music video features me [wearing vintage!]

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned here that my boyfriend is a musician; he plays bass guitar, guitar, drums, and sings.  He also produces and mixes music.  Recently, he did a cover of a Michael Jackson song, “Remember the Time”, and made a music video with the help of a friend of ours studying film.  I’d like to post it here (despite the aspect ratio being a little less than flattering) because

1) It’s an awesome video and you should watch it, and

2)I’m wearing previously-unseen-here vintage in it!

I’m wearing a 1940’s vintage coat (I’ll post seperate photos of it soon, it deserves its own post!), vintage gloves and purse, and also my 1940’s t-strap shoes that have previously made an appearance here.

Vintage Clip Monday

Hi all!  Unfortunately, in the mayhem and mess of moving, the scanner isn’t set up yet, so no Vintage Mag Monday this week (but keep an eye out for a Vintage Mag Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday…), but there is a consolation prize: I’m throwing a charming, entertaining vintage video clip into this post to keep you entertained.

For your viewing pleasure, a hilarious prediction of fashion in the year 2000 made in the 1930s.  If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s worth watching:

Enjoy!

a vintage trunk, finally!

My boyfriend and I have been moving into our new place (which, as it turns out, is across the street from an insane asylum, which makes the lovely park across the street somewhat unusable) and as we drove from the old apartment to the new one yesterday, my sharp eye spotted a garage sale sign.  Since we were moving, I decided it was a must to check out the sale and see if we could find anything cute and kitschy for the place.  Lo and behold, the first thing I see as we pull into the driveway is a vintage trunk! I’ve been looking for one for ages, and while the outside is a little beaten up, the inside is in great shape.

Anyone have any idea of the age of this one?

I also got this lovely little oil lamp:

Can anyone tell me the age of this one?

Vintage Mag Monday #3 features 40s hats!

For your viewing pleasure, from Glamour magazine, January 1942, (I promise, different magazine next time!) a double feature:

First, several gorgeous hats:

I love the one on the bottom left of the second page, the swirly one.  I miss the days of decorative hats!

Now, the second part of this double feature is an ad from the same magazine for some gorgeous skirt suits:

I would actually love to recreate the upper left jacket for this fall; I’m looking for a pattern similar to the main jacket body so I can alter it to include the design features that make the above jacket special.  Anyone have any ideas?

*EDIT: a bonus close-up of said jacket, by request (I do love my readers!):

Vintage Finds in Wisconsin

When I went on my whitewater rafting/camping trip Labor Day weekend, I wasn’t really expecting to find any vintage.  Happily enough, that assumption turned out to be false.   It so happened that while we were on our way from Chicago to the Wisconsin/Michigan border for a 3pm rafting trip, we realized we had somehow ended up 20 minutes away from the rafting place but with about 2 hours to spare.  At this point, while we were wondering what to do with ourselves and considering a pre-raft hike, we passed a giant, wooden ice-cream cone on the road and the decision was made for us.  I’m not one to resist giant, wooden ice-cream cones.  As we pulled into the parking lot, I looked more closely at the sign and realized we’d actually pulled into an ice cream store and antique shop, rolled into one.  This magical place, if anyone is curious, is called Amberg Antiques & Sweets.  I spent a good hour combing through their wares while eating cotton candy ice cream (definitely the best way to enjoy an antique shop) and was rewarded with a few nice finds.

First of all, a hat, which I’m going to estimate to be from the 1930s, because of a few things:  there’s an interior grosgrain ribbon, which dates to at least the 1930s, and also because the pin looks quite old and even slightly deco to me.  The hat also definitely has some wear and tear.  I could very easily be wrong.  Here’s a shot of the hat on me:

And here’s the best close-up of the pin I could get:

Anyone have any ideas?  All the hat dating info I could find online came from this awesome resource.

I also picked up a necklace from the 50s made out of small orange-gold buttons…

…and some buttons from a vintage navy peacoat:

I understand these are fairly common, but boating is a hobby of mine and I also love anything with a naval theme so I was instantly smitten with the anchor impressions on these.  Plus, they’re big (1.25 in in diameter), there are 7 of them, and I can’t wait to make them a statement on some future garment!  Any suggestions?

another Vintage Mag Monday: funny faces

Happy Labor Day! This Monday’s VMM also comes from Glamour magazine, January 1942.  I chose it purely for her facial expressions, makeup, and hair:

And a close-up, too!

