Authenticity in the Vintage World?

[Davep]

Interesting observation--- Vintage is for real-time wear, meaning you wear it in the real world. Were for reenactors, the clothing is for the most part worn at events or special occassions.

 

[Davep]

Then that begs the question: "How does one know if they are authentic?"

 

[Miss Sis]

Simple - look to original sources.

Look at photos taken at the time, magazines pulished in the years you are looking to recreate, tailoring and mail order catalogues, films made then (not 10, 20, 40 years later).

Then you know what you are aiming for, if that's what you want. Personally, I'm not a great one for mixing ears. I like to pick my time and wear things all from about that time, or just before. My favourite years are about 1933 - 36, although I sometimes wear 40s stuff too. Yes, quite specific, but that's only my take on it. I also prefer a very English look, although I do buy things from say, America or the Continent as well, if I like them and they suit me and 'my' look. I don't wear vintage everyday but do on a pretty regular basis.

Really, it's please yourself when it comes to a vinatge lifestyle and not a historical re-enactment.

 

[FinalVestige79]

Watch movies from the time...photos...magazines. Esquire Mens and Sears-Roebuck Catalogs are great!

 

[reetpleat]

I dont mean to offend anyone but if you wear vintage and don't look authentic or genuine it just looks tacky.If you're going to where vintage where it right.

I disagree. Personally, I never wear vintage 30s 40s with anything else but a strict vintage look. But I will allow for others to do it if they do it well. Johnny Depp is a great example of this. But I often wear sixties and seventies stuff as part of my modern wardrobe and get tons of compliments. I try to wear things that look like modern designer unusual things. I never wear something that looks like what it is too much from those eras.

I even dig the seventies style of wearing vintage, where they mixed it into a contemporary look, long hair etc. tacky, maybe to some. But I don't mind.

 

[reetpleat]

Actually, you would probably find MANY people who bought entirely new wardrobes in 1946. Many WW2 veterans had been in the service so long that by 1945-46 they didn't have any civilian clothes what so ever.

I know I've said this before in other threads, but the idea expressed by the post-war "bold look" spoke not just to fashion, but also to optimism, bright colors, bold patterns, lavish materials. The influence of the depression and the war were profound; people had gone for years wearing threadbare drab clothes. There is an underlying reason beyond economic recovery why so many department stores popped up after the war.

True. Women even more so. I suppose, if you are going for a working class look, you might want to mix it up more. If you are going for a wealthy swell look, you may well have all new wardrobes every season. maybe the shoes might be a year or two old, but if they were new, it would not be wrong.

 

[reetpleat]

snickers....

ok....so one year out of the 30 years that vintage folks -cover- (20's, 30's, 40's) people might have bought a whole new wardrobe....

But I suggest that despite the optimism and recovery etc....that much like -always-....only the middle class and up got to partake in a whole new wardrobe, even in 1946.

oh wait....as a generality, no one would 'imitate' the downtrodden masses now anyhow........

True. Many guys probably came back from the war and promptly bough a wardrobe of used, five to ten year old clothes and shoes.

 

[Lauren]

Miss Sis and Neecerie both have very good points.
If you're going, say, 1942, you'd want to look at original sources like magazines, photographs, yearbooks, etc and read up on what was popular. You'd want a general overview of the years preceding this year to be able to see what the basic look was and what it encompassed, and you'd want to keep in mind that as real people living real lives we don't want to have our clothes wear us- and we would have things from preceding years that were in style.
When you see a gal walking down the street in tip to toe "fads", you're most likely somewhere like Vegas or Beverly Hills. If you see a gal with one bag that's of that season with pretty timeless suit and shoes, she's got a "classic" look- same goes for then. One of my personal pet peeves is when people take novelty to the extreme- makes them look more like a cartoon character or a lady of disreputable occupation than a wealthy woman of the time. Perfect example is Joan Crawford in Rain or Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas. Although both were "fast women" it's also funny when Hollywood makes fun of gold diggers or social climbers, and the way they portray their fashions- the look is similar to what we go for today when we try to portray the wealthy 60+ years ago. lol

 

[dr greg]

I feel brand new

This is a problem with set dressing in film, anything set in the 40's usually has all accurate period vehicles, but only assuming everyone bought a new car every year. If you look at contemporary photos from the 40's, you'll see old 20's trucks, 30's family vehicles etc etc, it's the same with clothes, how many people today go to work in the latest poncy creation from the Paris runways?
A lot of the Hollywood films in the "golden " period had their own inhouse designers creating an imaginary fashion world that the person on the street could never afford and wouldn't have the opportunity to wear if they did.

 

[Chasseur]

This is a problem with set dressing in film, anything set in the 40's usually has all accurate period vehicles, but only assuming everyone bought a new car every year. If you look at contemporary photos from the 40's, you'll see old 20's trucks, 30's family vehicles etc etc,

Well said. This was the point I was trying to make about the 18th Century re-enactors.

On your point with cars, my mom drove a Ford Model A for her only car during most of the 1960s!

 

[Lauren]

Good point- and also in the 30s and 20s it was known that there was the "movie" set and the "socialite" set, and often you see fashion moving in two different spheres based on where their interests lie. The west coast looked more to the movies for inspiration, while the east coast looked to the high profile and wealthy for theirs- if you look at magazines from the period you'll often see Vogue, Harpers, etc featuring socialites in their ads. Look at Ladies Home Journal or Photoplay and they'll be stars- even from the exact same year. Pretty interesting. I find the more I learn about fashion history the more there is to learn. It's pretty exciting.

