Loving to Hate but Hating to Love

Vintage.

It’s a term I love to hate and hate to love. Being one of the most influential and prolific terms banded about in popular and highbrow writing on fashion, I feel that it deserves a blog post in its own right.

As generations to come look back on all these crazy things we’ve worn and are wearing in the naughties, the aesthetic which will be most enduringly associated with us will be the vintage look. Of course, there is nothing new in fashion borrowing looks from the past, re-imagining a particular period in history in a new time and a new place. Take, for instance, the ‘grecian’ styles popularised in the regency period – all those lovely, cottony, jane-austeny frocks were modelled on what was imagined and understood to be the ‘classical’ mode of dress.

What makes our modern notion of ‘vintage’ radically different is that it’s not referencing a single style or era, like the neo-classical look of the regency period. Rather, it is the idea that anything old – from any era – is fair game, fashion wise. ‘Vintage’ looks, as we know them now, borrow stylistically from every decade of the 20th century, and take some flavours from earlier still. It’s all a bit of a hodge podge, one that can result in some rather baffling looks. Just see Alana Hill for a pictorial representation. Girlfriend sooooooo went through granny’s closet after one too many disco biscuits, let me tell you…

The other interesting thing in the way that we do ‘vintage’ nowadays is the privileging of ‘authentic’ vintage over ‘reproduced’ vintage – at lest if you are a TRUE fashionista (whatever that is supposed to mean) you are not supposed to wear reproduction pieces from Diva, but unearth them from flea markets, preferably in Paris or Portobello. Of course, if your travels tend to take you more to Penrith than the aforementioned ‘P’ destinations, you may have a problem with this. Historically, this penchant for the genuine article is something quite unique. Whenever any trend in the past has referenced another period, it has almost always done so on its own terms – ie by remaking and remodelling new versions of old looks, rather than actually ferreting about finding the old and crusty relics in their original format. Perhaps the popularity of ‘real’ vintage is a response to our throwaway culture – that, because mass produced goods are so widely available, we value the unique, the old, and the unusual.

As anybody who has read any previous post on this blog knows, I will always be a champion of all things daring. And vintage, worn well, is often is just that. However, I feel that we’ve forgotten something very important in our quest for all things authentically vintage…that sometimes things from the past should stay there for very good reasons. SOME THINGS ARE HIDEOUS AND SHOULD BE FORGOTTEN. Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s okay to wear it, even if the lens that fashion is looking through is framed by a pair of vintage ray-bans. Case in point: at a terribly groovy house party last year, a terribly groovy young man was wearing a terribly groovy ‘vintage’ Kathy Day-Knight jumper. With appliqué koala and eucalyptus leaf detail and authentic moth holes. Need I say any more?

I think the prevalence of hideous vintage blunders like Koala Boy indicates a very real truth about vintage, particularly the quest for authentic vintage: that it’s really challenging to find good stuff. Aside from raiding the wardrobes of relations, which have yielded some wonderful finds, in particular mama-k’s glomesh bags and a couple of romantic eighties wonders, I have very few vintage pieces in my wardrobe. Of note is a fantastic rust-coloured seventies shirtwaist with a charming mini maple leaf print, courtesy of my fabulous friend MiMi Goss who unearthed it at a local boutique’s closing down sale, as well as the fantastic blue enamel choker I found one day at Landspeed in amongst all the dross.

My wardrobe’s paucity of vintage is not for want of trying. It’s simply because, if you’re after truly fabulous vintage, you have to look long, and you have to look hard. There’s an awful lot of wallpaper coloured mui-muis and very few rust coloured shirtwaists in the world, more’s the pity. Although it does make sense when you think about it. When you’re looking at an antique or vintage clothing store, you’re looking at a random sample of the clothes that people wore twenty, thirty and forty years ago. If you took a similar sample of what people on the street are wearing today, and time capsuled it, you would find a similar ratio of chaff to wheat that you find in most op shops or vintage stores. Therein lies the reason why the quest for the perfect vintage dress/bag/coat is rather akin to that for the holy grail – long, arduous, and with no guarantee of a reward at the end.

