Vintage Miscellany – October 15, 2017

Whatever could have brought about this game of baseball, or softball? Judging by the clothing, it’s pretty much assured this was not planned. But it’s October, and that means it’s always good for a quick game before the season ends.

As for news, the fashion world is being over-shadowed by all the misery that is enveloping our world at present. I’ll try to lighten the mood, but even the fashion news has a dark side. So for that reason, I’m skipping the Harvey Weinstein story and his connection to fashion.

• •  The next fashion and couture auction from Karen Augusta will be held October 25 in New York City. It looks to be a great one.
  •  The Items: Is Fashion Modern at MOMA is getting a lot of press.
  •   And if you can’t see it, you can experience much of the content through MOMA’s online course at Coursesa, Fashion As Design.
  •   Textile Conservator Nora Meller reflects on her two weeks at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Textile Conservation Studio.
  •   A bit of advice: never try to explain an inspiration for a costume design to the woman who actually was the costume designer.
  •   The Museum at FIT presented a symposium, Fashion, Science, and Exploration, to accompany their current exhibition of the same name. And you can watch it all.
  •   Here’s the story behind the 1920s Oxford Bags fad.   Thanks to Nann for the link.
  •   In Daring Fashion: Dali and Schiaparelli opens next week at the Dali Museum in St. Perersburg, Florida.

Vintage Miscellany – October 8, 2017

It still isn’t fallish here in the Southern Appalachians, but how could I resist this fashionable pair?

And now for a bit of vintage news…

• •   There were many things that led to women wearing pants, and among them is the influence of Oscar and Constance Wilde.
  •    Levi Strauss explains the red Tab.
  •   The humiliation of trying to resell clothing.
  •    The Yves Saint Laurent museum has opened in his former haute couture atelier in Paris.
  •    The most interesting man in the world is not in a beer commercial.
  •    Meanwhile in Canada, there is a muskrat hat controversy.  thanks to Christina for the link
  •    Items: Is Fashion Modern, at MOMA
  •   TWEED: From Hill to Hill, a Rural Tradition 
  •   French designer Hervé Léger, aka Hervé L. Leroux, has died.

Vintage Miscellany – September 24, 2017

Taken somewhere in Germany, 1935, and mailed to London. How it ended up in the Goodwill bins in Asheville, NC is anyone’s guess. Take some time today to enjoy the grapes.

And now for the news…

• •   Audrey Hepburn’s sons are selling some more of her stuff. You can bid online.
  •   This article about a Dutch diving club and their remarkable find is interesting.
  •   Can a fashion brand’s history stifle the creativity of the current designer?
  •   The fascination story of the twenty-three Jewish women of the Upper Tailoring Studio at Auschwitz is told in a new book by Lucy Adlington.
  •  There are cinematic stories behind some of those funky 1970s clothing labels.
  •   Pierre Bergé, the man beside Yves Saint Laurent, has died.
  •   Here’s an odd tale of a stolen top hat.
  •   I’m not sure I understand one half of this #nofreephotos thing, but I do know that it is, as always, about the money.

And now, I’m off for a glass of grapes…

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Vintage Miscellany – September 3, 2017

Cooler weather here in the middle South has me thinking of sweaters, and great boots, and knickers, and even a beret. But I have a feeling that 70* highs are not going to last.

So on with the news…

• •   In the UK, Sunny Bank Mills Ltd has been created to safeguard the important historic textile archive of Sunny Bank Mills, built in 1829.
  •   Items from Audrey Hepburn’s personal collection will be auctioned later this month.
  •   Here’s a sweet story about a bride who wore a gown that had belonged to her grandmother.
  •   Did you ever think that a woman starting a clothing repair business would be news? Even my little town had such a business back before we just got into the habit of throwing everything away.
  •   The Luddite in me wants to smash something.
  •   Is the “cult” of Chanel so strong that even her problematic history as Abwehr Agent F-7124 during WWII can’t stop the company’s focus on her in their latest ad videos?
  • Okay, things happen, but if you cause an item to break in a museum (or store, or a neighbor’s house, or at work…) the decent thing is to tell on yourself and face the consequences.
  • Levi Strauss first made jeans for women in 1934, and the company was able recently to add a pair of the first design to their archive.
  •  Facebook group, ‘Fashion Historians Unite!’ recently brainstormed with fashion historian Sara Idacavage to come up with a list of celebrities in the past who had their names on clothing labels. Finally, a good usage of Facebook!

I’ve written before about how fashion historians and museum curators are still having to defend the wearing of clothing as a valid area of study. If you paid attention to the news last week, you saw first hand the large role fashion plays in our perceptions of people as they try to use fashion to serve their own ends. First up:

• #stilettogate The First Lady’s choice of footwear was roundly criticized as being inappropriate for a flood zone. But seeing as how she was headed, not for floodwater, but for yet another photo opp and pep rally, seems to me both the heels and the pristine-right-out-of-the-box sneakers (and the president’s khaki pants and what look to be suede boots) fit the purpose quite well.
•  #hatgate is a bit more troublesome. And if you don’t have $40 for an official 45 USA hat, the Flotus hat the First Lady wore has already been ripped off and is selling all over the internet for $16. Now we can all be first lady, or at least wear the hat.

