Vintage Long Hair Styles S.O.S.(Van Dean Manual, 1977)

Good morning!

Hair, people. I've been thinking about it and thinking about it! Since growing mine out from a Jean Seberg 'do circa 2008, to its current length, I have gained in inches but not at all in knowledge of what to DO with this mangy mop of mine. Many of the books I have on vintage grooming have whole chapters dedicated to the dressing and maintenance of hair, and yet what do I go and do every day? I pull it up in a ponytail, with or without hair rat, and pin it to the top of my daddurn head as if there were no other options available to me. I might...MIGHT...be tempted to section off my hair into two plaits and pin THOSE to the top of my head, festooned with a scarf, but I do not go in for curlers, round brushes, mousse, fixatives, and other things that might make my hair look less-like-a-rat's-nest. I am insecure in my knowledge of the techniques necessary to turn my head from the flyaway look you see at left below, to the gorgeous crop of Rita Hayworth curls I envision in my head. Behold, me, last night, in my kitchen, in the only two speeds I know:

Item one: My hair is too heavy to curl well at this length. Naturally curl-less and straight as an Indian's, it curls decently at a shoulder length, but past that, at least 40% of the hair forthright rebels into its natural torpor.

Item two: If I just leave it down, it lengthens my already long face and hangs in this strange, straight-but-with-way-too-much-static-electricity curtain of uncertainty. Finishing products just make it look limp or unwashed, so I forgo these and hope for the best. One minute, I look like Janis Joplin and it's all good-- the next, one clump of hair is sticking directly out in a weird half elf lock. Bed head is one thing; this is another.

So! What to my wondering eyes should appear in the wealth of materials I've been digging out from storage than the Van Dean Manual (1977), a cosmetology textbook for studying future beauticians. And what should it fall open to but a whole section on "STYLING LONG HAIR"?

Check it out-- eleven, count 'em, ELEVEN pages of things we can try and do to this mess. Look with me, those of you out there with some tonsorial skill, and let me know which one we should try to make happen. Can these be achieved with mere willpower and length, or will my lack of hair training leave me coming up woefully short after similarly setting the hair? You tell me!

Here are the top ten (plus a bonus two at the bottom) that I had some physical reaction to, whether it was lustful jealousy or awestruck horror, I'll let you decide (hint...most of them were the former emotion):

It's hilarious how impartial the text is in its description of each of these styles. The "swing flip", for example, has a stated objective next to the above illustration: "To create a style that will permit the hair to fall and swing about the head in a free manner." Doesn't that sound like something out of state law? I see curls like this all the time in seventies' makeup ads and prime time soaps, and yet how do you keep the curls bouncing along as you apply concealer and double-cross your in-laws out of an important merger deal? At left, I thought of nothing so much as seventies' country singers, and that is never, never a bad thing. Look at the little ringlets? Contrived yet attention getting? I'm in, I'm in.

The classic page boy has a sleek look to it, and requires a deceptively large amount of locks to pull off, as the body is built by the extra hair.  I'm not sure if lighter colored hair would make this look less lacquered and perfect. I'm not even being petty-- black or dark, dark hair looks prettier in stiff shapes like this, a lot of the time my between-brown-and-blonde hair looks like it's been glued together if you're not careful with the hairspray. The coronet style on the right is freakin' insane, but think about it with a long, seventies' prom dress and a lot of chutzpah.

Two looks that I think would look better in person-- the modern goddess involves braiding, which, I told you, I'm already a lazy ace at. Maybe I could forgo the clusters of curls in the front and just do one of those Joan Crawford in the sixties' esque things at the back, pulled tightly away from the face? Definitely need to work on my backwards-in-a-mirror skills for this. At right, I'm sorry, but you know this would look really pretty and again, night time soap opera star like in real life. Something about the illustration of it makes it look too much like a train wreck of undulating waves. Don't lose faith, Mona Lisa Look! (PS: Last time I checked, Mona Lisa's hair did not...oh I'm not even getting into this. That is a ridiculous name).

I'm just going to go ahead and tell you, these three (the two below and the one below that), are my absolute favorites. These are looks that might be heavily aided by hair falls (wiglets, anyone?) or extra padding, but if I could look like any of the three of these pert nosed illustration models in my daily life, I would be at least 85% happier on average. They look like the heroines of weekly comic strips! Someone with a name like "Sondra Latchkey" or "Allie Calavert" who has high fashion adventures right above Heathcliff's Sunday slot.

The bonus two at the bottom I include only because I wanted to point out the "Junior Miss" picture looks exactly like my beloved Jane Birkin, and each style really could only probably be worn by JB or an early 70's Goldie Hawn. Am I right? Without that baby doll face and three layers of false eyelashes, just forget about it. But a girl can still dream!

