What are you wearing today??

[itsbruce]

LadyBaltimore, it was the 2015 London Tweed Run. I'm the head marshal for the event. My pictures are here, although I'm always too busy to take many. Lots more pictures from many people will be turning up on the Net over the next week. Here are some from one of my marshals.

 

[PantherMkV]

itsbruce The event looks great! I only wish everyone would dress like that all the time! (Maybe not summer though.)
LadyBaltimore Another series of great outfits!

Its getting a little colder in Melbourne now which doesn't really bother me because hey... Coats!
This is a new suit; nothing vintage here I'm afraid.

~MCRB

 

[Two Types]

LAdy Baltimore: Love the dress. That's such a European folk look. You look like someone out of the Costica Ascinte archive

Here's the Fedora Lounge page on the photos of Romanian women by Ascinte: http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?78072-The-Ladies-of-Romania-in-the-mid-20th-Century

 

[GHT]

itsbruceI basically just throw a dress and some sandals on every day.

You might just 'throw your dress and sandals on,' but you still create a wow factor.

Today, we, that's a group of retired baby boomers, will be in the background of a film. We were in a previous film about our lifestyle, can't remember if I posted it here or not. The director has said to wear what we like, but has asked if we can wear pastel colours. I shall wear a light blue & white pinstripe jacket over a tropical style shirt. The shirt is a blue/grey base colour, with depictions of pre-WW2 aircraft emblazoned upon it. Bespoke blue trousers, slightly darker than the jacket, blue & white fair isle socks with blue and white spectator shoes. All topped off with a white panama/fedora.

 

[mendelboaz]

CRM Hat
Vanson jacket
Naked and Famous Elephant 4 jeans
Red Wing 2990 Engineer boots

Sweet Jesus, brother! You look like an absolute bad*ss! What Vanson jacket is that?

 

[casechopper]

It's a Terminator 3 repro done in octagon brown performance weight leather. I picked it up from Lando here on the lounge when he was selling a bunch of jackets in the classifieds.

 

[Dreamofgilgamesh]

Oh what lovely photos, everyone looks grand. Tell me though, those trousers or breeks you're wearing, what is the correct term for them? Are they plus fours? And where do you get those lovely long socks from?

 

[tropicalbob]

LadyBaltimore, do the thrift stores in that town still carry the most outrageous items in the world? I spent my middle and high school years there, and my friends and I used to find the absolute coolest clothes in the thrifts, especially stuff for wearing on stage when I was a musician. Baltimore really had its own style back in the '60's and early '70's.

 

[mendelboaz]

It's a Terminator 3 repro done in octagon brown performance weight leather. I picked it up from Lando here on the lounge when he was selling a bunch of jackets in the classifieds.

I remember that jacket... amazing find bro. Wear it in good health

 

[LadyBaltimore]

itsbruce, that looks amazing! Thanks for sharing some more photos of it with me!

PantherMkV, thank you! Looking very handsome, and despite that suit not being vintage, I think the touch of a vintage style hat (or is it actually vintage), gives the whole look a vintage feel. Also I have a lot of Australian friends and you seem to cope with the cold better than most, usually there's a great deal of groaning about this time of year, haha. Probably doesn't help that it seems I'm rubbing our spring in their faces!

Two Types, that's such a complimentary comparison, thank you! I especially love that photo you selected, although the whole series is great. Thanks for sharing!

GHT, that's so sweet, thank you! I do tend to keep my eyes peeled from dresses that are something special (but of course "special" is so subjective to my taste), as the kind of statement piece and then just a little accessorizing.

tropicalbob, yes, definitely! Baltimore is such an eclectic, kitsch city. Admittedly, many of the thrift stores don't necessarily carry things in my taste (at least without some serious digging), but they are unique! I wish more of them had pieces from the 1930s-1950s, as I feel most of them are more 80s-90s. For me, there's nothing quite like having authentic pieces, preserving history, and they just really spark my imagination. You know, picturing a woman sewing a dress from a feedsack in the 1930s, on a dusty ramshackle porch in the Great Depression, and never knowing that another woman all these years later would still be wearing it, and how many women have worn it? And what were they like, what were their lives like? What did they do in those dresses? As a bookworm, my imagination has never suffered. And although aesthetically, vintage reproductions or pieces in the style of are still lovely, and to each their own, for me, there's nothing quite like having a piece of history in your hands.

 

[Hal]

Panther - a great picture of a great ensemble. Well done!

 

[itsbruce]

Oh what lovely photos, everyone looks grand. Tell me though, those trousers or breeks you're wearing, what is the correct term for them? Are they plus fours? And where do you get those lovely long socks from?

I *think* you must be talkling to me, only because neither of the two gorgeous people on that page are relevant to these details. So... I'm wearing plus twos. Shorter overlap than plus fours. Plus fours are fine for walking around in but plus twos are better for cycling. The socks I got from William Evans in St James Street, London.

