Comments You Get When You Dress Vintage

[crwritt]

My husband and I just got home from dancing at our local pub. Tonight I was dressed fairly casual, semi vintage, in snug gray jeans, dotted
sleeveless top and matching scarf in my hair, silver bead necklace, bracelet and earrings, red lipstick and red Remix Gloria shoes.
We do love to dance, and if we're in a crowd of non-dancers, we get a little audience. The band was good, oldies rock and roll, we had a nice time goofing around.
As we were leaving, a young woman who had probably had a few beers told my husband that I was so "Smokin' Hot" that he'd better take me home or he'd be making a big mistake. I told her, thanks for the compliment, he's been taking me home every night for 30 years!

 

[MariantheLibrarian]

I wore vintage outside my house for the first time today. We're having Spirit Week, and today was "Hollywood Day." I did my hair up in a 40s do and went as Lana Turner. Nobody knew who I was, but I got way more compliments than I ever have. I think I might have to start getting up early and setting my hair more often.

 

[Lenore]

Nobody knew who I was...

This reminds me so much of when I was in school and I went as Stevie Nicks for "Celebrity Day." One teacher laughed and cried "Stevie!!!" when I walked down the hall, but no one else had a clue. Sad thing, I looked an awful lot like her when I had my hair blonde as I did all through high school. I chose her on purpose so I wouldn't need to do too much. I was lazy back then!

 

[~Kate~]

I don't tend to get a lot of comments from friends or strangers. I find my family are the only people who normally bother to say anything when I dress vintage. My dad is always saying something like "You have no idea how disconcerting it is to have a daughter older than I am!"

 

[DecoDame]

...(snip)..My dad is always saying something like "You have no idea how disconcerting it is to have a daughter older than I am!"

LOL I signed in just so I could say... Your dad is adorable.

(And hey, cool Sally Sparrow quote!)

 

[Frenchy56]

Not to generalize, but I get the feeling maybe the cultural tendency toward cattiness tends to peak somewhere around the mid-to-late twenties, and to swim against the cultural tide at that age becomes a real challenge.

I have a feeling I'm probably one of the youngest ones here, and I concur. :/ I get compliments from older people, but people my own age just tend to stare, and it might just be me, but whenever I walk past people and they're laughing/sniggering and looking around, I always assume it's about me

 

[Katinka von K.]

A friend of mine told me some days ago that I "looked like a french spy from the 60s". Ok, not the right decade, but the french spy thing made me laugh.

Most of the time I get really nice comments on my hair. Nothing bad yet.

 

[tammylynn70]

I get most of my comments on my hair when I have it set and do the victory rolls and a snood. There was a lady at an event I went to with some friends who was in the Hitlerjungen and we talked for 10 minutes about hairstyles.

 

[Cherry_Bombshell]

I really don't understand people making horrible, negative comments about how anyone dresses, no matter how that is. Whatever happened to the idea of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it"? I usually feel like retorting, "It's their body and they're the ones wearing it - what does it have to do with you? It's not meant to be an affront to you personally - you really care so much about someone else's image that you're going to get ugly about it?"

I count myself lucky that I live in a town where crazier things than people dressing vintage happen daily. And it's not out of the ordinary to see older couples taking a neighborhood walk in their Sunday best. Suits, dresses, hats and all. I guess it's just the Deep South. One of my neighbors is this older black gentleman and he often walks by the house in suit pants, fedora, suit jacket thrown over a shoulder, and white shirtsleeves rolled up. So dignified. He even tips his hat to people he walks by and says "'fternoon, ya'll. Take care now, y'hear" It's so sweet.

Personally, people are very sweet to me when they make comments. And they're awful polite about it too. There're no uncomfortably invasive questions about why I wear what I do and no misogynistic hollers or comments - they just appreciate the effort and maybe ask where I got the dress or the lipstick. Hearing how horrible people can be, it kinda makes me appreciate the city I live in more but makes me sad to know that ostracizing behavior still exists to such an extent. I wish that people wouldn't resort to such meanness, especially over something as minor as how one dresses. Makes no sense at all.

That's the joy of the South! And not to mention in NOLA most people are used to seeing others dressed "strangely" XD Hello btw!!! i"m glad to see someone close by to me!

 

[Cherry_Bombshell]

From one of my customers at the Bank: "With your hair like that you look just like a 40's movie star!"

SSQQQUUUUEEEEEE!

