Updates – The Rest of the Story

It’s been over a year since I posted photos of this fantastic ski themed vest (or waistcoat in certain parts of the world) from Balmoral Knitwear.  This week I was contacted by Mike at Balmoral who wanted to use the photo on their website’s history and heritage page.  How could I say no?

I was enchanted by this piece of folk art that I saw at the Mint Museum in Charlotte last month.  The maker was “Granny” Kate Clayton Donaldson of Marble, NC, where she was a contemporary of my paternal grandparents.

I recently found a little book from 1946 titled Tar on My Heels, that contains lots of little interesting stories about North Carolina.  I was happy to find a short piece on and this photo of Granny Donaldson.

Mod Betty shared her visit to the Peabody Essex Museum to see California Design 1930 – 1965.  One of the items on display was this Cole of California swimsuit that was thought to be a tie-in with the Esther Williams film, Million Dollar Mermaid.

Susan of Witness2Fashion ran across Williams’ autobiography at her library, and sure enough, there she is in a publicity shot wearing a very similar Cole of California suit. To quote Susan:

Her suit has a more complex skirt than the one in the exhibit. The book is a good read — and rather frank about her love life — but full of surprising information. Her working relationship with Cole of California led to her selling 50,000 Cole swimming suits to the US Navy for the Waves to wear! In case the photo isn’t clear enough, she says she liked this Cole suit so much that she wore it in three movies and put it on all the chorus swimmers, too. What I learned: when posing for a photo in a bathing suit, always stand on your tippy-tippy toes! And never dive 50 feet into a pool while wearing an aluminum crown — she broke her neck, because no one realized it would enter the water differently from the smooth crown of a human head. As I said, a good read.

I think one of the most underrated clothing brands from the past was Tanner of North Carolina.  They produced some seriously nice dresses, like this one sent to me by Rosa’s Vintage Finds.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who sent cards and who helped spread the word about Magda Makkay’s birthday surprise.  She was so touched by the well wishes, and I thank all of you for being so kind as to help me make her day special.

Updates – The Rest of the Story

It’s time again to share a few post updates.

Several weeks ago I posted a bathing suit that I remember being from around 1970.  Above you can see a sewing pattern that I recently found showing a very similar style.  It is dated 1969.

Remember this I. Magnin California themed Pucci blouse?  Sharp-eyed reader Jason spotted the same blouse at a Pucci show in Como, Italy.  The exhibition had a vintage photo of the I Magnin store windows in 1955 in which  this Pucci print in a scarf was displayed.  The exhibition catalog dated the blouse to 1955 as well.

Here is the back of the blouse as seen in the exhibition catalog.

I recently showed off some color cards I found from Lily Mills in Shelby, NC.  Reader Susan of Witness2Fashion wrote that she told her friend, Kate who is a weaver about the post.  Kate wrote back to say that she had just bought some vintage Lily yarn which she loves to use in the items she make.  You can check out her site to see her beautiful weaving.

It’s been three years since I visited the workshop of Stuart Nye in Asheville, but the post I wrote continues to get comments from the many Nye jewelry fans.  I was happy that Nye’s daughter recently found the post and made a comment.

I mentioned a new book, The Lost Art of Dress by Linda Przybyszewski.  Lynn has an excellent review of the book on her blog, AmericanAgeFashion.

Interesting Updates – The Rest of the Story

One of the great things about a blog is that years after a post is made, someone will find the post and add to the story.  The bad thing is that sometimes I’m the only person who is aware that the conversation continues.  So now, every now and then I’m going to post updates to old posts so we can all enjoy learning more.

Last April I posted about this hat with the built-in sunglasses.   At the time, several people posted that the hat style could be seen in various films.  Recently  thriftanistasocialclub posted that she’d seen one in A Summer Place, a 1959 film staring Sandra Dee.  And here she is.

I took this photo from my TV while watching the film via Netflix.

I showed off this Liberty of London scarf in 2012.  Reader  Diana at Past Pieces Vintage found the print in  Scarves, by Nicky Albrechtsen and Fola Solanke. According to the book this scarf is  “Liberty, silk, 1950s, possibly based on a Harry Napper textile print from the 1890s.”

Photo taken of the book page by Diana.

Last year I posted about the Vanderbilt Shirt company.  The post was found by Jan Schochet, who co-wrote a book on Jewish businesses in Asheville.  She has been able to supply me with quite a bit of information, and now the family that owned the factory has been in touch.  Stay tuned.

I posted about these slightly naughty braces with a Brooks Brothers label in 2011.  I was puzzled because I found an ad for the same braces that were made by Calvin Curtis.  Michael, who actually knew Calvin Curtis cleared up the mystery by saying that Curtis made that one model for Brooks.

Last July I wrote about Enna Jetticks shoes.   Ed commented about how his grandmother had worked there, and he told what eventually happened to the factory.