Recently I was chatting with friends about a facebook post they saw arguing that the words 'vintage' and 'retro' have been over used and we should all stop using them. I'd be inclined to agree on some level about over use, for example I don't consider anything seventies or later to be vintage, but as one of my friends pointed out, 'what are we supposed to say? We like old stuff?'. This leads me neatly round to the theme of today's post; vintage clothes are (obviously) very old, and sixty or seventy years down the line they are starting to fall to pieces. What is a girl (or boy, for that matter) to do?
Lovely though it is to wear a genuine vintage item, there are lots of problems that can arise; the vast majority of garments will require handwashing or dry cleaning, which can be an issue with items you like to wear frequently. People were, on average, shorter and slimmer in the 1940s and 50s, and it can be very difficult to find vintage pieces to fit. I've lost my heart to several pairs of vintage shoes and gloves, but my hands and feet appear to be a little bit larger than those of the ladies they were intended for.....
Vintage men's clothes can be even more tricky; for starters there are far fewer garments left, presumably due to men wearing their clothes until they wore out. This has pushed the prices of men's clothes even higher, and led R, amongst others, to start exploring the wonderful world of reproduction clothing. The recent surge in retro fashion and rockabilly now means that a google search for reproduction vintage clothing will throw up lots of sites, including Heyday, Freddies of Pinewood, Rocket Originals, What Katie Did, and Gok Wan's favourite, Vivien of Holloway.
Personally, I love reproduction clothing. It's often machine washable, more likely to fit a more modern body shape, and usually much more affordable. The only real downside I can think of is that, due to it being mass produced, you run a far greater risk of running into someone else wearing the same frock. I'm incredibly jealous of people who can sew (properly I mean, buttons and hems are about my limit), but many of us lack either the skill or the time to make our own clothes from scratch. Enter Kelly-Anne Milner, also known as alt model and gorelesque performer Eden Falls. Kelly-Anne is in the process of setting up Mocambo Fashions, a unique brand creating one off pieces based on vintage patterns and fabrics.
Kelly-Anne has taken her inspiration from The Mocambo, a nightclub in West Hollywood that some of the biggest names in film, music, and sometimes organised crime, used to frequent in the 40s and 50s. She is experienced in fashion and design, but she wants to do some market research, and this is where you come in.
What do you want from reproduction clothing? Does cost matter? What do you think of the garments that are currently available, and do they represent good value for money? Kelly-Anne wants to know your views on authenticity, fabrics, dress lengths, fastenings, wearability and anything else you can think of. She can be contacted here, or I can pass on any comments on this blog to her. Remember, your input can help to create some amazing and unique garments, and bring some vintage style glamour to a wardrobe near you...
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Friday, 7 October 2011
A Furry Dilemma?
Recently whilst pottering round Facebook, I found Vintage Life Magazine's Girl of The Issue competition, where the winner is chosen by the number of 'likes' their picture receives. I think this is a nice, democratic way of choosing a winner, and by and large the comments people left were very positive, but I was slightly surprised to see that a lovely picture of a girl wearing a fur stole had received several 'shame about the fur' comments. Now I'm probably risking losing readers (not great for such a new blog!) and getting paint thrown at me in the street, but my subject for this post is the rights and wrongs of real fur.
The inspiration for this post came to me while I was reading The Sun (not my paper of choice, before you ask!) in the staff room at work and seeing a truly horrible article about the use of raccoon dogs in the manufacture of fake Ugg boots. The article can be found here, but the accompanying pictures are quite graphic and I would advise those of a more squeamish disposition to avoid it. Obviously I think that this kind of treatment is barbaric and wrong, but should a case like this make us shy away from all animal products?
The vast majority of people of people I know wear leather shoes, and use other leather products, but are we happier with leather as it is a byproduct of meat? Real Uggs are, after all, made from sheepskin, and I think that the public tends to be happier with this idea as there are tighter controls in place relating to the treatment of animals in slaughter houses. I know many people who got rid of any real fur garments they owned during the anti-fur campaigns of the 1980s, but real fur has been creeping back onto the catwalks of London and Milan for a few years now, and the current retro revival has increased its popularity even more.
My personal view is that I would not buy modern fur as I object to it on ethical grounds, but I am quite happy to wear vintage fur. Does this make me a hypocrit? I own a fox fur stole with its head and legs attached, which is belonged to my grandmother and is more than eighty years old. I wouldn't dream of wearing it in public, but my other vintage coats and stoles make regular appearances, and my silver fox hat, which was purchased by a friend in Russia in 1947, is a mainstay of my winter wardrobe. I would consider it wasteful to own these items and not wear them, but am I, and others like me, guilty of turning real fur back into an object of desire?
