Saturday Evening Post Talks Vintage

My mother-in-law died back in January, and one of the things we inherited was her subscription to the Saturday Evening Post.  I had no idea the magazine was still being published until it started showing up in her mailbox once a month, something that remains a bit of a mystery as we have no idea how she became a subscriber.

The bad thing about magazine subscriptions is that one feels obligated to actually read the magazines.  The good thing about the SEP is that is is skinny, and browsible in about 30 minutes.  I was flipping my way through the current issue when I was drawn to the word Vintage in the bottom of one page:

“Vintage Duds: Save or Sell?”

The entire article – if one can refer to 168 words as an article – is in my photo above, and you can read it in less than  minute.  It left me shaking my head that in less than a minute, people could get the idea that the way to deal with vintage “duds” (double-entendre intended?) is to have them turned fabulous by your local tailor.  A quick google revealed that the textile expert quoted is in fact a tailor who makes her living by making custom clothing and by doing alterations.

So where do I begin?  I’m going to just resist the urge to go on a tirade against the careless advice being given by a person who is not a vintage clothing expert, and address the larger issue of how a magazine with a well-respected image could have been reduced to publishing such nonsense.

It seems like every magazine has decided to re-invent themselves as The Reader’s Digest.  Pages are cluttered with super short snippets of questionable advice.  Don’t want to read how to make a beaded bookmark?  Skim on down the page where you will learn that KLM will let you view other passengers’ social media profiles to assist you in choosing a seatmate.  Or how about a few words about taking lessons via Skype.  No subject is too random.

To be fair, SEP does have some full-length, in-depth articles, but most articles are one page or shorter.  We tend to be blaming the shortening attention span on the internet, but I’m seeing some of the same “keep them hopping and entertained” philosophy in print media as well.

But what is really disturbing is the choice of the expert quoted in the article.  It’s kind of like having person who sells Hooked on Phonics© write an article on how to solve the problems in education!  It is not a bit surprising that a person who makes her living altering clothing would immediately think of old clothes as needing up-dating.  Interestingly, she does suggest contacting a vintage clothing dealer, something that SEP might have done in the first place!

People have busy lives, and we tend to trust our media to be filters for information.  I’m afraid this article shows us a very good reason why we should not just rely on the editors of a magazine or a website or a TV news show.  In today’s world, everyone can be an expert on just about anything.

Charleston Harbor Wedding

I’m back from a whirl-wind trip to Charleston, SC after attending the wedding of one of my nieces.  It was held on a boat, as you can see, and it was chilly, which you might not be able to see.  I’m wearing a cute 1963ish silk dress which is obliterated by the very necessary white sweater.  That was a real shame, but I’m also wearing vintage shoes, and carrying my vintage Gucci bamboo handle bag. (Side note:  We looked at the new ones at the Gucci store.  Good gracious, what a disaster they are.  They are big old over-grown mutations of a sweet, classic handbag.  It ought to be illegal.)

In the above photo:  Niece Lindsay and her husband Ben, little brother Scott, me and little sis Susan.    It was a beautiful venue for a wedding, and it just got better as the evening progressed:

Road Trip – Family Affair

I’ll be traveling this weekend, off to Charleston, SC for a family wedding.   It is really special, as my sister will be traveling with me, and we will be meeting up with my brothers later.  One of my nieces is getting married tomorrow on a boat, so expect some pretty pictures.  I’ll be the one in the vintage dress!

Not Vintage, but Bought It Anyway

When I spotted this fabric recently I immediately thought “vintage” and then just as quickly I began to have second thoughts.  The muted colors, especially the brownish green, and the old-fashioned motif put me in mind of a fabric from the early 1960s, but something was not quite right.  That something was the “hand” or the way the fabric feels.  A dressmaker cotton from the early 60s would usually have a very smooth texture, but this fabric felt more like a quilting cotton.

It wasn’t until I checked the selvage that I knew with certainty that this fabric is recent.  Printed there I found “Jinny Beyer for Mr. R.J.R. Fashion Fabrics.”  I’m not familiar with Jinny Beyer, but just the way it was worded let me know that this is a modern designer quilting fabric.

Still I bought it as I like the print and there is over two yards of it.  One can never have too much good novelty print, even if it was made yesterday.

Call me old fashioned, but I do not have a smart phone.  But for you who do, I hope you are using your phones when shopping.  This is a perfect example of how useful a smart phone can be.  Use it to google names on labels and on fabric selvages.  I even know of a group that twitters their thrift store finds using #thriftbreak as a hash tag.

Ad Campaign – Cool-ees by Joyce, 1940

All Cool-ees by Joyce are not carried by all stores, but most good stores carry Cool-ees.

