Your Favorite Years? What time period do you follow?

[Miss Sis]

1930 - 1939

I think I should have been born when my Grandmother was born, December 1911.

Then I would have lived through my favourite time period whilst a young woman.

It would mean I'd probably be dead by now but what a time to have lived!

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

1935 -1945.
Love the clothes, the architecture, the dames, the cars, the movies, the dames, the comedy, the music, the dames, art deco,...and oh yeah. Did I mention the dames?

I couldn't agree more, these are my favorite years too. So, "what he said", minus "the dames"

Although there were some really wonderful movies made from 1947-1953.
And I also adore the "Titanic" or Edwardian era for clothing. Dressing during that time period was superb. I just think that to dress vintage on a regular basis, "Titanic" era is a bit difficult. The clothes are harder to find, and to find something in "good" condition can be really expensive. So, for me, it's a bit more practical to wear 1935-1945(48). Clothing was still elegant and classy, however it was a "little" more casual. Dressing in this era in a modern world looks a little less costumey than if I were to wear my Edwardian clothes every day.
Ugh, this is such a hard question. I like many different eras, each for it's own reason. I'm not sure if I could pick one decade over another when it comes to clothing.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

The Entire 20th Century

I like the entire 20th Century, too. I admit I focus in more on pop culture than anything else when getting my "feel" for each decade. It's the most open window we have to the past!

The late 20s into the mid 30s wins for movies, hairstyles, makeup styles, fashion, and architecture, but the late 70s to the early 90s wins every time for music.

Every decade has it's charm, though. There's something I like about them all and I'm fascinated with how they all came together.

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

If I had to narrow it down - I would say 1938-1941 for me. I think because that was the time when it was the 'heyday' for U-Boats...I'm not sure. I just have really happy feelings when thinking of those years.

Prien

 

[Fletch]

1932-1933

Why should I find myself drawn to the years of the Great Void, that all-pervading Nothing that echoed thru the land like a choking airless cry of brute anguish and misery?

In 1932 and 1933 the smallest everyday pleasures were something to be grateful for. In years like these, to make or do or say anything of real and lasting beauty and joy was precious, amazing, magic. And yet people did and made and said things,. Good things. Joyful things. Marvelous things. Things of energy and life, from people whose energy and life would not be denied.

Some of these things are lost. Many more are all but lost – the buried happinesses of an unhappy time, waiting for their time. Waiting to be discovered. Waiting for us.

Dormeuse, Tamara de Lempicka.
Sleeping Beauty, model 1932.
Who will awaken her?
Maybe one of us.
Maybe you...

We've got a lot of what it takes to get along...
Let's spend it, lend it, send it rolling along.

 

[Lincsong]

Oh I forgot; 1950-1965 Las Vegas.lol

 

[Steve]

I love the mid-thirties through he early fifties; when dress became a little less flamboyant. Mid-width peaked lapels, double-breasted suits, Bogart, Lorre, they all hold a certain flavor of the era for me.

 

[MK]

.

1935 -1945.
Love the clothes, the architecture, the dames, the cars, the movies, the dames, the comedy, the music, the dames, art deco,...and oh yeah. Did I mention the dames?

That is almost word for word what I have said all along....with less emphasis on the dames. They were beautiful of course, but I already have one....so I guess I just appreciate the rest.

 

[John in Covina]

I would be hard pressed to give a definative answer for myself. I love so many of the things from the past, Mechanical items, cars (mid 30's to about 1951), flight, WWI & II, but the thing that I like is how different and yet the same life is/was. As time goes by we change and our attitude changes in subtle ways, so that after a long period we take a look at our selves and realize that we are steps away from where we were.

When I watch a program like American Masters or the American Experience or similar history programs, I always imagine what it would be like to have experienced what occured then and how my attitude from the present shapes my view of the past. If I was sent back in time, could my modern sensabilities live in that era or would I be at odds with the past.

I'd say that from about the 1880 on up to the present each decade has something that I love and in the ones I actually occupied, loved.

I still want a mid to late 30's Business Coupe, an Art Deco design tombstone radio, and well art deco furniture and home.

 

[dhermann1]

My Favorite Year

Please excuse the blatant narcissistic self advertisement, but here is humble self IN "My Favorite Year", Village Light Opera Group, 2005. Based on the movie. Wonderful show, never a real hit but great evocation of 1954.
Note, one of my favorite ties. Several of my vintage ties were used in the show (I didn't get a credit! Harrumph!)

