The 1922 Collection by Warby Parker

At least a couple times a month, I get someone who comes into the shop asking if I have any 1920s garments.  They tell me they're going to a party and need something to wear, and, of course, don't want to buy a cheap, run-of-the-mill costume made of polyester from a party store.

This is when I , sadly, have to explain that garments from the 20s are so beautifully delicate with craftsmanship so astounding you wouldn't want to just wear them for a party, but rather put them on display like a piece of art in your home, and steer them over to the rack of 60s dresses with drop-waists that mimic the style of the 20s.

The thing is, they're not original 1920s, but the look is the same, repeated forty years later and made fashionable again.  Fashion is like anything else -- history, art, literature -- it tends to repeat the same ideas and images throughout its course.  The best part is, an era of fashion history so celebrated and favored, can be revived and still made pertinent to this day.

This season, the look of the 20s is being seen in modern-day fashion once again.  Drop-waist dresses, fringe, beading, and bobs were all sent down the runways and are all making an appearance in stores around the world as this summers "must haves."

And to finish off the look for all the four-eyed friends like myself, steps in Warby Parker, a mail-order company that specialized in vintage-inspired glasses and sunglasses for every day, with their new 1922 Collection that reminisces of a time when moonshine flowed and dances whirled.

They're offering three pairs in the new collection, all of which are available as sunglasses as well --

The Porter (my personal favorite) - Acetate frames in two colors of tortoise shell (Gimlet on the left and Whiskey on the right) that are more egg-shaped and give off a classically modern feel.

The Duke - A lightweight, stainless steel frame in either silver or gold that is perfectly round and wonderfully antiqued, giving you a studious look.

The Joplin (I love these as sunglasses) - Wide-spaced frames in stainless steel that are something very aesthetically different from any glasses of today, while allowing you to look dapper and professional at the same time.

The best part is, whether you're trying to achieve the Great Gatsby look or you're looking for a classic look to wear in the modern day, any of these frames would represent the image you're trying to achieve and they will far surpass the trends of the season.

Remember, fashion trends may come and go, but timeless pieces, like any of these frames, will forever remain stylish.

(Post created in partnership with Warby Parker)

Paper Dolls of Vintage Fashions

I remember my first set of paper dolls.  The were of Samantha from the American Girl Series.  My sister had Molly, and we would sit for hours and dress them up and play with them.  They were the only dolls my sister would actually play with, and I think that was because they had historical significance (history really intrigued her as a child.  Instead of reading "normal" books for kids our age, she chose instead to read diaries of girls who lived through the Civil War or came over from a foreign country on a ship).

Nowadays, I still love paper dolls, and when I was gifted a set of these books years ago from a friend, I fell in love with the designs.  I used to paint these prints for assignments in my costume classes.  Now, I have quite a few framed and hung in the two dressing rooms of the shop.  One room is the 1920s and the other is the 1960s.

The books are priced great, too, so if you ever see them in a shop, pick some up and make some art or introduce your little girl/niece/cousin to the art and love of fashion paper dolls.

Buy the books above

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Dior's New Look

The post-war world of the 1940s called for something new and exciting to happen for fashion.  Women were tired of looking like uniformed civilians in their war-rationed fabric suits and were longing for something feminine and beautiful, something different and new to put on.

Over in Paris, a designer by the name of Christian Dior was designing what women wanted.  Almost mocking the ideals of rationing, he was using bolts of fabric to create full, elegant dresses that would hit the runways and be dubbed as, "The New Look," for fashionistas everywhere.

The dresses in The New Look were meant to accentuate a women's natural shape and curves.  Each one had sloping shoulders, a tiny waist, and full bust and hips.  Dior wanted to idealize a woman's body, as well as draw on past eras of femininity, such as the Victoria Era, to give charm and grace to his designs.

However, Dior used his own little tricks to really give the look some flare.  The dresses had shoulder pads to create sloping shoulders, a "waspie" corset to create a thin waist, push up bra cups to accentuate the bust, and a padded petticoat to give the wearer full hips.  His dresses could practically stand up on their own with all the boning and padding he added to them to make them have this shape.  Women who were trying to get the look, but couldn't afford the design were encouraged to sew a "waist-liner" (a strip of muslim with boning sewn into it) into their dresses.

Though his designs were popular with celebrities and socialites and copied and produced for the all-American housewife, the dominance of The New Look in fashion ended shortly after Dior's death in 1957.  One could blame the complexity and restrictiveness of the layers and corsets for the end of the look, but the changing ideals of women and fashion probably had a lot to do with it, as well.  No matter the reason, the basic idea and silhouette of the look continues to show its face in fashion, constantly being replicated in design with each passing decade.

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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!

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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Manufactured Fibers

One thing that we should be thankful for in this modern age is manufactured fibers.  Though polyester ruled the day in the 70s and just ended up making everyone sweaty and uncomfortable, it really paved the way for experimentation.  I can't tell you how many times I've gone to list an item from the 70s and looked at the garment tag and thought, "Whaaaat??!!" at the name of the fibers written.

However, when you look at the alternatives, cotton and linen that wrinkle easily, silk that's very delicate, and wool that's itchy and gets eaten by moths, poly-blend items really make living easier.

And less ironing.  I hate ironing.

Polyester and blends really began around the post-war era, when cotton/nylon blends began to emerge and America was taken by the whole TV-box dinner way of life -- simple and easy.  Or "Wash and Wear," when it came to clothing.

The 60s and 70s really brought about the experimentation with fibers and polyester, virtually eliminating the need for ironing (thank, God!), and, in effect, keeping colors more vibrant and fabric more durable.

So, we still see it to this day.  50/50 cotton/polyester blend is stamped in many, many tshirts and jeans.  Also, in carpets, blankets, and various other housewares.

Making life a little easier and wrinkle free, I like that.

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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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Le Petit Echo de la Mode

 I stumbled across this site that sells authentic, vintage magazine covers, not reproductions, and had a lot of fun sifting through what they had.

I love paper euphoria, having for many years focused on just making my wallets with vintage and vintage inspired prints I found, so whenever I see it somewhere, I'm very drawn to it.

These covers are from a magazine called Le Petit Echo de la Mode, which was a French, weekly publication for women's fashion.  It stayed in publication throughout the war years, though publication became a bit sporadic during due to the shortage of paper brought on my the way.

For over 100 years, the magazine was in print, until sales began to decline in the 1980s, and it was pulled from the newsstands in 1983.

This website has lots of the covers from the publication throughout the year, and even has them categorized by events, such as Christmas, Funeral, and Off to the Races.  It's really worth a look!

Image Sources

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