But I also thought it was funny cause my hair was more early 60's XD

 

[Lady Cecilia]

I've been on the receiving end of ridicule and insults, mainly from kids and teenagers, but also regularly get positive comments on my appearance, often (but not exclusively) from older people, family and friends. A while ago an elderly lady in the village I live in came out of her house as I walked past her window to compliment me on my "beautiful 1940s dress". She said she'd seen me before (I'd only moved down here recently) but hadn't been able to run fast enough to catch up with me to compliment me, which was so sweet. Wearing a hat often sparks conversations with strangers too.
It does puzzle me how someone's appearance can invoke such strong reactions (both negative and positive) from complete strangers.

 

[Miss Tuppence]

Lady Cecilia that is soo sweet!

A couple of weeks ago I went to my grans with a new set that I did the day before and my gran said it was really nice and very well done.... now when my grannie says something like that about my hair- then I know it must good! Apparently my gran was forever having her hair set during the 40's and always likes to have nice hair, so her comment made my day!

 

[Cherry_Bombshell]

Snazzy grannies are the best!

 

[tilley]

I get most of my comments on my hair when I have it set and do the victory rolls and a snood.

+1 with the snood, although almost everyone refers to it as a "hairnet". Comments tend to be are you wearing a hairnet? Why are you wearing a hairnet? (Um, they are good for days when my curls are going flat?) They are puzzled.

 

[moonmatrix]

The other day a lady asked if I was really wearing a petticoat, I replied, "why yes." and "are you really wearing jeggings?" she didn't like that much I guess.
My boyfriend and I went all out the other day, Me in a vintage fifties dress, pettycoat, hat, cape, the whole deal and him in his pin stripe suit. We were being stopped asked many many times if we in a photo shoot, a play, why where doing it. That he looked like a gangster. It isn't a costume thing for us. It is how we dress and that is how we politely answer and that more people should dress nicely and with class.
I have never had a negative comment persay. Most people in my area are quite use to me by now and my boyfriend joined in so he wouldnt be left behind, lol.

 

[BettyMaraschino]

Hee hee, today I was called into work. So black pencil skirt, black tee and my hair an makeup done. Nothing vintage except my hair an makeup.
With it being remembrance Sunday people actually stopped me to ask if I had dressed up specially for it.
On the other hand, I've had doors held open for me wherever I have gone today. The supermarket was really busy today and 2 people let me go in front of them. That doesn't happen in these parts, ever!
Swear dressing up a little works wonders.

 

[rue]

This is the first weekend I had anywhere to go and actually get comments in a long time (people at the grocery don't seem to notice lol) and I was told that I looked like Dita and then last night I was told I looked like Katy Perry.... first, I WISH and second, maybe 20 years ago lol lol lol I have to admit, it made me feel good though

 

[Lillemor]

I don't know if it's my appearance that makes it attractive for pubescents to shout rude remarks and naughty questions to me. I don't know if it's a rite of passage thing to show that you've got the nerve to go up and shout another student's mother in her face. I know I'm colorful, I know I wear bright or deep lipsticks and perhaps that signals something to them and that's a sort of justification for deserving this treatment in their minds. I was running late to pick up my son so I didn't have time to threaten to find out who he and his friends were and demand to talk to his parents.

This has only happened on my "retro" days and never on my casual contemporary days. I don't care that the girls stare and laugh at me but I have given it some thought that these kids might feel like provoking a reaction out of me in a more direct way some day and the fact that at 4'10"ft I'm shorter than most of them.

I also had time to feel concern for my dress because the boy was riding his bike slowly but aggressively towards me.

 

[rue]

I don't know if it's my appearance that makes it attractive for pubescents to shout rude remarks and naughty questions to me. I don't know if it's a rite of passage thing to show that you've got the nerve to go up and shout another student's mother in her face. I know I'm colorful, I know I wear bright or deep lipsticks and perhaps that signals something to them and that's a sort of justification for deserving this treatment in their minds. I was running late to pick up my son so I didn't have time to threaten to find out who he and his friends were and demand to talk to his parents.

This has only happened on my "retro" days and never on my casual contemporary days. I don't care that the girls stare and laugh at me but I have given it some thought that these kids might feel like provoking a reaction out of me in a more direct way some day and the fact that at 4'10"ft I'm shorter than most of them.

I also had time to feel concern for my dress because the boy was riding his bike slowly but aggressively towards me.

That's just awful! I'm so sorry you felt threatened. I have to think that the world is going to hell in a handbasket when I read something like that.

 

[jillybeanlynn]

That's the joy of the South! And not to mention in NOLA most people are used to seeing others dressed "strangely" XD Hello btw!!! i"m glad to see someone close by to me!

Hi to you too! I'm sure we'll run into to each other at Trashy Diva sometime. ;-)