 

[Fletch]

Neat-o, d. I enjoyed the movie (co-produced by a friend's dad) and feel somewhat at home in 1954 myself since seeing Rear Window and the TV coverage of the McCarthy hearings. I even got to put on white bucks and a patch pocket coat and sing in my dad's old quartet at his 50th high school reunion in '04 (one of the members was class of '55 so not there).

1927, 1935, 1939, 1947, 1951 I'll tell you about some time.

 

[vintage68]

1934 to roughly the end of WWII.

 

[plain old dave]

Tie:1900-1926 and 1946-1950.

Why:
1) Even the guns had panache. Park a Smith and Wesson New Century (AKA Triple Lock) or Colt New Service revolver next to a Sig or Glock, or a Remington Model 81 rifle next to a M4 and you'll see what I'm talking about...

2) The cars had character. Park a '52 DeSoto next to a new (whatever make you care for, new cars have no character).

3) Lifestyle. Up til 1920, America was a predominantly rural nation; Things going on overseas were more or less something to decorate with or read about in the pages of the National Geographic. There's something to be said for that.

4) Style. Bob Wills or Bill Monroe had more style in one shirtsleeve than a roomful of modern entertainers do in their entire organization.

 

[mikepara]

Bits n Bobs...

of all of the 20th Century.
But as the question was specific. Europe 1918-35. I would wear just about anything worn by men in those years. But think Art Deco housing and fittings, Egyptian exploration and Mummy searching, even Germany's build up to aggression.

 

[Flivver]

For me, it's the time from about 1925 through the late 1940s. The cars, the music, the movies and the general "look" of this era were wonderful. I was born 50 years too late!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

1066 was cool. (I have Norman ancestry.)

.

 

[Parallel Guy]

1939 - I wonder what it would have been like to drive from one world's fair to the other pre-freeway. It's fantasy but what the hecks wrong with that.

 

[Twitch]

Ah, my favorite years were the 50s and 60s. I grew up in St. Louis and most of the buildings and houses remain the same as they were then, locked in a 30s-40s time warp.

My best recollections were of the cars. On my block there was a black and white 55 Buick convertable a light blue 57 Ford Ranchero, a pea green 51 Nash Ambassador and about a 48 gray Nash. My Dad had a 39 Packard. A friend of my Mom had a 57 Pontiac in 2 tone metallic green. My grandma had a light blue gray 52 Ford and later a metallic green 54 Mercury.

As we moved to the 60s the great cars were all around. The Fords and Chevies sought after today were all over. They had powerful engines that were so basically and easily interchangable to other cars of the same brand. We considered a 250 HP Chevelle 2 door sedan an old lady car. It was hardtops or nothing and 300HP or more was ticket.

You'd see 1940 Fords for sale for $175! People actually could work on their own cars before they became electrical nightmares made to throw away after a few years.

The memories of riding my bike through the streets awash in 50s and 60s cars and later driving my 58 Chevy and 57 Olds are vivid and warming. Gas was 14 cents a gallon so a couple bucks chipped in from the passengers allowed you cruise all night. And except for the few odd VW bugs there were no foreign cars to be seen!

 

[Mike1939]

I'm fascinated by the first half of the 20th century, especially the 30's and 40's. To narrow it down to a more manageable time frame I'd say between 1934-1941 would be my favorite years of study. You had the movies, It Happend One Night at one end and The Maltese Falcon at the other. Benny Goodman was the King of Swing, Hemmingway wrote, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep. FDR was helping out the regular joes and Fred and Ginger danced on the silver screen. The fashions, lifestyle and just plain class of this time really appeal to me. I know it was'nt the utopia that I sometimes fantasize about, yet I think the hard times and war built character in those that survived to tell the tale.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

I go back and forth with varying intensity for my "Favorite Years", and it goes something like this:

1932-1941: Art Deco, Astaire-Rogers musicals, Screwball Comedies, political unrest, and the world unrest that surrounded the U.S. until Dec 7, 1941 brought us in full throttle. The 1941 of this era for me is the time before US entry into the war.

1941-45: WWII

1946-1953: What I think of as Film Noir's peak with all of that societal adjusting to do.

1954-1963: The "Space Age" with all its Mid-Century Modern futurism and the JFK presidency.

1964-1975: My guilty pleasures, the "Spy Craze", TV shows like Hawaii Five-O and The Persuaders, etc.

My most favored period is the 1932-41 era and goes in order from there, with the last being my least favorite.