The Joyce Shoe company of Pasadena, California was in business at least from 1940 into the 1980s.  It was founded by William Joyce.  In 1950 the factory suffered a terrific fire which destroyed much of the company’s inventory.  Newspaper reports of the time show employees sifting through the smoldering building looking for things to salvage.  I’ve got to wonder if any of those smoky shoes actually made it onto the market!

Hold-Bob Bobby Pins

I’ve had a card of Gayla Hold-Bob Bobby Pins for some time, so I was happy to note an ad for them in a magazine I own.   Bobby pins came of age in the 1920s, as a aid to hold bobbed hair in place.  Get it?  Bobbed? Bobby?  Yes, according to Wiki-pedia that is how these hair pins were named.

At any rate, bobby pins were a necessary accessory up until the 1960s, and I can remember all the cool older girls wearing them to hold their teased bobs in place, especially that little curl that just grazed the cheek!

The ad came from a magazine called Merchants Trade Journal, which was geared toward the owners of general stores and department stores.  I ran across a stack of them some years ago, and I randomly picked out four or five to buy and left the rest.  Just a casual looking through them made them all look pretty much the same.  Of course now that I’ve spend time with them I realize how much excellent information is contained within, and I wish I’d bought all of them.  Oh well..

There are lots of great ads, not of high fashion, but of the things that were carried by general stores like fabrics and sewing motions and bobby pins.

I can understand why they changed the name from the Hump Hair Pin Company to Gayla!

Acme-McCrary, Over 100 Years in Hosiery

Several weeks ago I found this booklet, which was a 50th anniversary brochure published by the Acme-McCrary company of Asheboro, NC.  Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of Acme-McCrary, as I had not either.  But this booklet is the type of thing I love to find, as it illustrates the history of one of the many hosiery mills that dotted the South in the 20th century.

What I did not realize when I bought the book is that Acme-McCrary is still in business, and still making hosiery in North Carolina.  It’s an interesting story, with some familiar names.

The company was founded in 1909 as the Acme Hosiery Mill in Asheboro, the creation of brothers-in-law D.B. McCrary and T.H. Redding.  The product was cotton stockings, which were made in two colors, cordovan and black.  A few years later the company bought a spinning mill, which supplied the cotton yarn for their stockings.  Throughout the 1920s and 30s Acme-McCrary grew, changing over to silk and rayon stockings.

In 1939, Acme-McCrary was chosen by the DuPont Corporation as one of the first makers of nylon stockings.  Of course, with WWII that came to a temporary end, with the company producing nylon for military fabrics and  stockings of cotton and rayon.   After the war they went back to full time production of nylon stockings, becoming one of the country’s largest producer of them.  Most of their products were sold to and marketed by department stores.  In other words, they made the stores’ brands.

The company managed to survive, when so many others were failing around them.  One thing they had going for them was that the company continued to be managed by the McCrary-Redding family.  One thing you notice when reading the histories of so many textile and clothing manufacturing companies is that the first step in the company failing is often when it is sold by the original owners.

In 2002, a young entrepreneur approached Acme-McCrary.  She had an idea for a seamless, footless pantyhose or tights, but she needed a manufacturing partner.  All the ones she had approached turned her down, and so did the people at Acme-McCrary , but Sara Blakely was called back to the company where they agreed to help develop her ideas and to manufacture the product.  Thus, Spanx® was born.  For some time Acme-McCrary was the sole maker of Spanx®, but today  Blakely manufactures in about fifteen different countries.  It appears that at least some of the products, in particular the original footless pantyhose are still made in the USA.

Today, Acme-McCrary continues to do what they have done for a very long time – they make private brand hosiery for retailers.  Their number one client?  Wal-Mart.

And now for some tidbits from the brochure, and a bit about the factory system as it existed in the early and mid 20th century:

This composite view shows all the Acme-McCrary operation as it was in 1959, but all these buildings were not actually in this small of an area!

The company kept up-to-date with the latest in machinery and technology, which likely contributed to its survival.

One of the qualifications for some of the jobs was good eyesight.  No, seriously; they had to take a vision test!

Throughout the South, small towns were built around a large factory, and it was hard to separate the factory from the community.  The company often supplied the only shopping that was to be found, and it also supplied organized recreational opportunities for the community.  Asheboro was more than just a “company town” as it was larger and had other employers, but still, Acme-McCrary provided more than just jobs.   Early on, they built the Recreation Center which had a swimming pool, bowling alley, soda shop and gym.  It is still in operation.

Like many other manufacturing plants across the South, Acme-McCrary had a semi-professional baseball team, the Eagles.  They played not only other company teams (like my hometown Champions of Canton), but also college teams in the area.   According to a man I met whose father worked at Acme-McCrary, your job application was moved to the top of the hiring stack if you were known to be a good baseball player!