Remembering the Missonis

The Missoni family has had a very sad year.  First, son and company CEO Vittorio Missoni went missing while flying in South America, and then last week his father and company co-founder Ottavio Missoni died at the age of 92.

Ottavio and his wife Rosita formed their company in the early 1950s, not as a fashion company, but as a maker of knit sportswear.   This makes sense considering that Ottavio had been an Olympic runner, and  he had helped his trainer make woolen tracksuits for the Italian team in 1948.   In 1953 he married Rosita, and they set up a small wool knitting firm they called Maglificio Jolly.   Within a few years they were producing sweaters for stores in Italy.

In 1958 they changed the name of their company to Missoni.  It was a great time to be getting into the fashion business in Italy.  Italian designers such as Fabiani, Simonetta and Valentino were establishing a good reputation for Italian design, and Milan was becoming known as a fashion center.  Still, it was not until the late 1960s that the company gained international attention.  With the help of Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, they began selling their knits in American stores, and in 1970 they opened their first boutique in the US inside Bloomingdales.

Ottavio claimed to be lazy, but it was he who was responsible for the design and distinctive look of the Missoni knits.  He would play with colors, and using a gridded paper he would color in lines to show the weavers how to set up the looms.   His design lab was full of books of color inspiration and he often turned to nature for his color schemes.

At first the Missonis only designed knits, but in 1962 they obtained machines that would produce a zigzag knit, and this became one of the trademark designs of the company.  They then added other geometrics, and were pioneers in making separates that coordinated in color, but were mismatched in design – dots with stripes for instance.

In the mid 1970s the work of the Missonis was very influential on knitwear.   In 1976 my boyfriend bought me a cotton pullover that was obviously Missoni inspired.  I liked it so much that I married him.

I’ve had this pantsuit for quite a few years, and it is a bit of a puzzle to me.  I thought it was from the 1970s, but the label looks much newer than that, with a newer Saks Fifth Avenue font and the absence of an oval that was seen on Missoni labels in the 1970s and 80s.  Have you any thoughts?

1920s Man O’ War Gymsuit

A few weeks ago when I received the pink bathing cap from Karen at Small Earth Vintage, I was surprised and delighted by her inclusion of an older gymsuit.  The poor thing was in excellent shape except that a former owner tried to turn it into a dress.  They took out the inseam, and removed the elastic from the bloomer legs.  This person must have been a careful, meticulous worker because none of the seams had been cut, so all I had to do was restitch the inseam and casings for the elastic and then insert new elastic.

Whenever I get something that is damaged or dirty or partly deconstructed, I debate in my own mind the pros and cons of cleaning or restoration.  Very often I leave an item as found, as in the case of the embroidered Beatles shirt I shared in April.  While the shirt would definitely benefit from a good cleaning and an oxyclean soak, there is too much risk that any washing at all might remove the penciled in but unembroidered illustrations.  It’s best to just love it as it is.

But in the case of this gymsuit, there was no reason to not do the reconstruction.  There was no later addition to remove, nothing that would be eliminated in the process of resewing the legs.

Nicely embroidered name: Marie Therese Egan.  This was done on a machine.

Gymsuits can be a bit tricky to accurately date for several reasons.  The first is that from the 1910s through the 1960s, the same type of fabric, a heavy cotton broadcloth, was generally used.  And though the styles tended to follow fashion to some extent, some schools tended to be more conservative, and kept to the older styles.  For example,  during the 1930s shorts began replacing bloomers, but I’ve seen bloomers in gymsuit catalogs as late as 1962.

My first thought about this suit was that it was from 1915 or so, but a little research places it a bit later – no earlier than 1921.  An online search for Man O’ War just brought up gymsuits for sale on ebay (and a lot about a horse and jellyfish) but due to a 1929 ad I have, I knew the name of the company that produced Man O’ War – Branigan, Green & Co.

According the the 1921 edition of The American Cloak and Suit Review, the company was recently formed as a maker of middys and gym attire.  The owners were Edgar Green and Joseph Branigan, both of whom had worked for Morris and Co, the makers of Paul Jones Middys.  The company was located at 1270 Broadway, with the factory being located in Baltimore.

