What to Look for While Thrifting

I recently took my intern Darby on her first buying trip.  She was pretty excited to go, and I was pretty excited to see what she had learned from her few months of working at the shop.

Before we started, I gave her a quick run-down on what to look for when quickly going through the racks at the shop:

Tags
-Look for decorative tags with fancy writing or pictures on them.
-"Made in USA" proudly displayed on a tag generally indicates it is from the 1980s.
-Check for union labels.


Construction
-Does the garment have a metal zipper?  Metal zippers commonly indicate the garment are from the 60s or before.
-How are the seams finished?  Are they surged or left unfinished.  Unfinished generally indicates an older or handmade garment.
-What does the hem look like?  Does it have a facing or is hand finished?


Material
-Polyester indicates from the 70s on up.
-If the garment has a weird material composition, such as a synthetic material you've never heard of, it's probably from the 70s.
-Is there no material tag at all?  That might be an indication of the garment being older or handmade.


Shape
-Full skirt dresses could be from the 50s.
-Mod or a-line shaped, knee-length dress could be from the 60s.
-Long, polyester dresses could be from the 70s.
-Shoulder pads and puff sleeves can be from the 80s.


Condition
-No matter what era an item is, if it's stained or ripped, it's worthless.
-Look for snags and tears.  Determine if they can be fixed or not.
-If there are stains, do you think they can be easily removed?
-Polyester is usually quite easy to get old stains out of.  Cotton and silk are more difficult.


Darby did a great job with the general guidelines above, but, obviously, these are just guidelines and there are always exceptions to the rules.  However, if you're trying to quickly go through the racks and pull things, these are great guidelines to follow that will help you get a cartful of things before you leave the shop!

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!

Hookless Fasteners - Identifying Vintage by the Zipper

Even with smart phones, iPads, and all other technology we have at the tips of our fingers at any given moment, no one wants to stand in the middle of a thrift store trying to figure out if a piece of clothing is vintage and what year it was made.

That's why one must train their eye to vintage, and with the quickest of glances be able to tell if it is or not.  You're probably thinking, "Quickest of glances? Yeah, right," but really, I'm being serious.

Is it metal or is it nylon?

If it's metal, you most likely have a vintage garment.  If it's nylon, you might have to do a bit more researching (but there's other, easier ways to tell before having to break out the iPad, don't worry!).

A little history on the zipper.  The earliest version of the zipper was invented in 1851 by Elias Howe. For over 60 years after, the zipper was basically a flop.  They just couldn't get it right. Enter Otto Frederick Gideon Sundback.  He finally got the idea right enough to be able to market it, and in the 1920s, the B. F.Goodrich Company gave it the name "zipper," and it began to be used in the production of boots and other industrial things. Finally, due to a children's campaign and designers finally putting them into clothing, the zipper began to gain fame in the 1930s, and by the end of the decade surpassed buttons and hooks as the most popular and preferred method of fastening, even today.

In the 1960s, the company YKK invented the DuPont nylon zipper, a lighter alternative to the commonly used metal zipper of the time.  It's light-weight, more flexible design made it perfect for the synthetic materials that would begin to become prevelant in the late 60s to 70s.

It can be generally concluded that metal zippers can be found in clothing from the late 30s to the 60s, and nylon from the 60s to present.

Obviously, there are always exceptions to the rule, such as if a metal zipper was replaced by a nylon one or vice versa, so it is always important to take in other apsects of the garment, such as cut, construction, and tag.

But just a glance, that's all it can take to conclude a piece's general construction age.

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