Which look do you think is the most worth spending an hour decoding the professional textbook instructions for? What's the most elaborate hairstyle you've ever pulled of at home in your own amateurly professional way? What do you DO with hair my texture and length? Any advice would be so very appreciated!

All these tiny pages! Click on any one to see the full explanations of how to get these looks in your own home below. Sorry they're jumbled! Blogger is a mystery to me sometimes:

 

Have a great Wednesday, and I'll see you tomorrow!                                                               

Dress: The Clothing Textbook, Ch 5 (1969)

Good morning!

In continuing this week with things that were unearthed during "The Great Bookshelf Move of 2012" (the repercussions of which are still being felt throughout the house, as I tripped over a stack of forties'-era movie star biographies in my hallway this morning), I found this 1969 edition of a home economics title called Dress: The Clothing Textbook and thought you guys would get a kick out of it like I did. With units like "Personal Clothing Needs", "Clothing the Family", and "Textile Fabrics", the table of contents already boasts several points of interest-- today, I scanned some of the items from Chapter 5, entitled "Shopping Wisely and Well". Wanna see, wanna see?

Over the last five years, my clothes-shopping habits have changed dramatically from about a fifty/fifty split between estate sales/Goodwill and Target/the mall, to a 80/20 ratio of the same store breakdowns. I still hit L'Target for socks and underthings and the occasional shoe, but for the most part, all of my separates and dresses, which are legion, come from somebody else's closet by one means or another. Something about the "hunt" aspect of digging through racks and racks of old clothes is just too appealing-- and it's hard to go back and pay $30 for an okay dress at a department store, on sale, when you could have a shock-and-awe style $100 dress from the 80's for $7.99 (if you can find it and subsequently squeeze into it!). My twenty-point check system is a lot like the (bizarrely coiffed) woman in this quality assurance tutorial, except add "does it have a burned spot from the misguided ash of someone's cigarette at a New Year's party in the seventies'?" and "have the seams fallen out?" and "is this a 1960's vintage chili sauce stain? Will it come out with Biz?"

I was shopping at an antique store out in Goodletsville last week with Emma from The Fiercest Lilliputian and we were lamenting the idea of stores-full of the kinds of vintage accouterments we like for reasonable retail prices in their respective decades-- a pair of forties' leather wedgies for twenty bucks, all sizes! Sixties' pill box hats, fifteen dollars, all sizes! It's kind of hard to wrap your head around a time when you could go to the department store and there was a whole rack of the kind of vintage stuff for which we girls spend weekend-after-weekend scouring the thrift stores and vintage racks and every other where. Also, the stores themselves! I'm sorry, but Macy's in Rivergate doesn't look anything like this:

You said it was typical! You lied to me, text!

Filene's (above) was a chain of department stores that served customers in New England and New York locations up until 2005. This little wedding cake of a location looks like it's ready to take off! One of my favorite teenage bedtime stories was to ask my parents to tell me about the "Lemon Frog Shop" at Sears in the early seventies', which did have a Nashville location... I like to think this would be just the same kind of place, a veritable Candyland of polyknit pant suits and jumpers. Dis-similarly,  I would be actually afraid to go to the Wannamaker's location pictured below. Do you SEE the "Christ on the Calvary" painting that's taller than my house and probably twice as expensive? Also, note the bird cages as decoration on different countertops and the large falcon statuary close to the foreground of the picture. Don't come in here with your "Hey there, show me some cheap sweaters!" from yesterday's post, in front of a famous painting of our Lord!

Here are some more department stores of yesteryear with their "Gosh, let me go shopping there for just five minutes, just whatever I can grab in five minutes!" interiors:

What's neat about this text, and what I enjoy about vintage home ec books in general, is the tone set by the author of starting at near scratch with their intended audience. Let's assume you've just come off the farm in Dog Patch, Arkansas or descended from Mars in your shiny metal spaceship... Cousin Jessop and Xanadu alike would find great solace in the text's presupposition that you have never set barefoot nor webbed-foot in a commercial retail setting, ever ever ever. This is not so much a "tips and advice" book as a manual for how to successfully shop for a wardrobe, right from the very beginning. Here are three successful 1969 girl shoppers and their respective wardrobes. Of the center outfit, the caption reads "A basic suit with accessories for casual wear. The shoulder bag and the turtleneck ribbed sweater match the line in the plaid of the suit. Knee socks and loafers are also suitable for casual wear." Now, if you'd never seen a sixties' movie or pictures of your mom or aunt or uncle growing up, there's a blue print for a decent late sixties' casual outfit. Tell me more, oh wise vintage clothing advisers!