I freely admit that I lie about whether my furs are real or not depending on who is asking, and I've had several delicately worded conversations with strangers about whether or not their beautiful coats are real; some of the faux furs available today are of such good quality that it's often hard to tell that they are fake.
The majority of vintage shops I have visited have at least one rail dedicated to fur, and the only time I have found this troubling was in a shop that will remain nameless where I found a fur jacket labelled red squirrel. I hope this label was inaccurate, but if it was genuine I would consider that to be a collector's piece, and not something to be worn in public. Its a sad fact that there are many coats made from now endangered animals, crocodile handbags and the like still in circulation; as a child I had music lessons on a piano with real ivory keys. I think the important thing to remember is that destroying these objects will not achieve anything, and hopefully preserving them will stop future generations from making the same mistakes.
I'd be very interested to know what readers think; do you wear fur, old or new? Is fur something that should be featured in vintage fashion publications, or something that should be left well alone?
Heavy stuff I know, so I will round off this post by returning firmly to my vintage theme and saying that I would NEVER wear Ugg boots, real or fake!
The inspiration for this post came to me while I was reading The Sun (not my paper of choice, before you ask!) in the staff room at work and seeing a truly horrible article about the use of raccoon dogs in the manufacture of fake Ugg boots. The article can be found here, but the accompanying pictures are quite graphic and I would advise those of a more squeamish disposition to avoid it. Obviously I think that this kind of treatment is barbaric and wrong, but should a case like this make us shy away from all animal products?
The vast majority of people of people I know wear leather shoes, and use other leather products, but are we happier with leather as it is a byproduct of meat? Real Uggs are, after all, made from sheepskin, and I think that the public tends to be happier with this idea as there are tighter controls in place relating to the treatment of animals in slaughter houses. I know many people who got rid of any real fur garments they owned during the anti-fur campaigns of the 1980s, but real fur has been creeping back onto the catwalks of London and Milan for a few years now, and the current retro revival has increased its popularity even more.
My personal view is that I would not buy modern fur as I object to it on ethical grounds, but I am quite happy to wear vintage fur. Does this make me a hypocrit? I own a fox fur stole with its head and legs attached, which is belonged to my grandmother and is more than eighty years old. I wouldn't dream of wearing it in public, but my other vintage coats and stoles make regular appearances, and my silver fox hat, which was purchased by a friend in Russia in 1947, is a mainstay of my winter wardrobe. I would consider it wasteful to own these items and not wear them, but am I, and others like me, guilty of turning real fur back into an object of desire?
I freely admit that I lie about whether my furs are real or not depending on who is asking, and I've had several delicately worded conversations with strangers about whether or not their beautiful coats are real; some of the faux furs available today are of such good quality that it's often hard to tell that they are fake.
The majority of vintage shops I have visited have at least one rail dedicated to fur, and the only time I have found this troubling was in a shop that will remain nameless where I found a fur jacket labelled red squirrel. I hope this label was inaccurate, but if it was genuine I would consider that to be a collector's piece, and not something to be worn in public. Its a sad fact that there are many coats made from now endangered animals, crocodile handbags and the like still in circulation; as a child I had music lessons on a piano with real ivory keys. I think the important thing to remember is that destroying these objects will not achieve anything, and hopefully preserving them will stop future generations from making the same mistakes.
I'd be very interested to know what readers think; do you wear fur, old or new? Is fur something that should be featured in vintage fashion publications, or something that should be left well alone?
Heavy stuff I know, so I will round off this post by returning firmly to my vintage theme and saying that I would NEVER wear Ugg boots, real or fake!
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Sun, Sea and Big Sandy
My boyfriend (whom we shall call R) has been to the High on a few occasions, and has always returned sunburnt and raving about how much fun it was, so needless to say I was very excited when we decided to take the plunge and book our six days in the sun.
Calafell is about an hour away from Barcelona by train, although it feels longer when you’ve got up at 4am to travel to the airport and the very enthusiastic buskers leaping around the carriage won’t take the hint and leave you alone. A brief nap at our apartment fixed matters and left us feeling bright eyed, bushy tailed and ready to explore. After an hour or so of wandering round, R kept laughing at my dazed expression caused by a firm belief that I had actually died and gone to heaven. Everywhere we went, we saw tattoos, Hawaiian shirts, victory rolls, headscarves and sailor hats, although not all on one person. This was not one of the festivals where everything takes place in a hermetically sealed venue; this was more like a very good natured invasion of an entire town.