To a certain extent, this just makes it even more wonderful when you unearth a gem. But it can also be incredibly frustrating – if you love the idea of wearing authentic vintage, for the stylistic cache it carries as well as for the environmental benefits of recycling, it’s hard not to get disheartened by the amount of crap that is out there. If you tend to be of the curvier persuasion, this problem tends to be exacerbated. Due to the fact that we’re better nourished and/or larger than our female ancestors, be prepared for vintage clothing to be in a narrower size range. Another factor going against the larger sized fashionista is that vintage clothes, particularly vintage clothes from the fifties, are so wonderfully flattering on a curvy figure that those rare larger sized pieces in good condition are either a) handed down to grateful granddaughters who should thank their lucky stars and their mamas for what they gave them or b) are snaffled up by the dedicated vintage shopper or merchant. Tough but true. A final word on vintage sizing: clothing was often fitted quite different in eras gone by. Even up to the nineteen seventies, it was common practice for women to wear restrictive girdles, and clothing, even that designed for curvier women, operated from the assumption that the waist would be nipped in and supported by a tight girdle. Breathing and eating being two important and pleasurable bodily experiences, I think it best not to attempt to recreate the girdled waist at home, don’t you?

What all of the above means for the curvier vintage fashionista is that she’s just going to get a bit more creative. For instance, I very rarely expect to find clothes that fit my size fourteen frame, or shoes to fit my size ten feet. Even when I do find clothes that fit my body, they are often too short, particularly in the arms – we often forget that women were not only smaller, but also shorter in the past than they are now. What I can do, though, is get the vintage look through non-sized accessories – costume jewellery, bags, hats, scarves, and sometimes coats – or take a vintage piece that I adore, but doesn’t fit, and customise it. A longer vintage dress can often have enough fabric to cut a simple skirt. That requires some skill with the sewing machine, and some confidence in drafting a pattern, but even the most undomesticated of the female species can and should be able to sew on a button, right? So, if that’s you, and you find a wonderful vintage garment with fabulous buttons, snip them off the vintage piece and replace the existing buttons on a cardigan or a coat with the vintage ones.

The other thing to be aware of is that, although authentic vintage is wonderful for so many reasons, there’s actually no shame in fauxing it. Just so long as the fauxing is done well – ie, you choose pieces that look genuine – no one will be any the wiser. This can also be a more cost effective way of doing vintage if you’re on a budget, as most of the chain jewellery stores stock vintage-style pieces at pocket-money prices. A word of advice though – if you are fauxing it, embrace the fact that the most successful faux vintage pieces will be more aligned with the kitsch rather than the classic. For instance, don’t try and faux vintage diamonds, pearls and other precious stones – the poor workmanship will be obvious and will give the game away. Instead, faux it up all the way to town when it comes to imitation enamel, Bakelite plastic, gold or silver tone jewellery and no-one will know that that fantastic red flower ring which is so mid century is actually $9.95 from Diva.

One final word of advice on vintage. I said above that I loved to hate and hated to love it. That’s because, when styled well, vintage fashion is brilliant and will set you apart from the pack, but, when styled badly, it looks like what it is at the very heart of the matter – old clothes. Some of you may beg to differ, but my attitude to wearing vintage – either genuine or faux – is to pastiche, and not to parrot, a particular era or feel. There’s something quite sad in seeing someone who looks like they time travelled walking down the street. Again, it’s a lack of creativity – to parrot the look of another era is to negate one’s own creativity. Rather, what is fantastic is when you see vintage items pastiche into a look that is completely the wearer’s own – so, for instance, a vintage dress, contrasted with uber modern but stylistically sympathetic Melissa heels, and a bold colourful bag, looks fantastic because we can see that the wearer has put their stamp on the outfit. And that’s when I can say, without reservation or qualification, that I love vintage.