Coco Chanel

With all the drama that occurred in Coco Chanel's personal life, it's no surprise she caused quire a stir in the fashion world, as well.

Beginning as a seamstress, then a milliner, then a dressmaker, she liberated women from the bustles and corsets of fashion and introduced a more relaxed, sporty, chic look for women to wear.  Her look epitomized a youthful, fashionable woman and many wanted the look.

She used innovated design methods and made sure to execute those methods and looks in her everyday life -- wearing her hair short, her skin tanned, and her clothes androgynous.

Incorporating many looks and themes from her personal life, as well, her designs took her love of hunting, riding, and the exotic and made them suitable for everyday wear.  She created crew-neck sweaters and striped tops, bell-bottom pants, and ethnic prints into her designs to mimic what she enjoyed doing in her everyday life.  Even the famous, sleek and simple look of the Chanel No. 5 perfume bottle was modeled after her lover's toiletry bottles.

Most notable of all was her signature Chanel Suit, a look still copied and styled in history today.  The woolen suit was comprised of a knee-length skirt and cardigan-style jacket with three quarter sleeves and finished with gold buttons and a sleek trim.  The look was accessorized with a simple strand of pearls, low pumps, and a leather handbag.  Jackie Kennedy made the look a symbol of the 60s when she famously wore a pink and navy Chanel suit the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination.

When Chanel passed, she left behind a legacy of timeless elegance that still remains iconic and fashionable to this day.

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Yves Saint Laurent

The man who is credited for bringing couture back to the sixties was Yves Saint Laurent, a French designer whose innovative looks and creativity breathed a new life into the fashions of the time.

He is noted highly for his Le Smoking look, an androgynous look for women that resembled a sleek tuxedo.  He believed that women should wear this look to resemble the power and influence men usually emit in the same style of clothing.

He also create the iconic Mondrian Dress, made a craze from safari and ethnic inspired prints, and popularized the shirtdress as high fashion.

In the world of runway, he also was one of the first to feature black models in his shows, something that wasn't very common in the late 60s and early 70s.

He was praised for his work by his fans and the press through much of his career, until drugs and alcohol really began taking their toll and he began to give more and more of his work to his assistants.  After retiring from the company in 2002, he died a few years later of brain cancer, leaving a legacy behind and a company that is still running to this day.

We have a beautiful, black velvet, strapless, mermaid dress from the 1980s in the shop by Yves St Laurent, and I can see why he was praised and appreciated so much.  The shape of the dress itself is beautiful, but the neckline is slightly futuristic and really shows why his designs were so popular for so long.

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Identifying Vintage: Tags, Part 2

Now that we've covered the basics of the design on the tag in determining its vintage authenticity, let's dive in a little deeper to look at the other tag components generally attached to a garment such as a union tag, the style/lot number tag, and clothing care tag.

Clothing unions were very prevelant in the United States from the early 1900s up until the 1980s when massproduction of clothing sent a lot of jobs oversees to be produced for less.  Not saying that this exportation of jobs wasn't done before the 80s, but this was one of the largest shifts in production to happen up until that time.  Before this, however the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union or ILGWU was one of the most powerful and prevelant unions in the country, and you can see many of their tags on your vintage garments in the form of a white, square tag with a circle design, generally in a shade of blue with red.  If you find this tag on your garment, you can use this guide or this guide to help determine the garment's age.

Some things to note about union tags:  the ILGWU joined the CIO in 1937, the AFL in 1940, and the CIO and AFL merged in the mid-50s forming the AFL-CIO.  Today, the ILGWU is known as UNITE, which formed in 1995.  Tags will reflect these changes.

Once again in our modern world, computers and technology make keeping track of things very easy.  In our vintage world, this wasn't so much the case, so manufacturers had to come up with an easy and efficient way to keep track of which style of what garments were going where.  Enter the Lot and Style number and tag to a piece of clothing.  The lot number is the number attached to a group going to a store, generally done by the size.  The style number is the number for the piece's design.
For example, let's say a production of blue, bellbottom jeans were going to be sent to Macy's, Sears Roebuck & Co, and Montgomery Wards.  They all want size 10 of the jeans.  The style number for the jeans is #708015.  So, they would get articles that read, "Lot Size 10 / Style: 708015," which would be put into their inventory and the manufacturers.  Basically, the number just helped with the assembly line production and distribution of the garment.

Today, style numbers are still on most tags, especially higher-end brands.  This is helped with the return process, as most style numbers are checked against the tags to make sure the correct garment is being returned.

Sometimes, it's what's missing that helps identify if a garment is vintage.  Before the 1960s and the pass of the Textile Production Identification Act, which mandates that, mainly for customs duties, a garment must be labeled with its fabric content in percentages, clothing wasn't required to have a tag in it that said what it was made of.  The same goes for before the Federal Trade Commission passed the Care Labeling Rule  in 1971 which states that all clothing tags must have at least one safe way to clean the garment listed.  This was also when clothing care icons were introduced.  If you see a care or content label or both on your garment, chances are it was created sometime after the 1960s.