How to buy strapless and strapped brassieres, and how to buy panty girdles versus the step-in girdle...know your differences and similarities! It occurred to me, as I was reading, that all the boys in whatever grade this was necessary for in the 1969 high school curriculum, would be in shop class while we girls are covering the unit on delicates and unmentionables in "Dress Class". Isn't that crazy to think about? Wellness, when I was in high school, was probably the closest we got to any home and health instruction in the early 2000's, and it was decidedly co-educational. That means when the guy came in from the Public Health Department with his STD photo examples flashcards (I couldn't make this up if I tried), we alllllll had to see the ensuing presentation. Together. In bi-gender unity. EEK! The 1960's guys were probably learning how to use a drill press while we girls were weighing our girdle options in Dress class. Ah, well. Times, they change!

I didn't know this or think about this with regard to shoes-- I think the shiny material makes the shoe wearer's foot look slightly smaller. Maybe I should pay more attention to shiny options in shoe wear next time I hit the Target!

Patterned tights were the thing in late sixties' and early seventies' leg wear, and I, for one, would have been grateful to them for allowing some kind of coverage in those thigh high miniskirt days. Here's two tricks for thicker legs and skinny-mini legs, respectively. I didn't think about the optical value of either one of them before, but you'd better bet I'm taking it into consideration in the future! Also, I could die over how much I want to look like that girl at the football game below.

Another instructive moment-- I've always wanted to know more about what to call certain types of vintage handbags. Box purses are kind of obviously named, but look at all the different kinds of bags you probably have in your vintage collection that you haven't been calling by its right name all this time! "Swagger" and "Vagabond" are new ones on me. I wish there was a similar chart on hats in this chapter, but we came up short on that account.

Vintage department store clothing tags. Look at the Penney-Tween typography and the little sweater vest emblem on the Sears sweater tag. Ugh! Tags are so boring nowadays! I want a promise of quality along with the cost of the garment!

Last but not least from this chapter, I had trouble scanning this because of the tight binding and the size of the book, but oh Good Lord look at these poor, poor teen boys trying to look cool in front of the Sears "fashion coordinator". Could you die? You can see the Martha-haired woman at center going "Really? This is what you want to send down the runway? Not in a million years, boys! Not in a million years!". That said, i hope that guy on the far right is their very-short teacher; otherwise, he's the lest datable teen of all!

Do you have any memories of vintage looking department stores from your youth or your parents' recollections? What "signs of quality" do you look for in either vintage clothes or new store-bought items for your wardrobe? Have any vintage home ec textbooks that have taught you valuable life lessons? Do share!

That's all for today-- more book finds tomorrow!

Handbook of Dating and Other Etiquette (1970)

Good morning!

Hope everybody had a good weekend...I've been undergoing this massive pre-spring Spring Cleaning project (another of my pre-New Years New Years resolutions, haha) and wow, the things I didn't even know I had. When I was going through the books in one bookshelf, investigating the novel concept of only-having-as-many-books-as-the-bookcase-would-hold-on-actual-bookcase, I found this Handbook of Dating and Other Etiquette by Sandi Cushman, published in 1970. As best I remember, this title was a Scholastic Book Services score of my mom's when it was new, and was also a favorite of mine circa 1997, where visions of bowling dates and house-guest invitations danced through my pre-teen imagination. The cover looks pretty...mooky, really...but the insides are pure vintage gold. Let's look!

"Heart + Art = Good Manners" may sound goofy, but it's honestly true! Even at thirteen, and again now at twenty-seven, I'm in love with the idea that if you do not know how to do something (or if you do know how to do something, but would rather do it with the grace and politesse you've seen people do it with in the movies), there's a book for that. For sixty cents in 1970 money, you could have the answers to all your dating and etiquette questions at your fingertips!

Plus, the illustrations are pretty much worth the price of admission. Look. AT! How adorable the Malibu Barbie like protagonist of the chapter headers is:

It doesn't make good sense that the woman who did the illustrations (Dorothy D'Anna), did not also do a cover, because wouldn't you be more likely to buy this book on the strength of the French-curls and triple-layer-false-eyelashes gal in the pictures rather than that weird, taken from surveillance photographs picture that actually is on the cover? Sharing a milkshake, going on a picnic with a guitar, dancing, legs akimbo...and, most importantly of all, reading about how to make a success of her dating life!

I know a lot of this is dated, and maybe I'm dated, but I still agree with most of this. Sample advice from these chapters:

Item one: Santa Claus, please, please, please bring me a wiglet for Christmas. I have been really good this year. Item two: I love the abuse of flats in the first section of chapter 2...our fearless author posits that though flats MAY seem like the appropriate choice for a date with Sam Shortington, "chances are you'll waddle like a duck when you should glide like a swan" in those heel-less slippers. Ouch! Ouch, Sandi Cushman! But in my heart, I know you're right (as I fearlessly don wedges that make me 6'3''...a vertiginous swan am I!).

