Charlton Company, Chicago. Model Gowns Displayed By The Charlton Company 175 North State Street Chicago/spring And Summer 1920. Designed, Engraved And Colored By The Mode Art Company New York-paris -

Chicago, 1920. Small folio, semi-rigid leatherette. About fine. Mounted on front free endpaper is a typed letter presenting the album and asking for payment or return. The letterhead description of the Charlton Company is "Importers/Laces, Silks, Dress Goods, Linings, Notions", including the address of a Paris office. Title page and 40 leaves in color printed on rectos only, each with a color plate and line drawing of a pretty woman in a dress for evening, dancing, , lunch, dinner or street. Designers are specified, including Chanel, Molyneux, Lanvin , Margaine-Lacroix (associated with the body revealing "robe-sylphide") and the Fashion Art League, which promoted high fashion by American designers. The dresses are elaborate but feature the slender, loose, uncorseted silhouettes of the 1920s. Charlton's customeres were presumably American knock-off designers and manufacturers who could order their material from Charlton.. Leatherette. Fine. Small Folio.