The sea front is, as you would expect, lined with cafes and bars, the majority of which bore signs proclaiming ‘welcome Rockabillys’ and in one notable case ‘Rockabillys - star drinking’, which seemed pretty perceptive. The afternoon pool parties took place at The Solimar Hotel, about five minutes walk away from our apartment, with two Djs and a live band every day, and the vast majority of the bars on the front had a rockabilly play list, ensuring a wide choice of venues for those who wanted to drink their way through to the evening.
The evening is obviously the main attraction of the High; its why you part with 75 euros for your wristband and the line up this year was pretty impressive. Unfortunately Barrence Whitfield cancelled, but we got to see Jessie and The Orbits, Keith Turner and The Southern Sound (who were fantastic, and had impressive taste in hats), Jimmy Dell, Deke Dickerson and The Echo-Fonics and quite a few more whose names escape me. The only problem for me with the evening entertainment was the timings; with the venue opening at 9.30pm and the headline band not going on until nearly 3am it’s a very long night. Most nights we didn’t head out at all until after 11pm, but in a hot, crowded hall I found myself beginning to flag a bit and had to bail out before Big Sandy and Los Straitjackets on Saturday night.
There is plenty to choose from during the evening, with a separate dance tent playing jivers and strollers all night, a nightly burlesque show from Anna Fur Laxis and Slinky Sparkles (with innuendo laden one liners from Big Sandy himself: ‘she sure made my slinky sparkle!’) as well as record stalls and vintage and repro clothing. Oh, and a bar. In the words of Big Boy Bloater ‘this beer stuff isn’t half bad, is it?’
We stayed in Calafell for an extra night either side of the weekender, something which I’d recommend doing as it’s a lovely place to explore, with a gorgeous beach, and friendly, if slightly bemused, locals. Its not really a relaxing holiday; we chose to take it easy on the alcohol front, but even so heat and late nights left us feeling as though we needed another break to recover, but that’s not what its about. I had never seen so many rockabillys in one place before, but what struck me most was how friendly and good natured everyone was. We met people from Australia, Belgium, Spain, Japan and Holland, as well as lots from other parts of the UK, and chatted happily with all of them, starting from a shared love of a music style and the lifestyle that goes with it. If you can combine all of that with a fantastic holiday, that’s got to be good.
Friday, 23 September 2011
Have Blog, Will Ramble
Welcome to my brand new, shiny, never seen before Retro Blog. I've toyed with the idea of writing one of these for quite some time now, and being a keen reader of other people's blogs I've reached the conclusion that there may be a gap in the market for the kind of things I like to write about. Most of the blogs that I've read to do with the retro and rockabilly scene focus primarily on fashion, hair and makeup, and whilst these are things that I love and will write about, I will be leaving tutorials and how-to articles to the experts, and simply chattering about some of the things I get up to.
I've been heavily into all things 1940s and 50s for about 6 years now, and as my lovely boyfriend plays rockabilly double bass music is a major part of our lives, so gig and album reviews will be a fairly regular feature in my blog. I'm lucky enough to live in a town with a small but thriving retro and rocking scene, and after a few years of only dressing up for special occasions I now try to live my life dressed in vintage or retro styled clothes.
Although I am new to blogging, I have written for my own amusement for many years now, and I've contributed the odd online article the most recent of which can be found here:
http://www.mookychick.co.uk/how-to/interesting-hobbies/how-to-become-a-burlesque-dancer.php
As you might gather from this, I used to be a burlesque performer, and although I made the decision to retire my burlesque persona at the end of 2010 its still an art form that I love to watch and write about.
So to sum up, the aim of this blog is to entertain, inform and above all share the things I love with other people. Thank you for reading, I hope you'll like it.
I've been heavily into all things 1940s and 50s for about 6 years now, and as my lovely boyfriend plays rockabilly double bass music is a major part of our lives, so gig and album reviews will be a fairly regular feature in my blog. I'm lucky enough to live in a town with a small but thriving retro and rocking scene, and after a few years of only dressing up for special occasions I now try to live my life dressed in vintage or retro styled clothes.
Although I am new to blogging, I have written for my own amusement for many years now, and I've contributed the odd online article the most recent of which can be found here:
http://www.mookychick.co.uk/how-to/interesting-hobbies/how-to-become-a-burlesque-dancer.php
As you might gather from this, I used to be a burlesque performer, and although I made the decision to retire my burlesque persona at the end of 2010 its still an art form that I love to watch and write about.
So to sum up, the aim of this blog is to entertain, inform and above all share the things I love with other people. Thank you for reading, I hope you'll like it.
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