fusing modern/vintage styling

[6StringShooter]

Hello everyone,

As you kind folks can see, I'm new around here. I'm also new around the idea of vintage clothing and style. It is something that intrigues me greatly and almost every piece of non-casual clothing I own has some degree of this flavor simply due to my stylistic preference (not because I was making an effort to buy somewhat vintage looking things). Unbeknownst to me at the time, there was (and, of course, is) a substantial following of these "golden era" stylings which led me to Classic Style Magazine and eventually here. With that said, I seem to be somewhat confused as to where the line is drawn when one fuses modern and classic styling. For instance, in the magazine, it seems that those models are going for a classic look utilizing modern clothing and employing fedoras and classic-looking ties to polish off the look. A quick look across this forum exposes a vast array of classic style afficionados who seem to have nothing but purely vintage clothing or custom made clothing made to look vintage. I also realize that I have a very untrained, inexperienced eye for this sort of thing. If I was to take a modern suit like the one I'm wearing below (sorry, I don't have a full body pic!) and top it off with a classic fedora, would that look off because of the suit's modern styling? I am just having trouble understanding whether "the idea" behind this mag is to fuse modern and vintage styling, to sift through modern clothing and select that which looks most vintage, or to seek out genuine vintage and bring it back. Sorry for the long post! This question just seems to be at the heart of all of my other ones!

 

[Elaina]

Well, you'll find every shape and style vintage afficiando here. I probably dress the most modern, but I also dress over several centuries too.

As to the hat, I personally think a good hat and a good suit, vintage or not, look fine. You may find someone else with a different opinon. I've found most here just appreciate the effort to look your best, since putting your best face forward is what they used to do way back when.

 

[Senator Jack]

Hallo, SixString. Funny how this should come up today because I was talking to Matt Deckard about it just a few hours ago. While we are, for the most part, vintage aficianados here, you are right in sensing that the magazine is trying to take the vintage style and modernize it. As I said to Matt, though I'm not much for modern clothing, were I in MK's shoes, I would have made that same decision; if the magazine catered to only our little subculture, then folks such as yourself would never pick it up and come around to our way of thinking.

But, alas, I can also see how this leads to your confusion, for how does one expect to play pro basketball without the knowledge of dribbling and passing? After a quarter-century of living a vintage lifestyle, I could probably put together a vintage outfit out of all new pieces except for the necktie. So my advice to anyone wishing to emulate the golden era style is to start by collecting vintage neckties.

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Lady Day]

The opening letter MK (Classic Style Creator) wrote in the first issue sums it up.

It was to the effect of not trying to recreate the golden era, but to bring the best parts of it to the modern time.

I think that is a good ideal to have. Will that era ever come back, no. Was is perfect, heavens no! But to take its flavor and soul and infuse that into modern life is the goal.

So wear your modern clothes (many of us do) and live with classic sensibilities. You are you, and you can decide how who want to go.

Best of luck, my friend,

LD

 

[6StringShooter]

But, alas, I can also see how this leads to your confusion, for how does one expect to play pro basketball without the knowledge of dribbling and passing?

Well put, Senator Jack! I definitely see how MK would have gone that route. It's certainly a smart move to appeal to guys like me who have a taste for the classic style, but are immersed in a modern clothing market.

Will that era ever come back, no. Was is perfect, heavens no! But to take its flavor and soul and infuse that into modern life is the goal.

Lady Day, I certainly agree with you. It is almost impossible to bring back a complete era. We can see historically how vestiges of various eras have made brief comebacks, but I don't know of any time period (I could be wrong here) that its fashion has made a complete resurgence in another period. Now, taking the look and general feel of the Golden Era and injecting a substantial portion of that into the over-emasculated, almost-effeminate, metrosexual men's clothing image of today would be a welcome change for most of the guys out there (as MK stated in the opening letter of the magazine). I just wonder how well received that style would be among the hard-core afficionados here. Don't get me wrong...I'm all about the actual vintage stuff and that is the look and style that I am going for (although I am very new to all of this and It will take some time and a substantial cost to acquire it). I just wonder how well a fused style would be received by the afficionados...

