How offten do you dress....

[Edward]

Most of my suits are more appropriate for fall/winter weather, so I dress vintage or vintage inspired more in those seasons. I'd say four to seven days a week in the colder months, two or three in the warmer. I'm working on expanding my summer wardrobe, but I won't pretend I don't welcome the return to cooler temperatures.

This post makes me wonder... do particular eras lend themselves better to certain times of the year? I've just this weekend past boxed up all my Spring / Summer jackets, so I've been thinking about this a bit. I have half a dozen short jackets, a couple in a sort of Ricky style (though one cotton, and one polycotton - they look the part with a vintage look, but they're certainly no gab Ricky originals!), and I also have four Harrington-styles. I find these all great for that point in the late Spring and into the Summer when you might need a jacket, especially when there is a threat of rain or a sports jacket / blazer on its own might not be ideal, but it is too warm for a blazer and overcoat, even a light mac. The overall vibe I get when I dress with ones of these (despite the Harrington style having been introduced with the Baracuta G9 in '37) is very definitely 50s. In many ways, unless I'm doing the linen thing, I find a vaguely mid-50s look comes more naturally with my Summer wardrobe, 30s/40sish in the Autumn / Winter. Anyone else find this?

This describes my approach. I like to try to reproduce a particular era, but it doesn't bother me if my suit is from the 1950s, my tie is from the '40s, and my shoes are classic style but contemporary.

Yes, I often work on the 'if it looks right, it is right' approach day to day, though I would typical be fussier when dressing for a night out, a particular daytime event, or even for a normal day in the office if I'm seeing particular friends in the evening (always somebody whose opinion matters more than the others, right? ). In any case, as has often been said before, folks back in the day didn't always look like the Sears catalogue pictures, wearing that season's garb head to toe. I think often, actually, a subtle blending in of, say, a 40s hat and tie in a 50s outfit can be a touch more 'real'. Not unlike interior decor, really - think how folks who do their house up as a fifties theme house, you know, the ones who go all "rock and roll" with it, often making it look like a diner.... If that's what they want, I'm certainly not criticising their choices, but there's a world of difference between that, all-fifties, anything and everything, all the time, approach, and that which incorporates fifties aesthetics and items with furniture and other bits from the 40s, and even the 30s. To my mind, the latter is the much more historically correct approach. I only moved into my flat, the first property I have ever personally owned, in 2001, and already my furniture is a mix of 90s and 00s design (much of that influenced by much earlier styles) and manufacture. Eventually, I would like it to take on a very late 40s inspired aesthetic, which I onsider to be ideal for a flat originally built as social housing post-war, and opened in 1952. That's another matter, though!

 

[anon`]

This post makes me wonder... do particular eras lend themselves better to certain times of the year? I've just this weekend past boxed up all my Spring / Summer jackets, so I've been thinking about this a bit. I have half a dozen short jackets, a couple in a sort of Ricky style (though one cotton, and one polycotton - they look the part with a vintage look, but they're certainly no gab Ricky originals!), and I also have four Harrington-styles. I find these all great for that point in the late Spring and into the Summer when you might need a jacket, especially when there is a threat of rain or a sports jacket / blazer on its own might not be ideal, but it is too warm for a blazer and overcoat, even a light mac. The overall vibe I get when I dress with ones of these (despite the Harrington style having been introduced with the Baracuta G9 in '37) is very definitely 50s. In many ways, unless I'm doing the linen thing, I find a vaguely mid-50s look comes more naturally with my Summer wardrobe, 30s/40sish in the Autumn / Winter. Anyone else find this?

While I don't find fault in your logic (and I myself tend to default to a more-50s look in the warmer weather, but for different reasons), I think that it is an error to conclude that the '50s were more amenable to the summer, while the '30s to the winter.

Stuff produced in the '50s is, of course, twenty years younger than that from the '30s, which alone I think likely increases the available sample of '50s-era fashion. This is relevant only because it seems that the '30s, overall, were a more "formal" decade: waistcoats, sweaters and odd jackets of varying weights were probably more common then than in subsequent decades. I've also seen some very nice examples of summer weight suits from the pre-War era, that vast majority of which no doubt did not survive the ensuing decades.

Looking strictly at the "casual" front, I'm inclined to agree, but I think that has more to do with prevailing style and fashion than on any technical aspects of either era. As for myself, I wear my grandfather's Ike jacket where you wear a Ricky.

 

[Miss 1929]

Not often enough!

When I was a vintage shopgirl, every day.

These days, I am lucky to have a reason to wear a dress a couple of times a week. Not much point in it when sitting at home with the computer and the cat.

But, when I am out in the working world (please, FSM, send me a job soon) I wear vintage accessories with modern clothing and everyone thinks it's vintage (due to the shapes and styles). My true vintage is too precious to wear to work.

Except of course for gigs - I will sometimes wear true vintage to play in. Usually not though, i don't want to rip it or get it sweaty.