Vintage Desecration - Things Altered/Repurposed, and a Vintage Treasure Lost Forever.

[bunnyb.gal]

Personally, I will even keep things that are irreparable if they're older and have aesthetic value. Now I've got a shelf full of '20s frocks now that are too shattered to wear, but I'd never dream of repurposing them; they're valuable references. Just fifty years from now, think how rare it will be to find unmodified objects from the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th; it's so crucial to keep as much of this intact as possible. (I know I'm preaching to the choir now; I only wish more people thought along these lines )

Oh, and this thread puts me in mind of this ghastly site, which I'm sure many of you have come across. It really breaks my heart to see this woman blithely destroying perfectly gorgeous furniture to bring it "up to date". How sad that character has become a commodity.

This abomination has recently featured on Regretsy, and happily most of the comments showed a healthy disgust of what this individual does to poor helpless furniture.

On her website is a beautiful waterfall desk - I own one almost exactly like it, and I think, how can you cover up all that beautiful veneer with a crappy coat of white paint?

 

[nihil]

The most hideous "upcycled" thing I ever saw was a bookcase actually made out of books -- hardcovers from the teens and twenties, mostly, coated in some kind of goo and cemented into solid masses. To anyone who really loves books, that's like encasing your best friend in resin and using her as a coatrack.

Actually that's quite popular in the US. Or were in the 90s at least. Many second hand booksellers in Denmark, had a good business selling off 'popular' danish books to American craftspeople who would tear out all the paper and put cardboard inside instead. That way, customers could have a beautiful collection of exotic and foreign books, without having to fear the pages would rot (as they most likely couldn't read danish anyway). Knowing how many books second hand bookshops sometime have to destroy (lack of storage space), I think it's a good deal for everyone.

The same goes for lots of other stuff, that antique dealers simply doesn't have to space to store. There actually is an upper limit to how many old clocks, lamps and bookcases any antique shop can store.


Besides who are we to decide what an item can or can't be used for. Are those persons on this forum, who purchase vintage clothes and wear it everyday until it's worn out, any better than those who acquire old and worn out items for making them into something different?


Now, please do not get me wrong. I'm all into the preservation of history. But to me, there is a difference between making a necklace out of old, worn out watch parts, and the demolition of an historical church for making space for a shopping mall.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, I, like a lot of others here, put my money and my effort where my mouth is. And every time I bring an old item back to life, and use it for the purpose for which it's intended, I feel mighty good about depriving humanity of yet another dust-collecting "art project" that'll end up in the back of someone's garage or on the trash skip.

And anyone who thinks they have a "collection of beautiful and exotic foreign books" on their shelf when they've actually spent money on gutted covers stuffed with cardboard is someone I'm going to try very very hard to avoid knowing.

 

[Auld Edwardian]

Well, I, like a lot of others here, put my money and my effort where my mouth is. And every time I bring an old item back to life, and use it for the purpose for which it's intended, I feel mighty good about depriving humanity of yet another dust-collecting "art project" that'll end up in the back of someone's garage or on the trash skip.

And anyone who thinks they have a "collection of beautiful and exotic foreign books" on their shelf when they've actually spent money on gutted covers stuffed with cardboard is someone I'm going to try very very hard to avoid knowing.

Dear Madam,
I feel very much as you do concerning the ruining of vintage items. I have blenched at the sight over the years of seeing antiques ruined beyond repair. Just to name a few, I’ve seen a quartz movement put in a 1930’s Atmos clock, candlestick telephones turned into lamps, marble tops taken off of Victorian furniture to be used as coffee tables, old phonograph and radios turn into cocktail cabinets. The lamentable list could be endless. Through the years I have rescued many old items including telephones from the early 1900’s through the 1940’s, along with many old mechanical clocks, that after being repaired, they have been pressed into their intended use once more. It has been interesting to note how curious children are when they visit and see some of these items from an earlier time. They have delighted using my candlestick phones to talk to one another, been fascinated playing 78’s on my wind-up phonographs, and amused at seeing how people dressed and had fun whilst looking at our stereoscope viewers. All this is lost once an item is gutted for other present day “clever” use. We have been told our home is a kind of living museum where we have and enjoy many of the advantages this age offers, while trying to maintain the politeness and civility of years gone by. I take that as a complement, and believe that is a good balance to aim for.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Apropos this discussion, an interesting essay on the vanishing art of repairing things -- with some interesting insights into why that art is vanishing.

