For this historically accurate sampling of authentic 1930s fashion, Stella Blum, former Curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, selected for reproduction 133 representative pages from rare Sears catalogs of the period (1933-1939). Hundreds of illustrations record what men, women, and children were actually wearing in the 30s when, as a copy line from the fall 1930 catalog proclaimed, "Thrift is the spirit of the day. Reckless spending is a thing of the past".