 

[PantherMkV]

LadyBaltimore no doubt I'll miss the sun soon enough! Melbourne is renown for strange weather; pouring rain at 10am, pleasant sun by 12pm, pelting hail at 3pm and calm sunset at 7pm. We get all four seasons in a day so It helps to always be prepared here! Haha. The hat's new, but its been through the wars recently. My milliner hates me for what I subject hats to; I caught a fish in my boater last summer!

Thankyou Hal, its very kind of you to say.
~MCRB

 

[Fading Fast]

... For me, there's nothing quite like having authentic pieces, preserving history, and they just really spark my imagination. You know, picturing a woman sewing a dress from a feedsack in the 1930s, on a dusty ramshackle porch in the Great Depression, and never knowing that another woman all these years later would still be wearing it, and how many women have worn it? And what were they like, what were their lives like? What did they do in those dresses? As a bookworm, my imagination has never suffered. And although aesthetically, vintage reproductions or pieces in the style of are still lovely, and to each their own, for me, there's nothing quite like having a piece of history in your hands.

Really well said. You captured the wonderful feel of owning vintage pieces.

What is so much fun for my girlfriend and me is that - for example in book collecting, which we do - while there are the stupid expensive vintage items "signed first edition, first printing, with dust jacket, blah, blah, blah" in every category, if you don't care about that stuff (and we don't), then the second edition - printed six months later - still has all the historical vibe, but at a normal-person price.

Someone bought my second printing "House of Mirth" in 1905, read it and the book has traveled through how many homes and lives since to have wound up on our book shelve for a $6 purchase out of a great dusty old book store in up-state New York. And what a treat to find a handwritten note in a margin or a "To Joan with love Dad, Christmas 1945" on the inside cover page of a book.

Those are the things that bring history to life; that connects us across time in a tactile and visceral way that new history books or reproductions never can.

 

[Wally_Hood]

Really well said. You captured the wonderful feel of owning vintage pieces.

What is so much fun for my girlfriend and me is that - for example in book collecting, which we do - while there are the stupid expensive vintage items "signed first edition, first printing, with dust jacket, blah, blah, blah" in every category, if you don't care about that stuff (and we don't), then the second edition - printed six months later - still has all the historical vibe, but at a normal-person price.

Someone bought my second printing "House of Mirth" in 1905, read it and the book has traveled through how many homes and lives since to have wound up on our book shelve for a $6 purchase out of a great dusty old book store in up-state New York. And what a treat to find a handwritten note in a margin or a "To Joan with love Dad, Christmas 1945" on the inside cover page of a book.

Those are the things that bring history to life; that connects us across time in a tactile and visceral way that new history books or reproductions never can.

Somewhere I thought I read a quote that goes something like,"After big game hunting, the biggest thrill is book collecting."
In younger days I haunted used book stores, looking for old mysteries and detective fiction. Also looked for Benchley, Thurber, et al.

 

[Fading Fast]

Somewhere I thought I read a quote that goes something like,"After big game hunting, the biggest thrill is book collecting."
In younger days I haunted used book stores, looking for old mysteries and detective fiction. Also looked for Benchley, Thurber, et al.

We love the hobby and, as noted, once you don't get sucked into the "first edition, first printing, blah, blah, blah" world (and it's fine if you do, I just don't have that kind of money) it's an affordable hobby. As you noted, it is fun to just ramble through the shelves of an old dusty bookstore and find some fascinating book from 1912 that you had no idea existed but completely sucks you in.

Also, I like that I can actually use the thing I collect - I have no interest in just accumulating items. All of our vintage items - books, clothes, radios, furniture - are used in our daily life.

 

[Metatron]

Metatron, I also have a pair of those Swedish trews and I had the grommets removed as well. Insanely long inseam. They are post-war. I used to have a pre-war model. the only difference was that all buttons were metal instead of plastic. I find me changing into these or other non-wool trews as soon as I come home. I got two adorable black tom-kittens on Thursday and their favorite place is my lap.

Yes, I wonder who they were intended for, as I am 1.87m tall and they were wayy too long for me.
Gotta keep those dress trousers safe from the claws!!

 

[Yesteryear]

I'm flying R/C airplanes today and decided to look the part.
These toy planes are immensely cheaper/safer than real airplanes, yet just as much fun to fly!
View attachment 28468
US Authentic A-2 with a green button down shirt & tan pants.

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm flying R/C airplanes today and decided to look the part.
These toy planes are immensely cheaper/safer than real airplanes, yet just as much fun to fly!
View attachment 28468
US Authentic A-2 with a green button down shirt & tan pants.

I know nothing about the hobby, but that is a gorgeous looking plane and quite a nice vintage outfit you have on. Looks like a fun outing.

 

[vmtrevino2]

I'm flying R/C airplanes today and decided to look the part.
These toy planes are immensely cheaper/safer than real airplanes, yet just as much fun to fly!
View attachment 28468
US Authentic A-2 with a green button down shirt & tan pants.

Vintage