 

[Lady Day]

I just wonder how well a fused style would be received by the afficionados...

Poo on them if they dont take a shine to ya. Youre here now, and thats a HUGE step. So what!? Heckfire, people will give you a compliment on your tie if you let them

This group is very accepting and elated when a new person joins their ilk. Thay are always willing to learn and teach. Just sit back, relax, and get use to reading to all hours of the night. Not like I would know...


LD

 

[Elaina]

And there are all kinds here as well. Darnit, if I want to wear my civil war coat (although, for the sake of the argument, don't peek at the not wearing coat thread), I'll do that.

You'll find a spot you feel comfortable in soon enough, and I dare say, even a group of people you consider friends, but a general cordial-ness permeates the lounge here. It's not about disapproving or being completely vintage (although there's a few that wear nothing but) but TO ME a general attitude lost from that era.

And you have to find me funny. Preferably NOT when I'm being halfway serious (like the only one that finds me funny seems to do.)

 

[6StringShooter]

This group is very accepting and elated when a new person joins their ilk. Thay are always willing to learn and teach. Just sit back, relax, and get use to reading to all hours of the night. Not like I would know...


LD

Well that is great to know! I got a very warm welcome, but I really hadn't gotten a feel for this board yet...I know that some can be rather abrasive. That is certainly refreshing...

 

[Lonn]

Modern?

Hi,
I, too, wonder about these things. I mentioned elsewhere that I was more interested in the original intent of the British Officers Shirt (or the Indy shirt for that matter) than strict adherence to the original. So I wear an REI Sahara long sleeve shirt, tall. It is made of nylon. It is a "technical" shirt. With a tie tucked in between the 2nd and 3rd button (vintage tie) under a goatskin A-2 under a Stetson Cypress, I'm ready for adventure. I LOOK ready for adventure. Fast dry, too.
The same goes for my suits. I want well made out of good materials. Isn't that what attracts the vintage fans to vintage, really? If I could afford top of the line Nordstoms, I probably would. For me, the whole point is to look good. To give a damn about it. And respect myself and those around me enough to look and feel like a gentleman so I will act like one.
I feel the modern world, modern culture needs that. And I see recognition of that need in those around me. Good people looking for a way to be better people and I think what folks here are doing is showing a way to get some of that into their lives. My life.
So, for me, the folks here, and those that went before us, and as best I can, are demonstrating it is O.K. to bring a little quality back into our lives. Vintage or modern.
Am I off base?

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

I think it is perfectly OK to "modernize" vintage styles to some extent.

A completely vintage style really has its logical ending as being essentially a 1930s/1940s reenactor wearing a costume. You would have to make each clothing purchase and choice based on what would be most consistant and common at the time you are recreating, without any mixing of eras or wearing of vintage (yet incorrect) items.

The opposite end is of course wearing whatever you want with whatever you want. (IE pajama bottoms with a top hat, 18th century waistcoat, and Nikes)

I think there is a happy medium, selectively taking inspiration from vintage styles while never straying too far from classic style and always keeping in mind modern sensibilities.

This is always my goal, anyway. For me, success would be when a black and white photograph of me could be mistaken for an original shot from the 30s, yet a passerby on the street today would just think "There goes a particularly well dressed man."

 

[Matt Deckard]

I remember having this conversation many times over in past threads... It's not about looking vintage, it's about looking good and knowing your own sense of style.

You can put together a whole outfit using modern clothes if you just stray away from the boring.

One of the things I am working to make Classic Style show is that clothes don't have to be confining and boring. Suits for one thing were not a garment to be torn off after work though now they are because fit and style have become lost.