The bloomers on this suit are quite long, several inches below the knee.  The 1929 styles are all much shorter.  So, early 1920s it is.

The last reference I can find on the company is  from 1969.  I’m not sure how long the company lasted past that date, as by the mid 1970s more and more schools were doing away with gymsuits, much to the relief of teen girls across the land.

1929 ad

Thanks Karen.  You’re the best!

Pink 1950s Jantzen Diving Belle

What the heck is a diving belle, you ask?  It was Jantzen’s name for their swim caps, a cutesy name if there ever was one.  Most of the ones I’ve seen show a real effort to pretty up what many consider to be an unflattering thing.  They added flowers and ruffles and bows and embossing.

The one I’m showing off today is a great example.  The attached rubber flowers detracted from the bald-look of a plain cap.  This type of decoration was common in the 1950s and 60s.

The big problem with many vintage swim caps with applied decoration is that the decorations are often in bad condition.  If exposure to saltwater and chlorine were not enough,  60 years of storage, often in hot attics or damp basements, was the destroyer of many rubber caps.

So, luckily for me, one of my favorite online sellers, Small Earth Vintage, recently listed this one on etsy.  From Karen’s photos I could tell that I’d finally found the excellent condition cap I’d been searching for, at a reasonable price.

I don’t shop a lot online, mainly because to me it is the actual hunt for vintage that is the most fun.  But  I love stumbling across something wonderful on etsy or on other websites, and if it is a seller I know and trust, I don’t hesitate to buy.

Those ridges are supposed to form a seal to keep water out.  They usually did not work very well.

Swim caps always look strange on mannequin heads because their ears do not flatten like a real person’s does.  That’s part of the reason swim caps are so uncomfortable; they scrunch in the ears.

 

1960s Sun Hat, Glasses Included

The 1960s may have been the time that women’s hats were on the wane, but they sure put out some wild and crazy beach hats.   Many were Italian straw creations, and were decorated in all sorts of ways, most of which reflected a tropical vibe.  There were hats that sprouted a straw palm tree on the crown, and hats covered with seashells.  I’ve even seen them covered with fishnet with tiny plastic fish caught beneath.

But my all time favorite is the beach hat with built-in sunglasses.  This hat came in lots of different color combinations and several different shapes, but this one in orange with blue lenses is a classic.

I tried in vain to find a reference to this hat in my collection of 1960s magazines, and an internet search was not much more fruitful. I found only two vintage images.  One was dated to 1965, and came from a Dutch magazine.  Since I was not sure of the origin of the scan I’ll not post the photo here, but it is my hat in red straw.  The other was not dated, but looks to be a bit earlier, and is the hat in tan.

As always, any additional information is greatly appreciated.

A couple of years ago an updated version of the sunglasses hat was available at Kate Spade.  Fell free to speak your mind, because I like the vintage one better too!

photo copyright Kate Spade New York

Anne Taylor’s Beatles Shirt

Beatlemania did some strange things to the minds of its victims.  For instance, it made one of them, Anne Taylor (no relation to the store Ann Taylor) ,  think that she could actually take one of her dad’s old shirts and cover it with Beatles embroidery.  And Anne really made a good try of it, but the project was overly ambitious, and so the project was abandoned.

Maybe she transferred her affection to another group, or maybe she found a real life boy to admire.  I guess we’ll never know what interrupted this labor of love.

Unfinished and stained and holey, this is still a clear testament to the power of the Fab Four.  Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

I know the maker was named Anne Taylor because she signed it.  Those are her initials on the postcard as well.

1940s Graff Bathing Suit

I bought this bathing suit some years ago.  According to the seller it was once the property of actress June Allyson, but she had no concrete proof of that provenance, and despite looking at hundreds of photos of Allyson, I’ve never spotted it on her.  But no matter.  I’d have bought the suit regardless.

In the late 1930s swimsuit makers were finally addressing the problems associated with using wool as the fiber of swimsuits.  Men’s swimwear had long been made of wool knit, and in the late 1910s women began wearing knit suits as well.  There were lots of problems with these wool knit suits.  They fit when dry, but sagged and stretched when wet.  They were scratchy.  And they were prone to embarrassing holes.

