retrofashion
One of the Regulars
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scotrace said:
I guess you’re right. I was talking to a tailor before I bought the suits and he had an interesting point of view about the look of vintage garments. I would say he’s quite experienced as he’s been around for a while. He’s been a tailor since the late 50’s. He’s now 76 and is basically retired.
I asked him some pointers in identifying vintage 30’s and 40’s suits and after he gave me some tips ( a lot of them stuff I had read here already) he brought up an interesting point. He said I didn’t need to be so worried in looking vintage because that would highly depend on who was looking at me. He said that the problem is that vintage means different things to different people. For most people, vintage means the cliché of vintage. The things you see in old movies and old adds. But people forget that that wasn’t all that around. He went to saying he had seen many vintage fans mistaking real vintage garments for newer ones just because it didn’t fit the cliché look of vintage most people have in mind. He even showed me a 1943 suit with really narrow lapels and said something like “See, a lot of people would spot the lapels first thing and dismiss the jacket as a newer garment. Probably would say 60’s,” He said something like. “Some things and styles just didn’t sell as much as others. Doesn’t mean they were not around.” After the comments by StanleyVanBuren about the 6x1 DB and Marc Chevalier’s “Based on how rare it is to find them in vintage photos/movies/clothing catalogs and fashion mags.” I realized the tailor really had a point when he said it highly depends on who’s looking at you and that what’s is perceived as vintage today is rather the cliché of vintage or how people remember things as being, rather than how they really were. Since we were not there, it’s natural that movies and other things from the time become the strongest references. But as the tailor said, that doesn’t mean that was all that was around.
For instance, all the jackets in the pictures have extremely high armholes. The ones I’m wearing are actually cutting under my armpits almost. I learned today suits have a much loser armhole. Before I got the suits I looked at several and based my decision using the 1937 and 1941 suit catalogs I found. I just checked them again about the height of the vest collars and there sure are vest that come as high as the one in A1 picture. Maybe the lower ones were just more usual, but the higher ones were surely around.
If I get the time I will post the suits from the catalogs that inspired me making the decisions when choosing the ones I got. Basically every little thing I was unsure of, like the 6x1 button configuration, lapel width etc, I would go back to the catalogs and check. If it was in there I would let it pass. But then again, it's hard to really tell something from a drawing. All the catalogs have drawings only instead of real pictures.
scotrace said:
Yes. If you know at least the whereabouts of what you looking for it’s indeed much easier. But I will give it a try in searching the lounge through google. I haven’t tried it this way yet. Thanks for the tip.
(thanks to you guys and way too many hours on the Lounge)
