Fostoria was one of the best at staying on-trend and Contour is a great example. The 1950s saw the advent of Mid-Century Modern style in housewares and Swedish Modern or Scandinavian styled glass with curvy, often asymmetrical shapes, heavier weights that made clear crystal look glorious on the table. Contour is one of Fostoria’s patterns that reflects the trends.
This large curvy platter is a perfect example. This was marketed as the 14 inch serving plate, note that it is not flat unlike most platters. It has a sleek, modern look that was right in style. (The gray semi circle and spots are shadows.)
Fostoria mostly sold Contour as a solid crystal pattern without decorations, although they did use a few pieces for cuttings and etches. This creamer has the Nosegay cutting. This cutting is considerably more delicate than many of Fostoria’s cut patterns; consider Holly as comparison.
Contour is also the basic shape Fostoria used for Seascape pieces which were pink or blue, not crystal and I don’t think Fostoria used Seascape for any cuttings or etches.
Contour looks mostly like a decorative accessory or serving glassware, and there are many such pieces, including several heavy bowls, square, curved, oval, round, wavy, salad sets, mayonnaise sets plus a neat candle holder, ashtray, pitcher and flora-candle. However Fostoria did make plates, cups and saucers, several stems and some neat looking relish trays and small plates they called canape plates or party plates. The party plates have a cup indent and are more oval than the canape plates, but both were intended for people to use with snacks or when mingling.
Dinner plates which are 10 inches, salad plates and saucers are plain, round, flat with a cupped rim. The other pieces are similar to the platter shown at the top, wavy and not flat.
The stemware pieces were the water, wine, iced tea, juice and sherbet. The stems are curvy.
One piece that caught my eye when I researched this post is the butter. Fostoria made Contour in the 1950s and the butter dish is oblong, meant to hold a stick of butter. Think back to the depression glass butter dishes, made in the 1930s, that were round. I’m curious when glass and china makers switched from round to oblong butter shapes. I found articles that mentioned stick butter came out around 1907, but it must not have been as readily available during the depression.
Contour is pretty but I found it was not as practical as some because the curvy shapes are hard to store and show wear. My platter had quite a bit of surface wear from storage when we got it. If you have room for the large, unevenly shaped pieces then it is wonderful glassware to collect and use.