Vintage Not Antique Dress

From the seller:

Vintage 1930s Vibrant Yellow Silk Floral Day Dress / Women's XL / 30s Art Deco Long Sleeve House Dress

Features:
• Yellow floral dress.
• Very deep cut at front bodice. (may want to wear with a slip)
• 2 front deep pockets.
• Long sleeve with no snaps/ buttons at wrist. You may want to add.
• Red contrast stitching.
• Side yellow zipper. It's plastic (never seen one like this before!)
• Material: feels like silk / not lined.
• Circa 1930s.

Measurements:
Best fit women's XL
Bust- 42"
Waist- 32"
Hips- 43"
Length- 42"
Arm length- 26 1/4"
Shoulders- 18"

Label:
No maker label.

Condition:
Good vintage condition for its age with minimal wear. The zipper works great but missing part of the zipper pull.

*******The item came out of a farmhouse in Noblesville, Indiana. Although it was well preserved for over 70 years in the dry attic, there is a vintage smell to the garment. We have done our best to minimize the smell but you may want to have it professionally dry cleaned**********


From Me:

A decent article on zippers in vintage clothing. Yes, they had plastic zippers but that was towards the later 1930's and they didn't look like modern zippers - you'd easily be able to tell the difference. This, instead, is most likely April Cornell circa 1990's.

Crazy florals were a hit in the 1990's. Seriously crazy. Including ones in bright yellow or a lovely blue. And April Cornell did the whole drop waist thing to mimic the 1920's styles in the 1990's. I even remember my favorite skirt in the 8th and 9th grades being the exact opposite of this pattern - a black background with blue and green flowers.

So, no, probably not an antique and most likely just someone's favorite dress from about 20 years ago. However, since the 1990's styles are coming back - I kid you not, the corduroy skirt I wore with my chunky black shoes was for sale in Nordstroms the other day. It sent me into giggles.

I wanted to post it because it's a good example of how hard it is to tell sometimes whether something is antique or not.