Fantastic 1950s fashions!

Source: Pinterest

1952 vintage postcard for the beautiful Art Deco, Hotel Del Prado in Mexico City. This postcard was used and the person who sent it, even showed what room they were staying in. LOVE IT! See the back here (avail at time of posting).

1952 vintage postcard for the Art Deco, Hotel Del Prado in Mexico City.

Source: eBay

1950s travel brochure for the Palace Hotel in Milano, Italy.

Inside look of the Palace Hotel, Milano Italy via a 1950s Vintage Tourism Brochure.

Source: eBay

One last stop… the iconic George V in Paris and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. The green 1950s dress in the center is the ultimate “go-everywhere” piece, with its stand-up collar, three-quarter sleeves, and flattering hip pockets. And honestly, the other two dress-and-bolero coat ensembles are just as effortlessly versatile.

1950s Sewing Pattern fashion illustration from Modes Royale featuring 1950s dresses to wear while traveling in Paris and Japan. Fantastic 1950s fashions!

Source: Pinterest

Hotel George V, Paris France 1939.

1930s vintage photo of the vintage hotel, The George V in Paris France in 1939.

The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, was a prominent landmark in the 1950s, known for its unique blend of Japanese and Western architectural styles. Built on a floating foundation, it was designed to withstand earthquakes, and the hotel’s Mayan Revival style and extensive decorative scheme showcased Japan’s growing ties to the West. The hotel served as a hub for international guests and played a role in Japanese culture, even becoming a Shinto wedding site after the 1923 earthquake. The hotel was demolished in 1968, but its entrance lobby was saved and reconstructed at the Meiji Mura architecture museum (Source).

1930s vintage postcard for the Imperial Hotle in Tokyo Japan the street entrance.

1930s Street Entrance. Source: oldtokyo.com

I hope you enjoyed browsing these fantastic vintage sewing pattern illustrations. Please share in the comment section what you would wear (I would personally wear them all).

Further Reading: Vintage Fashions 1920s-1960s (archived blog posts)

Thanks for dropping by!

Liz

During the First and Second World Wars, Canadian families—like those in many other countries—were encouraged to grow and preserve their own fruits and vegetables. This helped reduce demand on the domestic food supply while ensuring more provisions were available for troops and allies overseas.

Victory gardens, largely an urban phenomenon, played a crucial role in both the symbolic and practical mobilization of civilians on Canada’s home front.

In today’s post, we’ll take a visual and textual journey through this remarkable wartime initiative.

Enjoy!

1940s vintage poster for a Canadian Victory Garden during WW2. Do your part at home! Illustration features vegetables looking like soldiers.

Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia

On a personal level, this year I have decided on my balcony that I will try to grow my own Victory Garden. Prices are going up and every little bit helps. It’s time to do my part!

1940s vintage advertisement for a Canadian Victory Garden featuring an illustration of 1940s woman holding vegetables.

Source: CBC.ca

History Of Victory Gardens In Canada

“War gardening,” as it was more commonly known, was widely promoted throughout the First World War by both the Canadian government and the media as a patriotic form of wholesome leisure. Indeed, the basic idea behind victory and First World War-era war gardening was much the same: the more produce that could be grown by Canadians in their front yards, vacant lots and former flower gardens, the more food, soldiers and munitions that could be shipped to Canada’s allies overseas. This was because not only did victory gardening help to meet existing export commitments, but it also freed railcars and transport trucks to move other strategic goods instead of food. That victory garden produce was also part of a healthy diet according to the newly created Canada’s Official Food Rules (1942) — the precursor to Canada’s Food Guide — was simply an added bonus (Source).

Source: Canada.ca – History of Canada’s Food Guide

However, at the start of the war, the Canadian government actually discouraged the practice. Amateur gardeners would put a strain on the country’s seed supply, and could potentially waste crop through inexperience (Source).

One 1942 pamphlet produced by the Department went so far as to actively discourage unskilled “city-folk” from planting food gardens because “they would create the demand for equipment such as garden tools, fertilizers and sprays, which are made from materials needed by Canada’s war industries and because Canada’s vegetable seed supply can best be employed by experienced gardeners with equipment on hand.” (Source)

Then, in 1943 after protests from avid gardeners erupted, and the seed supply stabilized, the government started supporting victory gardens. Everyone, young and old, was encouraged to help grow more food to relieve strain on food supplies going overseas, and the transport systems needed to move it. Toronto mayor Frederick Conboy started growing a crop of tomatoes on his front lawn (Source).

1940s vintage poster for growing your own food at home for the home front effort during WW2

Source: Canadian War Museum

Larger organizations like Ontario Hydro-Electric Club contributed to the cause by providing extra land, seeds and lessons on growing and preserving food (Source).

