Vintage lady grumpiness...

[missminna]

hello there,
Over here in England we have been a bit grumpy lately, our hot sun was driven away by driving rain, Vintage at Goodwood annoyed the hell out of dozens of people and we are being governed by twits. I decided in the general zeitgeist of things to have a moan about the rare negatives of the vintage world, nothing controversial but do have a look, the comments have been interesting. Do have a look:
http://redlegsinsoho.blogspot.com/

...it is actually sunny in London today!

Minn x

 

[Lillemor]

One of the first "vintage" shops in Copenhagen had that as their specialty. Actually, you couldn't buy anything that hadn't been altered. I know people have always had to modify but to do it now just for the sake of modern appeal really infuriorates me! We had another thread about that. I just hate it when the alterations are the selling point today.

Shortly after both of my grandmothers died, their stuff was dropped off at random thriftshops by their clueless and careless adult children before I had a chance to make a claim on anything. Even things I'd been promised!

There are some people close to me who refuse to understand my interest in some specific eras or decades and who refuse to respect my style and put me in awkward situations with new gifts that can't be mixed with what I've already got.

The white knit shawl I wore in the evening for my wedding, regular "country" style, nothing spectacular and a few years ago you could buy retro versions that looked the same but I knew this one was already close to 100 years old when I got it, has some yellow stains on now that I don't know how to get off. Ditto some white hankerchiefs. I tore some fine lace on a scarf through careless use. I've lost and broken so many things in the past or just discarded them and now I know exactly how I'd use them.

Thanks for your point 7. Exactly how I feel!

 

[Miss Scarlet]

I found that very interesting to read. I agree with the fundamentalism section and it annoys me when people say, "You know it was horrible back then, why would you want to live like that?" And the point, as I say to them, is that I don't want to live in the 40s, but I like the clothes, music, decor and manners so try to employ them as much as possible.

The other thing that annoys me is animal activists when I wear vintage furs. I'm fully aware this is a contraversial subject. I would never ever wear a modern fur coat or modern fur anything because I do disagree with the methods in which fur is obtained and do not want to further the trade. However when people criticise vintage fur wearing because it's bad to wear fur, all I can say is that it's not being wasted. Surely it would be worse to chuck it in the bin, meaning that the animal's life would have been a complete waste. The companies who initially sold it get no money so it's not furthering their particular trade. I am more than thoroughly supportive of animal rights and do not want the fur trade to happen, but it just annoys me when people say things for the sake of saying it. I hope I haven't rattled anyone's cages :S

 

[AntonAAK]

...it is actually sunny in London today!

Minn x

You spoke too soon, Minn. It was obviously waiting for the test match to start...

A

 

[Puzzicato]

I thought this was going to be a thread on vintage PMS treatments and wondered what on earth AntonAAK was contributing!

Talking about the weather is much more vintage! lol

 

[FAYEZY123]

MissMinna, I agree with the unfriendliness. This has happened a few times...just plain rude!

 

[CherryWry]

Many great points! I'm especially haunted by remaking. It's one thing to work with the fabric from a dress damaged beyond repair or to turn a vacuum cleaner that refuses to function as a vacuum any longer into a lamp. That's creative, an effort to give something that would have gone in the trash a new life. Ripping up and repurposing something that still works for its intended use is another thing entirely. That's just a sin.

 

[Retro Chick]

Miss Scarlet I feel exactly the same about vintage fur!

I wrote about it on the blog when someone bought me to task on a vintage fur coat. I think people seem to feel disproportionately strongly about ANY fur, when they'll happily wear a silk dress which involved boiling moths to death!

I will add as an additional rant Charity Shops that write "Vintage" on the label and think that entitles them to charge 20x the price of anything else in the shop, even it's foul, stained, ripped, or worse, not even vintage.

I'm also very weary of occasional unfriendliness and "I'm considerably more vintage than thou" attitudes. Yes, my shoes are New Look, I still like them!

Oooh, and perfectly nice dresses that are now too short because some idiot hacked off and badly hemmed it into a mini.

Oh dear, now I'm feeling ranty.