However, one must remember, that some companies, especially those that used finer fabrics such as silk and wool, generally advertised the use of these products in their garments, so don't completely rule out an earlier era just because it has a content label, and, generally, this label would be a nicely designed label sewed into the lining of a jacket and not a printed and stitched in label like those we see today.

One last way that the tag can hold the key to vintage authenticity is by looking at where it was made.  If it was made in countries such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia, it's pretty safe to say that it's vintage, as these countries were disbanded in 1992.

Obviously, as with anything, these are just guidelines in determining your clothings originations.  Many other factors are involved in truly getting a proper reading and feel for a garment's age, but looking at the tags can provide a quick way to glance at a garment in a pile and see if it's worthy of adding to your vintage collection.  So have fun finding them!

Vintage Designer Feature: Vera Neumann of "Vera"

When I am looking at things to put in the shop, I'm generally always drawn to interesting prints and bright colors.  Because of this, I will always pick vintage Lilly Pulitzer items and Vera.

In much the same way as Lilly Pulitzer and starting around the same time, Vera Neumann created iconic works of wearable art in bold prints and colors, always signing her prints as simply, “Vera.”

She started out designing linens with her husband out of their New York apartment, until the linens were picked up by a department store, and the couple outgrew their space.

At this time, the Second World War was happening and linen fabrics had become scarce, so Vera began experimenting with parachute silk, which lead to the creation of the iconic scarves she is now so well known for.

She always signed her scarves with her signature, thus becoming a well known name in the fashion industry with the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly wearing her designs.

Dating her work is simple by looking at her signature. If her name is all lower case, you have one of her earliest works dating back to the 1940s. Starting in the 1950s, she began capitalizing the letters in “Vera,” while in the 60s, she added the copyright symbol and a ladybug next to her name. By the 70s, the ladybug was used less and less, until it finally disappeared, leaving just her name and the copyright symbol to this day.

This picture shows a sampling of Vera scarves we have in the shop. I love their bright, vivid colors and bold, geometric designs. What do you think?

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Claire McCardell - The American Look

When I first started working at Playclothes in California, I had little knowledge of many designers in vintage history.  Of course, I knew the big names that are still around today, but little about those who had come and gone.

I still remember the day Phyllis, the manager of Playclothes, began going on and on about this Claire McCardell dress we had just gotten into the shop.  I couldn't understand why she was so impressed, it was just a simple, black frock.  She seemed slightly offended my ignorance and gave me a history lecture right there on the spot.  Since, I have never forgotten what she told me and have sought out the label in my own vintage travels.

If you are just as ignorant about this wonderful vintage designer as I was, Claire McCardell was one of the most influential designers to American women's wear and was dubbed as the creator of the "American Look." Her simple, yet elegant, looks were designed for the everyday woman and meant to be comfortable and practical.  She shunned the French influence on American fashion, and instead focused on what women wanted, generally drafting ideas that fit her own needs and concerns with fashion.  Through twenty years of work, Claire McCardell reinvented the wheel, so to say, of women's fashion, incorporating easy-care fabrics, the idea of separates, and the body over undergarments to create form.

Educated at the-now Parsons with a degree in costume design, McCardell's fashion career began and ended at Townley Frocks, with short stints at other companies when Townley Frocks closed for a few years.  During her time at Townley Frocks, she created numerous functional and sophisticated designs, her first being a tent-style dress called the Monastic which could be worn with or without a belt to give the wearer a form, and her next being a wrap-around dress that could be put over anything from a bathing suit to a housedress to a party dress called the Popover.  Her designs were innovative and relied on bias cuts and fabric draping to give them elegance, as well as the idea of clothing as separates.  Most importantly, however, they were versatile and comfortable and catered to the needs of every woman.

When World War Two came about and fabric was heavily rationed, McCardell very much embraced the use of natural-fiber fabrics, such as cotton and wool, and used them not just for day, but for evening and formal wear, as well.  She also started a craze of ballet slippers worn as shoes, sometimes covering them in matching fabric to the dress in her runway shows.  Her designs were frugal, using little fabric, but still fabulous, so much so that by the late 40s, she was Lord and Taylor's number one selling ready-to-wear designer.

The versatility and comfortability of her designs were not just due to the fabric used, but to the structure of her garments, as well.  Her designs relied more on the body's natural shape than an undergarment's shape to the body.  She used the fabric, cutting on a bias, to give shape to the bust and used the cut of the sleeves, rather than a shoulder pad, to give definition.  Her clothes were designed to give ease to the wearer not irritation.

Though her life was cut short due to cancer, Claire McCardell managed to create many essential looks to American fashion that are still present today.  Her versatility with design, fabric, and shape defined the American Look of the time, and those elements of design make her one of the most influential designers of the times.

