A Different Vintage

Love Vintage, by Nicole Jenkins, with photography by Tira Lewis; Carter’s Publications, 2009, 232 pages, $49.95.

Nicole Jenkins defines vintage clothing as anything designed and made between about the 1920s, that is, after the First World War, and the early 1970s, “when post WWII baby boomers radically changed the way fashion was made and worn”. Antique clothing is seen as more structured and fragile, and may not have survived in wearable condition, and certainly not as fashion, after the First World War. The fashion from the late seventies on is categorised as “retro”, with a keen interest from the teenage daughters of the Baby Boomers.

Nicole Jenkins’s focus is on the desirability and wearability of vintage clothing. While it is easy enough to skim through the clothing racks in op shops, it can be very hard to find quality garments with designer labels which are in good, wearable condition. She makes a distinction between antique clothing, which, because of poor, fragile condition, may perhaps only be suitable for a museum, and the sturdier, simpler styles of between the wars and up to the late sixties. Another important factor she examines is sizing. Antique clothing was made for shorter, slighter women. Not many of us could boast a stature of 1.5 metres with a 48-centimetre waist.

I remember seeing photos of my grandmother in the twenties and thirties wearing simple, drop-waisted styles, often bias-cut. I even handled a heavy silk houndstooth Chanel-style suit which had belonged to her. Unfortunately my mother, a fashionista herself, threw it out, but not before I managed to cut off the two carved amber buttons. Before the war the Swiss designer firm employing my mother sent her to the Paris fashion parades to observe the latest styles, which she then drew from memory back in her hotel room, because there was a ban on photographing or sketching the fashions during the parades. From the age of fifteen she had made clothes for all the family, claiming that her strict apprenticeship would have enabled her to make a man’s suit, although she did not relish the thought. Women’s fashions had much more appeal.

Recently I happened to see, in a little local second-hand shop in the village of Nabiac, a notice in the window asking for clothing, shoes and hats from the twenties to the eighties, more or less the period defined by Nicole Jenkins as vintage. It is clear that there is a growing interest in this period. Still, I don’t know if she would approve of the initiative of the Rev. Ted Noffs’s son Rupert and his fashion label, One Noffs, which encourages young designers to recycle any good fabrics in clothing donated to charity.

While the mid-nineteenth century saw the availability of the first commercial dress-making patterns—and the women in far-flung colonies seeking access to the latest styles were partly responsible for this—after the First World War, and even more, after the Second World War came an increase in commercial manufacturing of clothing, as more women joined the workforce and had some disposable income. At the same time there was a growing market for dress-making patterns. Sizing was becoming standardised, although it continues to evolve as body sizes vary with the passing decades. I don’t suppose tiny Chinese women sewing up clothing in factories for the Western market are any longer amazed at the gigantic garments they are called upon to stitch together, particularly for men.

Anyone travelling abroad knows that sizing in Europe, America and Australia is quite different, and is well advised to try on a garment, or at least stretch a tape-measure across it. Nicole Jenkins must have repeatedly done this with her vintage clothing, and then carefully worked out the different sizing codes and how they evolved over the period. I like the fact that she has had the whole garments photographed (by Tira Lewis) on display dummies rather than live models, so that there is nothing posed about the clothes; they look real. There are also very instructive close-up photos of details such as facings, stitching, embroidery, buttonholes and fascinating dress-labels.

Some dress-labels make a garment far more desirable than others, of course. Most of us older hands remember Jackie Kennedy favouring Oleg Cassini; anything with the elusive Dior label, anything favoured by the likes of Ingrid Bergman, both Katharine and Audrey Hepburn, or Sophia Loren. Some designers for cinema costume such as Edith Head came to prominence, and the movies increasingly influenced fashion from the thirties on.