 

[Puzzicato]

Ripping up and repurposing something that still works for its intended use is another thing entirely. That's just a sin.

Oh god yes.

In 1972-ish my grandmother bought a gown to wear to some ball. It had been featured in the newspaper as the winning project of one of the East Sydney Tech design students - full length wild silk, with a hand-beaded bodice and matching bolero jacket.

In about 2005 she cut it up for a patchwork quilt.

I cried.

 

[Miss Scarlet]

Oh god yes.

In 1972-ish my grandmother bought a gown to wear to some ball. It had been featured in the newspaper as the winning project of one of the East Sydney Tech design students - full length wild silk, with a hand-beaded bodice and matching bolero jacket.

In about 2005 she cut it up for a patchwork quilt.

I cried.

 

[Emer]

I repsonded to your blog post, but just had to say it here as well.

I especially love point 7. I look at my grandmother and I see so much of what MY mother missed out on by being a hippie and fighting against her norms (not saying the "hippie" times were bad or anything!). As a result, I too have missed out on a few things as well since my mother didn't learn them to pass on. I now find myself teaching HER how to do her make-up and wear shapewear or how to behave in a formal setting. I love my mom to death, but sometimes I wish her generation hadn't been so rebellious.

 

[Edward]

'Reworking' is, arguably, a very vintage idea, but in this day and age when there are plenty of folks very willing to give the garments a home in their original, still very wearable, state, it is not something that I see as still so desirable. Especially not when so, so little of what I have seen done belies any genuine creative spark whatever, being mostly self-consciously 'different' for its own sake. Witness, for instance, the tweed sports coats I saw a couple of years ago selling on Brick Lane. Some Shoreditch twit, no doubt with asymmetrical haircut and/or ironic 80s fashion accessories, had removed the sleeves, replacing them with stretchy, jersey items from a tracksuit top. By no stretch of the imagination could that have looked good to anyone, surely.

 

[Miss Moonlight]

Witness, for instance, the tweed sports coats I saw a couple of years ago selling on Brick Lane. Some Shoreditch twit, no doubt with asymmetrical haircut and/or ironic 80s fashion accessories, had removed the sleeves, replacing them with stretchy, jersey items from a tracksuit top. By no stretch of the imagination could that have looked good to anyone, surely.

Here in Portland there is a trend that involves wanting to look bad to be cool. Ironic Hipsters. The trend has been a round for awhile, but it's bad here right now. It's all about wearing the ugliest, tackiest, stupidest clothes, shoes, hair and make up, using the worst furniture, listening to 'bad music' (they even have dance night of this, just for bad music). And to them it's cool. To me, an ugly couch is just an ugly couch, but there you have it. This could be what you saw. Ironic Hipsterism. It's their thing... to each his own. I personally think it's silly but it gives a home to a lot of ugly clothes and furniture that might go to waste otherwise.

The only part of the article I have any problem with is 'unfriendlies'. Judging someone as unfriendly or rude because they didn't smile back is just jumping to conclusions. You *never* know what that person is going through- life is hard, one can have anything going on from pain to grief to bad teeth, or perhaps they're just shy- which rarely comes across as demure. I don't tend to smile much and people, when they get to know me, always say they thought I was a ...well I won't use the word, but, until they met me, and then they realize, I'm really not and they really like me. Not my problem they chose to take someone not smiling personally.

 

[TillyMilly]

I look at my grandmother and I see so much of what MY mother missed out on by being a hippie and fighting against her norms (not saying the "hippie" times were bad or anything!). As a result, I too have missed out on a few things as well since my mother didn't learn them to pass on. I now find myself teaching HER how to do her make-up and wear shapewear or how to behave in a formal setting. I love my mom to death, but sometimes I wish her generation hadn't been so rebellious.

Exactly the same for me- but replace Hippie with Beatnik. Before she got into that style my Mum was a 'traditional' girl and had a middy cut, wore bullet bras, petticoats, girdles and stockings and is so much happier to not have to wear those things anymore- she can't understand why i like them (though my Dad does!) She's a Boho babe now and I have had to teach her how to wear make-up and skincare stuff- though she's usually very lady-like- so at least I got manners from her.