Vintage Miscellany – August 19, 2017

My latest project is tracing the path pajamas took from the bedroom to the beach. It helps when I find photos like this one, happily dated to 1929. If only this were in color!

And now for some news…

•   Rumor has it that the topic of next spring’s big fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be fashion and religion.
•  Would you wear a “refugee” dress?
•  Does the US need another big clothing company? ASOS, a UK based company, thinks so.
•  The debate on whether or not museums should be allowed to sell items from collections continues.
•  You didn’t think Jimi Hendrix looked that fantastic all by himself, did you?
•  Here’s another reason for transparency in clothing manufacturing – your “made in China” clothes might be made in North Korea.
•  This article about being a fashion curator is so interesting.
•   The Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Avenue in New York was an Art Deco masterpiece. That is until it was bought by self-professed statue lover Donald Trump.
•  Here’s a great article about Editta Sherman, who you probably remember from the Bill Cunningham documentary.
•  Normalizing extremism through clothing.
•  Two college students went to a thrift store in Florida and got really lucky.

Vintage Miscellany – August 6, 2017

I found a set of photos showing early 1940s women modeling sportswear. There is no indication of the company that made the garments, but they are all top-notch. This playsuit and skirt, with the bias cut fabric is one of my favorites.  The stripes work so well with the pleated shorts. No wonder these sets are currently highly sought out by the vintage-wearing set.

And now for the news…

•   I knew that chemists experimented with making fabric from milk, but the connection to Mussolini is a new one on me. Thanks to Beth for the link.
•   Fashion waste continues to plague the Earth.
•   Fashion company Vetements took the campaign against over-consumption to the Saks Fifth Avenue windows, which seems like an odd thing for a business in clothing retail to do.
•   A new book explores what the clothing of writers says about them.
•   What happens when someone tweets a clever phrase, it is sent to a maker of tee shirt who uses the phrase without considering the source, and the tee shirt is then worn by a famous singer in a concert?
•  My new favorite website.
•  Project Runway returns August 17.
• No link, but I have it on good authority that there will be no fashion exhibition this fall at the Met’s Costume Institute.

 

Vintage Miscellany – July 23, 2017

That’s Snow Ball and me in back and Rachel is rowing and the girl lying down is Claudia. Rachel’s sister took the picture.

There’s no date, but the all-girl group might indicate that it was taken during WWII. It could be a few years later, and they just left the guys at home. At any rate, it looks like a relaxing afternoon.

And now, on to the news…

• •   As I write this the 2017 British Open (golf) is winding down, so it’s appropriate to first share a link to an article about the club where the contest is being held this year. Unlike most golf clubs that banned women members (some as late as 2015) Royal Birkdale admitted women from its beginning in 1889. The reason why makes perfect sense.
  •  And so it is also fitting to share a link to Teen Vogue about the new dress code put in place by the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). Just when we all thought dress codes were passé.
  • So now I have to mention that the US House of Representatives also has a dress code, though it is pretty vague, and calls into question what exactly is “appropriate dress”?
  • It turns out that the fashion exhibition blockbuster of the summer is not at the Met, but in Paris at Le Musee des Arts Decoratifs. The topic is Dior, the setting lavish, and the experience, so I hear, transformational.  There’s not much chance that I’ll be in Paris to see it before it closes in January, but looking at the photos, the feeling I get is overwhelmed. When it comes to exhibitions, is bigger necessarily better?
  • Jewelry designer Kenneth Jay Lane has died at age 85.
  • The Guardian had an interesting article about the early days of vintage clothing collecting.
  • Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and South Sudan have decided to stop the importation of used clothing by 2019 in order to encourage domestic production of clothing. But in this world, nothing is ever simple.
  • Why was it that weavers in textile factories had a higher rate of TB than the general population?
  • One of my favorite children’s books, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler  turns 50 this year. If you don’t know this book, read it. The story is about Claudia and Jamie who run off to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then get involved in a mystery involving a work of art. I read this one every year with my small-town fifth graders who loved this delightful (though a bit out-dated) view of life in the big city.
  • Flip-flops can be dangerous, and not just from getting them caught in an escalator.
  • Why do poor people “waste” money on luxury goods?
  • We had Made in America week at the White House, and no products with the Trump labels were on display. Spokesperson Sean Spicer managed to partially blame the “decline of newspapers”. Some of the companies, such as Campbellsville Apparel Company, are highly dependent on US military contracts and others are things most of us would not be spending money on, such as DitchWitch. Here’s the complete list.