If there is a description for Classic Style... a definative explanation for what the magazine is trying to bring to the public, it's that you don't need to spend 6,000 bucks to look like you are wearing a 6,000 buck suit and that you don't have to be vintage to be classic.

I'd like to see more femenine contenet in the magazine and wearabout ladies may obtain clothes that hark back to the romanc of th golden era and more on art Deco and art Neuvo design and where you can find it and incorporate it into your home. I'd like to see more of the histories of our icons Like Connery or Adolph Menjou who learned how to live life and weren't ashamed to flaunt that fact. It's a hard magazine to define, though what I can say is that if it is doing it's job it will reach those who are fed up with the mags showing the overly skinny models wearing untucked shirts laying sprawled out over a leopard rug with a bottle of some... well you know what I mean.

Right now my hopes are for it to be more of what Esquire was in the 1930's. Some upcoming literaries here and an article on a treasure of a luggage company there... I'd like to see events covererd with images and perhaps a travelog story explaining what happened and how you can be part of the community. At the moment there are alot of crowds on the vintage scene. Some percieve Classic Style as being something they can finally look to hat talks to their crowd and some look at it as a magazine for thoes that just don't get vintage. To me it's not supposed to be about vintage. I have alot of vintage... It's about looking good an living good. It's about bringing back romance.

And you don't find much romance in the Navy blue suit white shirt and red tie.
You don't find romance in the sweatshirt and black jeans.
You don't find romance in the plastic lawn chairs or the McDonald's dinner.

You find it in the hat or the wingtip shoes or the three piece suit.
You find it in the A- frame skirt or the Hepburn pants or the pink blouse.
You find it in the wooden collapsible chairs or the Coke in the glass bottle or the stairs leading up to a capital building.

I think Classic Style should be a link to those things that we look at and say... I wish I lived like that knowing that we can without having to stretch ourselves beyond what we can handle. Take the James Bond trip without spending the government agency price.

Anywho that's what I think...

 

[vonwotan]

Mr. Deckard - Admirable goals all for the magazine. For my new, and decidedly not vintage, apartment I am very slowly working towards Art Deco decor and would love to see articles about this for the home. And, while I enjoy our vintage / period evenings and shooting parties with the vintagers, I am glad that the focus will be more on style than on pure vintage.

I do hope that in the profiles we might also see one or two icons of the "Jazz Age" or "Roaring Twenties."

 

[reetpleat]

Hallo, SixString. Funny how this should come up today because I was talking to Matt Deckard about it just a few hours ago. While we are, for the most part, vintage aficianados here, you are right in sensing that the magazine is trying to take the vintage style and modernize it. As I said to Matt, though I'm not much for modern clothing, were I in MK's shoes, I would have made that same decision; if the magazine catered to only our little subculture, then folks such as yourself would never pick it up and come around to our way of thinking.

But, alas, I can also see how this leads to your confusion, for how does one expect to play pro basketball without the knowledge of dribbling and passing? After a quarter-century of living a vintage lifestyle, I could probably put together a vintage outfit out of all new pieces except for the necktie. So my advice to anyone wishing to emulate the golden era style is to start by collecting vintage neckties.

Regards,

Senator Jack

While i won't hold you to one off the cuff remark, I would like to comment on the "modernize" comment. You probably didn't mean it in the way I read it, but I kind of object to any suggestion that vintage is all well and good but it needs to be modernized. I would say that it is more about bringing a classic sensability to modern style. Weather that is done strictly vintage, mixing, strictly modern that looks vintage, or with some kind of classic sense, with completely modern style (it could happen) is all good.

I suspect that is what you meant anyway though.

 

[reetpleat]

I'd like to see more femenine contenet in the magazine and wearabout ladies may obtain clothes that hark back to the romanc of th golden era and more on art Deco and art Neuvo design and where you can find it and incorporate it into your home.