 

[sheeplady]

I have seen some of my high-income clients throw away office chairs, light fixtures, and dining tables that simply needed to have a bolt tightened or a screw replaced. And they made no attempt to give it away, because it’s inconvenient to call Goodwill or offer it to someone who could use it. The item was simply dumped on the sidewalk for the garbage truck to haul it away. Obviously, these people have lost sight of the fact that there are others who are less fortunate who would love to have a nice dining table or office chair.

I have one neighbor who puts out furniture purposefully in the rain. They own a large SUV, and there is a charity shop about a mile away- they will even help you unload it. And they have two teenage boys who could load it into the car just as easily as dragging it to the curb.

Although, I'm laughing a bit at the academic part of that article. I spent the weekend stripping paint and my husband spent it wiring, and we both work for universities. I've met people who worked all sorts of jobs, and I have to say it's more about an attitude than anything else.

 

[Flicka]

Whenever I see "shabby chic" I duck. My sister and I talked about it a while back and agreed that it's the height of bad taste. My BIL who's a devoted collector of everything old gets this wild look in his eyes whenever you mention it. I saw this lovely mahogany mirror and drawers the other day that someone had painted white and then scraped the paint here and there to make it look 'shabby'. It was painful.

I would never, ever fiddle with electricity myself, but apart from that I'm happy to go DIY (though not having a car is limiting; my grandfather built a cabin transporting planks on his bike, but that's too devoted for me so I wouldn't refurbish the kitchen without help). I do know I nice shop that'll re-wire lamps and appliances for you so I can still get it done. I even darn things (how many people today even know how?) and I'm as academic as they come. My father works as a carpenter though (he even built a house for us when I was a kid) so I guess I got a lot of know-how for free. He's a real perfectionist, and I remember how when I did things as a kid, he would force me to do everything properly instead of just splashing on a bit of paint or hammering a few nails randomly. I hated that then, but it's quite useful now!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

My parents were by no means upper class but the above-mentioned mentality is definitely not limited to the privileged few. Much to my dismay over the years I had seen my Mom throw out perfectly good stuff that she no longer needed without a second thought of fixing, selling or donating it. For many years the idea of having a yard sale was anathema to her because didn't like the idea of people "pawing through her things."

 

[LizzieMaine]

My own sister is like that -- she comes from the same background I did, but has spent her whole life running away from it, refusing to ever have anything "used" in her home, throwing away things because she's "tired" of them, and spendspendspending her way into deep deep debt. There's such a thing as overcompensation.

 

[Flicka]

I thought of this thread today - my father mentioned a friend of his who used to have small tv-repair shop, but since the flat screens arrived, it's no use so now he drives the bus. It made me a little sad.

Anyway, he's going to repair my great grandmother's radio-gramophone which I just managed to beg off my father. Some of us still have things worth fixing!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

There's a TV repair shop where I live which has been in business some 40 years. Its previous location was right near my old high school and I used to walk by it every day.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I think it's sad that people toss out things, terribly sad. I use stuff until nothing's left of it. The lack of electronics repairmen is an even sadder state of affairs. My parents recently took their LCD TV to be fixed at the local appliance shop, they told them to just buy a new one. They said it wasn't worth fixing. This is the fourth or so television that they've went through in the past few years since they gave me their Magnavox Console (Made in USA) that they bought in 1987. It still works and was only in for repairs once, in 1993.

I've learned to fix a lot of things on my own, because nobody can do it anymore. I have a Silvertone radio chassis from 1951 occupying my kitchen table, at the moment. In my free time, I'm recapping it.

 

[Shangas]

It's this throwaway society that we live in these days. Nothing is deliberately manufactured to last, so as a result, when it breaks, there's nobody to fix it, because they're not meant to be fixed.