 

[Paisley]

....One of my personal pet peeves is when people take novelty to the extreme- makes them look more like a cartoon character....

You said it before I could. I think if you trot out every cliche, you look more vintage than the people who were there. Imagine someone in 20 years trotting out every fad we've seen in the past few years and pulling it into one outfit:

• Feather boa
• Multicolored streaked hair
• Antique brooch
• Visible thong
• Strappy sandals
• Maternity top
• Pants 6" too long (with frayed hem for authenticity)
• Tattoos (temporary)
• Piercings (glued on)
• Nude lipstick

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Imagine someone in 20 years trotting out every fad we've seen in the past few years and pulling it into one outfit:

• Feather boa
• Multicolored streaked hair
• Antique brooch
• Visible thong
• Strappy sandals
• Maternity top
• Pants 6" too long (with frayed hem for authenticity)
• Tattoos (temporary)
• Piercings (glued on)
• Nude lipstick

That's not imagination .... that's clairvoyance!



.

 

[Foofoogal]

I find the more I learn about fashion history the more there is to learn. It's pretty exciting.

and Lauren. I am very glad there is people like you to study it. Knowledge is power. Keep it up and there should be a book in you somewhere.

 

[pdxvintagette]

While I adore novelty - prints, hats, etc ~ It never makes up more than one component of my outfit. One of my favorite fashion role models, however, was the always perfect Ms. Charles; her outrageous tilt hats with crisp suits and her fabulous evening attire have always been positively inspirational.

Dressing within an era - accurately - doesn't mean every fad, and if that seemed to be what I meant, it is not it at all.

I don't wear that early 40's rayon blouses belong with New Look skirts. Or 60's bulky wool boucle. And 50's sweaters don't mate with a 30's bias cut skirt. That's what I mean by era appropriate. Hold over style is one thing

I don't wear stillettos with draped rayon dresses with Joan Crawford shoulders, or scultped tilt hats with a 50's wiggle dress.

Mixing within a few years - keeping with what remained in style is accurate, reasonable, and honestly what basically all of us who consider ourselves concerned with authenticity already do - it can be hard to say if that dress was sold in '38, '39 or '40, unless we're looking at the Sears catalog photo of it. But arguments that gals would be trotting out ten year old shoes from their closets is just not believable - not anyone who had the option not to. Gals weren't wearing their pointed t-straps with their war era dresses and guys had given up the slimmer, simple early 30's neckties and replaced them with the bold prints of the mid 40's. And even women's foundation wear changed, as the vision of the ideal shape changed.

So, year - you've always got a few years to work with. But that's about all, unless you want to look like you haven't any sense or any money.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Mixing within a few years - keeping with what remained in style is accurate, reasonable, and honestly what basically all of us who consider ourselves concerned with authenticity already do - it can be hard to say if that dress was sold in '38, '39 or '40, unless we're looking at the Sears catalog photo of it. But arguments that gals would be trotting out ten year old shoes from their closets is just not believable - not anyone who had the option not to. Gals weren't wearing their pointed t-straps with their war era dresses and guys had given up the slimmer, simple early 30's neckties and replaced them with the bold prints of the mid 40's. And even women's foundation wear changed, as the vision of the ideal shape changed.

All true, but -- keep in mind the war years threw a real crimp into wardrobes. Unless you were well connected with the ration board, or buying black market, you couldn't *get* more than three pairs of shoes a year between 1942 and 1946, and even if you had the ration stamps you might not be able to get them simply because the stores didn't have them. The shoes that did tend to be most easily available during that era were fairly generic styles -- laced oxfords, simple pumps, a few types of wedges, and canvas playshoes, and it was very easy to carry these over from year to year without anyone paying much attention. Until the middle of 1944, it was illegal to even manufacture shoes in any colors but brown, black, white, or tan, which even further limited the variety available. So I would suggest that during those years you'd see a lot of shoes you wouldn't otherwise have seen simply because there was no alternative.

You made a point earlier that a postwar 28-year-old would likely not still be wearing her clothes from 10 years earlier, and that's quite true in the sense that she wouldn't be wearing them exactly as they were then -- but it's very likely she would have *reworked* many of those pieces to suit current trends. Such skills were taken for granted at the time -- every high school girl was taught how to do this in home-ec class, and it was a rare woman who didn't have a reworked dress or three in her closet. Same with coats and accessories -- the women's magazines of the era were full of this sort of thing. One of the reason so many American women vehemently opposed the New Look in 1947 -- and there was actually a nationwide movement of "Little Below The Knee Clubs" in operation to oppose it -- was that it was impossible to let a short skirt down far enough to fit that style, so they felt they were being blackjacked into spending money on a new wardrobe they really didn't find practical.

Age would also be a factor. A 28 year old might not be wearing the same styles she did when she was 18, but it's very likely a 38-year-old housewife would still be holding onto 10-year-old shoes and coats and such and repairing them as necessary -- she would have come of age during the worst of the Depression, and many people who endured that picked up thrift habits they would keep for the rest of their lives. Sure, she wouldn't wear a 10 year old pair of shoes to go dancing on New Year's Eve, but she'd very likely do so to go to the grocery store.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

One of the best sources I've ever seen are 16mm color "home movies" made by folks attending the 1939-'40 New York World's Fair.


For some reason, Hollywood movies about the '30s --and even some deep vintage enthusiasts-- don't get their costuming to look as authentic as this:

 

[Marc Chevalier]

 

[Marc Chevalier]

 

[Marc Chevalier]