About the below 1943 pamphlet:

This 32 page booklet contains information for club members on how to grow their own vegetables and herbs, blank pages to document how much they grew, and instructions on how to preserve their harvest. Ontario Hydro was a large corporation with many employees and this publication was part of their work to support the war effort (Source).

To read excerpts from the booklet please click the link HERE.

1943 Toronto ‘Ontario Hydro-Electric Club’ Victory Garden Publication-Canadian WW2 Homefront effort.

Source: City Farmer News

Victory Gardens were INDEED for “City-Folk”. Why? Because the goal was to increase the acreage of land devoted to food production, the ideal victory garden was one that transformed urban land into agricultural space (Source).

1940s vintage poster / vintage advertisement from the Federal Department of Pensions and National Health in 1942 discussing food production and how the average Canadian can help the war effort.

1942 advertisement. Source: Canadian War Museum

Mental & Physical Benefits To Gardening:

Victory gardens could bring families and communities closer together through shared work. Gardening promoted self reliance and patriotism, allowing people to contribute to an important wartime effort. It was also a pleasant distraction from the war as a form of self expression. The government and local organizations took this last moral booster even further by holding yearly victory garden contests.

The government stressed the physical health benefits of a victory garden. At the time, army applicant rejections were at an all time high due to malnutrition (Source).

At its 1944 peak, it was estimated that upwards of 209,200 victory gardens were in operation nationwide producing a total of 57,000 tonnes of vegetables (Source).

1940s vintage poster for a Victory Garden during WW2-Do you part for the Home Front Effort.

Source: Wikipedia

The Perry Sisters, employed at the Dominion Arsenals Ltd. plant, armed with rake, watering can and pitchfork, help look after the vegetable garden where they are working.

Further Reading: Vintage Photos of Canadian Women on the Home Front during WWII

1940s Vintage Photo: The Perry Sisters, employed at the Dominion Arsenals Ltd. plant, armed with rake, watering can and pitchfork, help look after the vegetable garden where they are working.

Source: Collections Canada

A.J. Denne tends his v-shaped vegetable plot in Toronto on June 5th, 1943 (Toronto Archives photo).

“The most important new gardeners, however — and the ones who dominated wartime imagery of victory gardening — were men,” writes Ian Mosby (author of Food Will Win the War). Victory gardening was “promoted as a new kind of respectable (and decidedly middle-class) masculine domesticity.” (Source)

Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia

Victory Gardens in Montreal. Two children tend to vegetables in the Montreal Botanical Garden in 1943.

Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia

1940s vintage photo of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company employees tending to tomatoes in a Victory Garden (via Canadian War Museum).

Further Reading: Vintage Photos Of People Tending To Their Gardens 1930s-1960s

Symbolism Of The Gardens & The Final Result

Though originally intended as a means of increasing production during wartime, victory gardens proved more important as a symbolic, patriotic activity rather than a productive one. “From a morale standpoint,” writes Ian Mosby (author of Food Will Win the War), “victory gardens linked a wholesome and familiar form of domestic labour to the larger war effort in a way that involved the entire family and that was highly visible to friends and neighbours.” (Source)

Source: modernfarmer.com

One More Important Farming Historical Note:

Now while urban populations were making gardens in their backyards, young women from all over Canada were heading to the farmlands in Southern Ontario and becoming ‘Farmerettes’.

Read all about these incredible women here: Canada’s WW2 Home Front History – The Farmerettes

1940s vintage photo of the Farmerettes-Young Women in Ontario Canada who worked on farms during WW2 to help the home front effort. Canadian Stamp.

How To Grow Your Own Victory Garden?

I’m not a professional gardener—just a plant lover doing my best to keep them alive and enjoy the beauty (and occasional homegrown food) they provide for my husband and me. Here are some expert tips on starting your own Victory Garden. Happy planting!

1940s vintage photo of a young woman in shorts and a white blouse with a hat working in her vegetable garden aka Victory Garden.

Thank you for dropping by and reading a bit about Canada’s gardening wartime effort. I have always loved the history of the Victory Garden and I’m excited to have finally been able to share it all here with you.

Please share any thoughts you have on this topic in the comments section below. I love hearing from my readers!

Note: Thank you to ‘The Canadian Encyclopedia‘ & ‘Heritage Toronto‘ for the fantastic historical info that was in this post.

Further Reading: World War 2 Women’s Contributions & Home Front Posts

Thanks for dropping by!

Liz

Tag: 1940s

From Runway to Home: The Vintage Allure of Modes Royale Sewing Patterns

Modes Royale Patterns-The History & The Fashion Illustrations

About Modes Royale:

Modes Royale Pattern Examples-The 1940s-1960s Fashions

Canadian Victory Gardens: A Look Back at Their History and Legacy

History Of Victory Gardens In Canada

Symbolism Of The Gardens & The Final Result

One More Important Farming Historical Note:

How To Grow Your Own Victory Garden?