Now, you've been educated.

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The Queen of Prep -- Lilly Pulitzer

I remember my freshman year of college, my roommate at the time, who was born and raised in the Carolinas, started going on and on and on about how much she hated it when her dad would come to visit because he'd always bring her a Lilly dress and that just wasn't her style anymore.

A "Lilly" dress?  What does that mean?  Being from up north, I had no idea, until she showed me a Lilly Pulitzer dress.  What she showed me at the time, a bright, crazy, beach-y print, was not something I would ever have worn, so I related with her.  I probably even made a face.  Whatever her dad had gotten her was hideous and that was the last time I had ever saw it.

Years later, though, as I was living in California and really starting to get into vintage, I came to love Lilly Pulitzer and her designs of the past.  They were creative and colorful, with a lot of care thrown in to the designs.  I remember going to American Vintage in Echo Park and finding a great, subdued Lilly print dress in beiges.  It's was beautiful.  Too big, but beautiful, so I bought it anyways and eventually sold it in the shop.

Nowadays, since I am back in the South, I always look for vintage prints by her and usually can't keep them in stock.  She's loved by many and her bright colors really draw attention and make a statement.

Here's a little backstory on Ms Lilly Pulitzer:

The old saying, "It's all in who you know..." could not ring any truer than in the case of Lilly Pulitzer.  Her former schoolmate Jaqueline Kennedy wore one of her designs on the cover of LIFE magazine, and the rest is history.

After eloping and moving from New York to Palm Beach, Lilly started a juice stand with the citrus from her husband's groves.  While working, she noticed that the juice would spray and make a mess of her clothes.  Her solution?  A colorfully printed, sleeveless cotton, shift dress, the first of many "Lilly's." 

To this day, the brand still thrives on the colorful prints it was founded on. Bright, beachy colors with feminine prints compose shift dresses, comfy skirts, pants, and even housewares, all with a hidden "Lilly" written somewhere in the design.



Lilly thrived for over twenty years creating her designs and prints, but in 1984, she decided it just wasn't as fun as it used to be, and closed up shop. In 1993 the line was revived with Lilly acting as a creative consultant, and it still holds the same intentions and ideas as before: making simple, comfortable items in crazy, fun prints for everybody.

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Pendleton - Authentic American Apparel

When searching for vintage, one brand I will pick up without a second thought is Pendleton.  Maybe it has something to do with my Midwestern upbringing, but I fall in love with almost everything I find by them, mostly because it involves plaid.

The history of Pendleton Woolen Mills spans over one hundred years, but is deeply rooted in one thing: the production of high quality wool garments.  The Pendleton name comes with a highly trained and meticulous attention to detail that spans from an intimate knowledge of wool fibers and production and every garment is "Warrented to be a Pendleton."

Pendleton actually started as wool blanket manufacterer in 1909, specializing in Indian tribe blankets of vivid colors and patterns.  In both World Wars, they would be used as a manufacterer for military blankets due to the quality and durrability of their products.

Nearly twenty years later, the company decided to expand their horizons with the production of clothing. After a period of trial and error with wool fibers and fabrics, the Umatilla shirting fabric was produced and turned into men's woolen shirts of different colors and patterns. With the success of the shirts, Pendleton began expanding into a full line of menswear in the late twenties that would only grow in popularity during the 50s when the "American Look" would take full reign and bring the country back to a feeling of the good life.

Womenswear would eventually be introduced with the classic look of the 49'er jacket, named after the year it was produced, and the reversible woolen skirt. Much like the menswear, the colorful dyes and interesting patterns, as well as the natural, easy-care of the wool, made the articles very popular.

The signature look of bright colors and designs of a Pendleton has also made it a part of pop culture. The Beach Boys were originally called The Pendletones and were often seen wearing the shirts at shows or on their album covers The shirts have always been popular amongst surfers, and many other sports, such as skateboarders and snowboarders, appeciate the look, as well. Levis, Adidas, Vans, and many others have collaborated with the company to produce different lines, further adding to its appeal amongst sport enthusiasts. As always, though, people just appreciate the look, comfort, and warmth of a Pendleton piece, making it accessible to all audiences.

Throughout the years, though, what really has made Pendleton a lasting name is due to their ability to change and expand with the growing needs of American fashion. From the first shirts they produced in the 1920s to the clothing they are still producing today, Pendleton has taken innovative steps to give people comfort and warmth in every season. When World War II broke out, they help production of most items to focus on producing blankets and uniforms for soldiers. When women began joining the workforce, they created a line of career clothing. They've created washable wool for easier care and expanded into lines of year-round, non-wool clothing to fit everyone's needs for every season. Like a chameleon, Pendleton has been able to warp, change, and grow with the needs of society and bring a well-crafted product to the table. For this reason, Pendleton has been able to span the decades and has celebrated over one hundred years of quality.

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