 

[Emer]

I try so hard with my manners, but I always forget to stand up straight, or keep my elbows off the table. Most of the (few) manners I do have lol I learned from my grandparents.

 

[Mugwump]

So many good points here...

Make do and mend was and is a great thing, but that didn't mean "tear up something good and make something silly out of it". Tweed jacket with jersey sleeves - really! And the ball gown/dress used in a quilt - I would have cried, too, I admit. I mean, it was hers to do with as she pleased, but wow! Sending a hug in your direction, Pizzicato!

 

[Amy Jeanne]

MissMinna, I agree with the unfriendliness. This has happened a few times...just plain rude!

That's because you have a lovely reddish/pinkish shade of hair. They didn't have that "back then"

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's because you have a lovely reddish/pinkish shade of hair. They didn't have that "back then"

Oh, I dunno...

(From the London Daily Mirror, November 17, 1936)

CHANGED HAIR TO ORCHID BLONDE AND WON SUCCESS

If you get tired of being in the chorus, turn up one morning with mauve hair.

Miss Towyna Thomas, who is twenty-three and comes from Carmarthenshire, did this, and now she has a part in the new revue "To and Fro," which opens at the Comedy Theatre, London, on November 26.

Towyna's hair is naturally platinum blonde. "I was so tired of being platinum blonde and seeing almost every girl with the same coloured hair," she told me, "that I decided to have my hair mauve. No one seems to have thought of that. I call it 'orchid blonde.'"

"I can't say I like it much in daylight, but my work is the most important thing to me and it won me a part -- and I hope it will help me realise my ambition to be a comedienne."

 

[~Psycho Sue~]

Here in Portland there is a trend that involves wanting to look bad to be cool. Ironic Hipsters. The trend has been a round for awhile, but it's bad here right now. It's all about wearing the ugliest, tackiest, stupidest clothes, shoes, hair and make up, using the worst furniture, listening to 'bad music' (they even have dance night of this, just for bad music). And to them it's cool. To me, an ugly couch is just an ugly couch, but there you have it. This could be what you saw. Ironic Hipsterism. It's their thing... to each his own. I personally think it's silly but it gives a home to a lot of ugly clothes and furniture that might go to waste otherwise.

WOW! COOL! That whole concept is interesting to me....since i have been in love with reject clothing/objects for a long time. I like the idea of rejecting commercial "beauty." and this is certainly a way of doing it. also on your other statement about judging people who dont smile as non-friendly. i can understand that. theres plenty of women that i felt at first impression were "cold" but later i found that i caught them on a bad day and they were really pretty cool.

as for being upset by people re-purposing old items; it doesnt bother me, i think its really neat actually; and it's really artistic. i think its likely that some people have attachments to old things and think of them as treasure and have a hard time seeing them for what they are: old objects. i do it sometimes too. i automatically see something in a store and its like gold to me because its rare or odd or just plain cool; but if i step outside of my emotional attachment to it i cant really hold anyone else to that same feeling that i have about it.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

HAHA!

I remember reading this somewhere. Maybe it was here somwhere.

Also, in one of my 1930s magazines it has a (colourized) photo of an actress with blue hair. Apparently she died it that colour so it would appear a certain colour on film. I don't know how true it -- you know those 1930s movie mags and their embellishments I can't recall the actress right now, but I don't think it was one of the biggies.

Oh, I dunno...

(From the London Daily Mirror, November 17, 1936)

CHANGED HAIR TO ORCHID BLONDE AND WON SUCCESS

If you get tired of being in the chorus, turn up one morning with mauve hair.

Miss Towyna Thomas, who is twenty-three and comes from Carmarthenshire, did this, and now she has a part in the new revue "To and Fro," which opens at the Comedy Theatre, London, on November 26.

Towyna's hair is naturally platinum blonde. "I was so tired of being platinum blonde and seeing almost every girl with the same coloured hair," she told me, "that I decided to have my hair mauve. No one seems to have thought of that. I call it 'orchid blonde.'"

"I can't say I like it much in daylight, but my work is the most important thing to me and it won me a part -- and I hope it will help me realise my ambition to be a comedienne."