As the Old Man on Pawnstars once said:

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, it ain't worth fixin'".

 

[kps]

My parents recently took their LCD TV to be fixed at the local appliance shop, they told them to just buy a new one. They said it wasn't worth fixing. This is the fourth or so television that they've went through in the past few years [....]

I have a Silvertone radio chassis from 1951 occupying my kitchen table, at the moment. In my free time, I'm recapping it.

The same would fix the televisions, probably. Chinese electrolytics are a plague.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's this throwaway society that we live in these days. Nothing is deliberately manufactured to last, so as a result, when it breaks, there's nobody to fix it, because they're not meant to be fixed.

It's more than that. It's a symptom of a society that values Low Price above all else -- as long as it's cheap cheap cheap, what does it matter that it's only going to last a couple of years, or that it was made by Chinese prisoners working at gunpoint, or that it's sold to you by an invasive chain store that drove all your local appliance shops out of business? You Got It For Less. They can sell it to you for Less because it costs them Less to make it overseas. It costs them Less to make it overseas because there's an inexhaustible supply of those Other People willing to slave for pennies -- when one drops dead or is shot trying to escape, well, there's always another one where she came from. Of course, consumers demand Less Less Less because, increasingly, it's all they can afford -- because they're making Less Less Less themselves. Nice little self-perpetuating racket somebody's got going, isn't it?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

What's even more screwed up is in the past if the maker of Brand A became known for making a lousy product, they would soon lose a lot of business to the much superior quality Brand B. But nowadays if Brand A is shoddy chances are that not only is Brand B also made in China but it's probably even made in the very same factory.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Or you have brand names that were once associated with quality being bought up by scavengers and slapped onto some shoddy worthless product. Philco was once "famous for quality the world over," but that slogan hasn't been true since the early sixties, at least, with the trademark having passed thru the hands of any number of corporate raiders in the decades since. That GE television you're watching? Good old All-American General Electric, the pride of Schenectady, had nothing whatsoever to do with it. That Crosley record player that never seems to quite work right? Powell Crosley is spinning in his grave. That new Westinghouse refrigerator? Betty Furness wouldn't soil her hands on it. And on and on.

As long as consumers are willing to let themselves be duped and exploited, the dupers and the exploiters will carry right along. If we aren't willing to stand up and say "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore," we've got nobody to blame but ourselves.

 

[bunnyb.gal]

How about this topic having its very own thread - I mean, are there any brands left worthy of consumer confidence in a well-made (and preferably in the same country-made) product?

 

[Flicka]

It's more than that. It's a symptom of a society that values Low Price above all else -- as long as it's cheap cheap cheap, what does it matter that it's only going to last a couple of years, or that it was made by Chinese prisoners working at gunpoint, or that it's sold to you by an invasive chain store that drove all your local appliance shops out of business? You Got It For Less. They can sell it to you for Less because it costs them Less to make it overseas. It costs them Less to make it overseas because there's an inexhaustible supply of those Other People willing to slave for pennies -- when one drops dead or is shot trying to escape, well, there's always another one where she came from. Of course, consumers demand Less Less Less because, increasingly, it's all they can afford -- because they're making Less Less Less themselves. Nice little self-perpetuating racket somebody's got going, isn't it?

Now I'm also thinking about the meat industry. People want cheap chicken and prefer to turn a blind eye on appalling conditions. Then they tut-tut at someone wearing a vintage fox stola and mentally pat themselves on the back for being so righteous. That won't stop until we accept that meat has to cost money if we are to raise the livestock under acceptable conditions.

We want - no, we expect - instant gratification and we're happy to let someone else foot the bill. We don't even see that what we really get is less and less.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Someone has to pay, always, and Moore's law only applies to computer capacity.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Precisely. We're pulling the wool over our own eyes, and making ourselves like it.

As far as vintage brands that are still reliable go, there aren't very many left. Clinic shoes are still well-made by union labor in the USA, or they were the last I looked. Revere cookware was up until recently, but now most of it comes from China. Old Paul would be real thrilled about that, I'm sure.