A most significant comment in the book is, “The more extreme the style, the harder it will be to attain popularity and the sooner it will fall out of favour.” The extreme styles will certainly not be found in op shops. I am thinking particularly of the fashions as art installations popular on our catwalks since the eighties. I am reminded of the likes of Thierry Mugler and his main proponent, Madonna, fashions which seem relatively tame by today’s standards, but which started that extreme trend. Not that crazy styles have been confined to the more recent decades. I have a picture before me of a zany hat which looks like an inverted high-heeled shoe, designed by Elsa Schiaparelli in 1938. I wonder if anyone ever wore it in public.

I was horrified to learn from a friend that the respected Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is increasingly abandoning curatorial restoration and management of ancient artefacts—she herself had spent years on the restoration of a Renaissance tapestry—in favour of fashion parades, as being far better earners in the eyes of the management committee. This must be an indicator of a growing trend.

However, I do respect the historical overview of Love Vintage. It examines and catalogues key designers and styles, decade by decade, from 1920 to 1977. Not only are there good close-up photos of designer detail; she does not fail to include items such as shoes, hats and underwear. There is a comprehensive index of elements of style in alphabetical order, a most useful reference. The close-ups of fabrics and their detailed descriptions include advice on how to determine their composition by look, smell and touch, and finally, by the burn test!

Nicole Jenkins points out the reason for the shortage of garments from the late 1920s to the late 1940s, due, first of all to the strictures of the Depression, and later, to the shortages and rationing of the Second World War. Dresses were altered and adapted to make do. I certainly remember aunts unravelling knitted garments to refashion them into new ones. My mother made two little overcoats for our children in the sixties from my top-quality cashmere overcoat. The author has advice on how to determine whether a garment has been altered and adapted, and how to restore it to its original style if desired. She also offers advice on where to find vintage clothing and how to care for garments, including tips on such problems as stain removal and storage.

Many of us older hands remember seeing costumes in movies and television programs that were just not in keeping with the period, never mind the zipper in the back of a medieval nylon dress or the negligent watch on the gladiator’s wrist. Contemporary fashion seemed somehow to be allowed to intrude on the historical settings. Such mistakes are rare now, but books such as this careful, dedicated piece of research will enable movie-makers to avoid them, at least for women’s clothing of this period.

There are just two things I miss here, and they are by no means the fault of this book. I know men’s fashions are relatively boring, even though just lately a certain untidy, pretty-boy look is being promoted, complete with loose pants dropped precariously below bum-crack level, and irrationally retro hats, but there is a parallel history of stylish men’s fashions, with perhaps more subtle changes from decade to decade, which is worthy of examination. We went through suits that had narrow and wide lapels, double and single-breasted jackets, plus-four trousers, stove­pipes, and all these point to different eras, and may have been influenced by certain political climates. Men’s suits were also more expensive, and so had to last longer than women’s outfits. Until the sixties men wore the obligatory blocked hat in public. The crown had to be pinched just so, between finger and thumb, when greeting a lady. Think of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Mind you, I think my uncle Peter looked even better than Humphrey in his fedora.

The second thing worthy of examination is how political climate influenced fashion. Surely the looser, unstructured dresses of the twenties said something about that time. Women have had recourse to high heels for a long time to put them more at eye-level with men, never more so than now, when acrobatic skills are required to wear the things, and no number of health warnings seem to act as a deterrent. Shoulder-pads have come and gone, first appearing as a war­time fashion, and making a strong comeback in the eighties.

One theory arose in the eighties which drew parallels between fashion and bull-and-bear market trends. Bear-market trends were assumed to go hand in hand with softer, less structured lines, as is evident in pre-Depression styles, even in architecture and decoration. Bull-market trends were said to be reflected in more angular, structured styles in clothing, building trends and vehicles. The angular profile of SUVs springs to mind. I don’t know how well that theory holds up in the light of the recent market downturn. Catwalk fashions are increasingly escapist art installations that none of us would wear. No wonder we are drawn to vintage and retro. Nicole Jenkins’s book will prove to be an invaluable resource to anyone interested in this period in history, and not just as defined by these women’s garments.

Val Murray lives in northern New South Wales.