From the 1930s onwards American sportswear became synonymous with a modern lifestyle. Promoted as affordable and egalitarian, ‘Sportswear’, a term used to encompass both clothing for sports (such as tennis) and resort wear such as blouses and skirts and country tweeds, became increasingly fashionable in western metropolitan cities such as New York in the 1930s and 1940s. Simple styles could be easily reproduced in cheap fabrics at various price points, trickling down from ready-to-wear designers such as Claire McCardell (1905-1955).

This woman’s blouse, designed and produced by Mayehoff, Connecticut, USA, is a good example of simple but elegant mid-market sportswear of this period. Inside the blouse are two cotton straps with metal fastenings that can be adjusted to alter the fit of the shirt at the waist. Minimal selvedge on the seams and the decorative use of contrast machine stitching suggest that its production was not costly in either labour or materials.