January 10, 2017

A Fashion Moment With Newlands’ Knitting

Nicole vintage fashion moments fashion history, knitting, vintage

With the advent of a New Year, in the Northern Hemisphere, we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of winter. I think that this is the perfect time to share some more vintage knitwear, don’t you think? It is the season for cardigans and sweaters, after all, and I haven’t shared any for quite a while. The last time was. . . at the beginning of November, so I would definitely say we are overdue for another instalment of A Fashion Moment. Today our Fashion Moment is with Newlands.

Who was Newlands? Well, Newlands & Co. Limited was a textile mill located in Galt (now Cambridge), Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1884, and in 1916 was merged with the Galt Robe Company to become Stauffer-Dobbie Ltd. It was a major Galt textile manufacturer of the time. At this point, the history is a bit fuzzy, but somewhere along the way, their textile division started a line called “Lady Galt” which made towels, draperies, bed linens and yarn goods. Lady Galt was available from the 1930’s to the 1970’s, as I can find some advertisements, but I don’t know exactly when they started. At some point they began to make mainly towels but, in the 1970’s, the Lady Galt Towel line went into receivership. Dobbie Industries was able to start another line, Cambridge Towel in 1979, which was the largest North American towel manufacturer, as well as being the only Canadian one. At this point, the story of this company becomes modern day. In November, of last year (as in only a few months ago) Cambridge Towel was, sadly, forced to close it’s doors, as they lost several large contracts (including one with Walmart). Isn’t that sad that yet another Canadian and North American manufacturing plant has been shuttered?

Anyways, I started this post to share with you all these interesting pictures of some knitted sweaters, and the next thing I knew I was falling down the rabbit hole of textile mills and outsourcing manufacturing!

I hope you enjoy the pictures from this book. The book itself is in very bad condition, with the cover torn off and taped back on and the pages tattered and stained. Nevertheless, I do love old fashion books, because of the illustrations. This one came home with me from a flea market a few years ago, and I am glad to be able to share it with you today. I believe it is from the late 1940’s, as one of the models is referred to as “Miss Canada 1947”, and the silhouette and styles (as well as hair and makeup) fit in with that era as well.