In the mid 1930s the fit issues were addressed when Lastex was added to the wool.  Lastex is a specially produced yarn that has an elastic core.  It held the shape of the wool, even when wet.  Lastex was soon used with other fibers, and a rayon blend that looked like satin became popular for swimwear.

At the same time, manufacturers began to turn to woven cotton as a swimsuit material.  It was not as flexible as knit fabrics, but not everyone who puts on a bathing suit is wanting to swim.  Sometimes a wearer just wanted to look attractive at the beach or around the pool.

Yes, I’d say this suit was more for sunning than for swimming.  It is lined in a white cotton knit which would hug the body when in the water, and provide the necessary coverage under the pleated shorts.   It buttons up the back, and the straps can be tied, as I’ve shown, or they can be crossed and snapped at the waist.

Graff was one of the lesser known Hollywood sportswear brands.  They continued in business through the 1970s .  How about that cacti motif?

As pretty and colorful as this bathing suit is, it also holds interest as a record of the easy acceptance of racial and cultural stereotypes.  Spend any time looking at magazines, movies, or even textiles from the 1940s and you will see how prevalent all types of stereotyping were.

I think sometimes we look at the past with rose-colored glasses, that we romanticize the past, thinking it was really a simpler time.  And perhaps in some ways it was, but perhaps not so much so if you were of a racial minority or were a woman.

While it is still easy today to find examples of ads and media that perpetuate all kinds of stereotypes ( former VP Dick Cheney cracking hillbilly jokes, the objectification of women in music videos, the Chief Wahoo mascot) at least there are conversations that are addressing these issues.   In the 1940s, a famous actress could have worn this and not an eye would have been batted.  Today, I post photos of it, and know I can’t just ignore the images without talking about them.  I hope this shows some progress in human understanding.

1910s Yale Knitting Mills Bathing Dress

I’m in the process of photographing some of my swimwear for another project, and I found something interesting about this swim dress from the 1910s.  The dress would have been worn with bloomers, which you can barely detect in my photo.  The white trim at the hem is appliqued silk, as is the collar and the white  piping.  Even though this was made by the Yale Knitting Mills, the fabric is actually a fine woven wool.

What makes this interesting is that the seams were finished by an overlock stitch, a technique that is more associated with clothing made in the 1970s and later.

The overlock machine, or serger, was invented by Joseph Merrow in the 1880s, and it was manufactured by his company,  the Merrow Machine Company.  They have been making overlock machines ever since.

Even though the overlock machine has been around a long time, it was not until the 1970s that the use of it to finish seams became prevalent in the sewing industry.  Before the 1970s seams were often pinked, or they might have been turned under and stitched like a little hem.  Shirts and blouses often had flat-fell seams, and lingerie and blouses often had French seams.

Because overlocked seams are so seldom seen in older clothing, it can be confusing when you do see it.  Years ago, when I was pretty new to buying old clothes, I found a really great sarong style Hawaiian print dress at a thrift store.  It looked so much like a 1950s dress, but there was some serging in the construction and because I could remember when serged seams started appearing in clothes in the 1970s, I was really confused.  But fortunately I did buy the dress and then did a little research and determined that the dress was from the 50s.

Since then I’ve seen lots of examples from the 1960s and earlier, but this 1910s swimdress is the earliest example I’ve ever seen.  What is interesting is that swimwear seems to be one of the industries where the overlock was more commonly used.  I’ve seen quite a few older swimsuits that have overlocked seams.

The Yale Knitting Mills were owned by brothers Isidore, Henry and Joseph Hirschmann, and was located at 512 Broadway in New York.  They made wool bathing suits, sweaters and golf vests.

A sad note: Brother Joseph died at the age of 38 in 1916, as a result of “a complication of diseases.”  Brother Henry evidently drowned himself a year later, leaving a wife and eight children.  According to brother Isidore he had been suffering from melancholia for several months.  The last mention I can find of the company is in 1922.

The bathing dress has buttons on the side front to make it easier to slip over the head.

Great detailing on the sleeves.