Enjoy!

that 50s harlequin dress and a 60s bikini

It’s been a little while since my last post, but I’m back, and with plenty of vintage loveliness to share.  Please excuse the week absence, but in my defense, I did get plenty accomplished.  For example, I found an apartment!  It’s in a vintage building (but rehabbed) with a lovely courtyard.

In other news, I just got back from a weekend whitewater rafting trip with Dan.  We went to Marinette County, Wisconsin, which bills itself the “Waterfalls Capitol of Wisconsin”, so I decided to use the opportunity for a beautiful backdrop and stage a little photo session near some waterfalls.

Remember those ’50s harlequin pedal pushers? I mentioned that I actually have a complete outfit of overskirt, pedal pushers, and top, and promised to show the entire ensemble.  Well, here it is:

The skirt is over the pedal pushers so you don’t go around being all inappropriate by wearing pants in public.  Here’s another view:

I love the color of the lining of the skirt!  And one last view:

But wait, there’s more!  On my latest jaunt to Knee Deep Vintage I picked up a 1960s bikini.  It has an “Elizabeth Stewart” label and the fabric is some sort of nubbly, fuzzy polka-dotted terry, which is an awesome texture for a bikini:

And one more:

There are plenty more photos of the two outfits in my Flickr stream at right!

Vintage Mag Mondays, Edition 1

Remember my post about that flea market in New York and the magazines I found there?  They’ve inspired me to start my first feature on Vintage Veta, namely Vintage Mag Mondays.  Each Vintage Mag Monday post will feature an article, advertisement, or other item of interest from a vintage magazine, usually involving fashion in some way. 

I know summer is  already winding down, so my first VMM feature, which comes from Glamour magazine, circa 1948, isn’t the most apropos, but I had to share it anyway:

 

Doesn’t seem too exciting?  Well, I thought the content above might be interesting for those who wish to know more about the following page, which is the real purpose of this post!

Don’t you wish you could head to Bloomingdale’s or Sak’s like the article suggests and buy all these today? I’m particularly fond of #1, #12 and #32…

on 50s pedal pushers and a purported “American Wodehouse”

A couple of weeks ago, after a jaunt to Knee Deep Vintage, I wandered for the first time into a new store across the street, Vintage Pilsen.  I walked into the store, and almost immediately spotted something on a rack near the door…something harlequin printed!  Of course, I made a beeline straight towards it, and pulling it off the rack, I found an amazing full 1950s set of pedal pushers, over skirt, and sleeveless top all in the same harlequin pattern!  I have yet to photograph the entire outfit, of which I am now the proud owner, but I wore the pedal pushers on their own with a cami today and got Dan to snap a few photos with his phone, so here’s a shot:

 

I’ll definitely post a photo of the entire ensemble soon!

If you’d like to see more photos of the pedal pushers, there are a few more in my flickr feed at right.  Also worth mentioning, Vintage Pilsen actually specializes in buying estates, so it wasn’t just clothing, but also furniture, books, random knick-knacks and other junque. I ended up also buying a book from 1948 called “Prematurely Gay”,  by Jack Iams.  The inside jacket hailed Iams as the American Wodehouse, so of course I had to buy it.  When I opened it at home, I discovered someone had taped a review of the book from a newspaper into the back cover (and the back of the review contains snippets of an opinion piece of some sort on WWII).  While skeptical, I did like the book, which was funny and in many ways similar to Wodehouse (the review says, “This is good American Wodehouse…a little rougher on gentility, a little softer on love, a good deal sexier all around”), but as a diehard Wodehouse lover I of course prefer the original.

pants, resurrected from 1969

One of my recent sewing projects, and one which almost made me tear my hair out, was sewing a pair of pants from this wonderful pattern from 1969 that I picked up at that theatre rummage sale for $0.05:

I started by making the center view to practice, as I had never made pants before, and it was the simplest one, but my ultimate goal is to make the absolutely gear bellbottoms at left! 

The first challenge was that the pattern is for a 23″ waist, which I, unfortunately for my vintage clothing addiction, do not have.  I had to go through a couple of attempts to get to the fit I’ve arrived at, which I’m still not 100% happy with, but I’ve decided I’m still proud, so I’m going to show a picture.  This picture also happens to have, as an added bonus, a booth at the Hell’s Kitchen Flea market of yesterday’s post in the background! Voila:

For more photos of both The Pants and flea market, feel free to click the Flickr feed at right!