While o have no real objection to a women's stuff, I would fear that it would quickly take over due to the greater number of women interested in vintage clothing, and no longer be one of the few places that men can bond over a love of classic man's style.

 

[reetpleat]

Me, I am more of a reenactor. I only wear vintage as vintage with a strict adherance to period, with a few liberties. I want people to say, there goes a guy in a forties outfit, cool.

but hey, that is just me. I appreciate all the diversities of interests here.

Obviously, if a guy came on talking about how much he loves vintage 80s rock t shirts, that might not get a hot receprtion, but we have plenty of room for various interests long before we get to that extreme.

 

[Senator Jack]

Posted by 6StringShooter:
I got a very warm welcome, but I really hadn't gotten a feel for this board yet...I know that some can be rather abrasive. That is certainly refreshing...

Some boards or some FLers? Either way, that's my complaint, too. I've seen newbies on other forums get torn apart (I suppose it makes the pedants feel rather good about themselves) and I'd hate to see that start happening here. In fact, this may be the only sartorial forum where the newbies routinely come around and insult us.

Posted by Reetpleat:
I kind of object to any suggestion that vintage is all well and good but it needs to be modernized. I would say that it is more about bringing a classic sensability to modern style.

Yes, that's a better way of putting it, Reetpleat. Or perhaps CS should concentrate how modern clothes can be antiquated? One of my pet peeves is walking into a shop like Brooks Bros or the men's department at Bergdorf Goodman and seeing the walls adorned with photographs of Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Fred Astair, et al., because I look at the racks of suits and think, 'You're never going to look that good in these clothes.' Perhaps if the average chap knew enough about vintage first, he may be able to cobble a classic look out of modern threads, and that's where I think CS could help him.

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[6StringShooter]

Some boards or some FLers?

Regards,

Senator Jack

I meant some boards. This one has been great so far. Thanks so much to everyone for all the replies though. This has been particularly enlightening! Keep them coming though, if you folks have more to say!

 

[WEEGEE]

Neckties

O.P. -- Senator Jack

So my advice to anyone wishing to emulate the golden era style is to start by collecting vintage neckties.

Great advice!!!

 

[StanleyVanBuren]

For instance, in the magazine, it seems that those models are going for a classic look utilizing modern clothing and employing fedoras and classic-looking ties to polish off the look. A quick look across this forum exposes a vast array of classic style afficionados who seem to have nothing but purely vintage clothing or custom made clothing made to look vintage.

Yeah, I'm right there with you. I'm all about bringing classic elements into modern style. My goal is to look well dressed, but not to the point where I become "retro," at which point then I'm in a "subculture," which is not for me. What would make my day would be the death of Silicon Valley "business casual" (having lived through it, it sucks) and a return to wearing suits to work. If its modern suits, that's fine -- and if we can bring some classic elements back into the mix as well then even better. Of course, they should be the best things -- cufflinks, pocket squares. etc. Perhaps not the high-rise waist, though.

There's a fine line between being cutting edge and being off in your own world, or worse, stuck in the past. That's not to say I wouldn't wear a vintage suit, I just wouldn't wear it everyday to work is all.

 

[Fletch]

One of my pet peeves is walking into a shop like Brooks Bros or the men's department at Bergdorf Goodman and seeing the walls adorned with photographs of Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Fred Astair, et al., because I look at the racks of suits and think, 'You're never going to look that good in these clothes.' Perhaps if the average chap knew enough about vintage first, he may be able to cobble a classic look out of modern threads, and that's where I think CS could help him.

But, you know, that's essentially a subversive act, because the clothing industry doesn't want to actually sell the kind of clothing that will make men look like that. They want only to associate themselves with the legends of film style, while continuing to sell what can a) be made in a typical modern day factory at a nice profit and b) be worn by the average well-to-do white-collar number-cruncher without attracting undue notice from the people he must do business with.

It's in everybody's best interest*, Senator. You've just got to trust me on that.

*Except, of course, ours.