The clothes in these illustrations are giving me envy-induced headaches. Look at the party dress below left. The mini-skirt and coordinated socks-to-sweater ensemble. I am dying. Also, how can I make my hair look like a cascading waterfall of curls in real life? I need more than a round brush and a hair dryer, but by Godfrey, I'll figure it out yet!

Special note: I was OBSESSED with the following passage upon first reading it as a kid. Picturing these poor girls on dates in inappropriate clothes still makes my skin crawl, and I really could have quoted to you each of these passages without having to refresh my memory by reading the text. It made THAT much of an impression on me in my youth! Today, as an adult, I'm almost a little too wary of what I'm wearing and its suitability for various weather/activities/wow-factors...I wonder if this is the root of my problem!

It's good to know, by virtue of the Chapter 5 frontispiece, that good hair runs in Ellie Etiquette's family! Her mom and sister apparently also have Da Vinci like skills with hot rollers and fixative sprays ((eyes narrowing)). These two chapters have to do with being kind to people in your immediate household, as well as those you encounter in your travels (oh please, oh please, oh please Santa can I have a traveling ensemble like this including a raised beret to go over my wiglet? COME ON, MAN).

I cracked up a little over "the Singing Zombies'" latest single (you don't want to get them confused with the Zombies, who do, naturally, sing, and are not a fictional band), and who are you to judge my room and its Russian Army trampled like state of disarray! Mother's Wednesday afternoon bridge club can go to Haiti for all I care! (See, I am working on the swear words thing).

Truthfully, though, it does take a little extra oomph of effort to conduct yourself with grace and glamour even in a domestic setting, but it's well, well, and WELL worth it. Trade your bathrobe for a fancy vintage lounging robe (same amount of comfort, 200% more sex appeal)! Take five minutes in the morning to make your bed and toss last night's tights in the laundry hamper! It really does make me feel like a queen in my own house to take pride in how I look and act while I'm in it.

Will all this good behavior on the home front be rewarded with a week's vacation in someone's guest room?! One can only hope:

There's lots of pointers on not-acting-like-your-host-is-the-owner-of-a-hotel and not-acting-like-you-act-in-your-house-when-we-just-talked-about-how-not-to-act-in-your-house, and a lot of daydreaming on my part about staying with a family where wondering how much to tip their live in maid is a real issue that crosses my actual mind ("two dollars if you've been there for a short stay, and three to five dollars for a stay of more than a weekend, up to a week", for inquiring minds). Le sigh!

Life is "Scranch, NY" is, like, Nowheresville, U.S. of A! These are perfectly lovely letters, but really, Scranch? And Louchie Avenue? Could you come up with something halfway human? I do love how warm and yet elegant these thank you notes come off.

And for the grand finale, how to act in department stores and in sports situations (do you think she was just running out of ideas at this point?). Please do note the gentleman caller in the all-over full length fuzzy fur coat at right (how could you not?):

I vaguely remember a time, possibly in the late eighties' or early nineties', when salesclerks at department stores like JC Penneys and Caster Knott would roam the sales floor and either timidly or brashly, depending on their personalities, approach you to ask if there was anything you were looking for in particular, but it's a dim memory at best. Now, you pretty much have to stalk a sales representative down, African savannah style, stalking your prey through several departments before you can make eye contact and ask your question. At which point, the representative will claim ignorance and fealty to a department that does not carry the sweater with the missing price tag in question. That said, I don't see why "Hey there! Show me some cheap sweaters!" isn't an appropriate conversation opener for a multitude of social situations (maybe this is why I never get invited to stay anywhere with a live-in maid).

Re: the below excerpt on letting your date win or winning gracefully: this really is a little true. Even enlightened dudes of the twenty-first century might be a little sore if they realize you are WAY better at tennis than them.

What do you think? Is most of this advice still on target or do you take umbrage with some of Cushman's underhanded, 1970 lady tactics? Which illustration do you like the best? Was there a particularly influential etiquette text you memorized or were enchanted by in your youth? Do tell!

Well, that's it for today. Mind you manners and I'll see you promptly back here tomorrow for more vintage rants and raves. See ya then!

Photo Friday: Theta! Omega! Ra, Ra, Ra! Edition (Vintage sorority scrapbook, 1950's)

Good morning!

Yesterday, I was doing my usual wistful Craigslist fantasy shopping when I ran across a photo that caught my eye at the image preview to the left of the listing for vintage scrapbooks of sorority paraphernalia. Nashville interest, fifties', a;;-American lookin' gals in OH MY GOD THEY'RE SO CUTE swimsuits, perched on what appears to be a mid century Chevrolet, the kind with the fins that made them look they were more suitable to moon than highway travel. Ay yi YI. In spite of the photo-of-a-photo glare on the image, I was intrigued!

The accompanying ad read like this (could you actually hear the air go out of the tires in my dream Chevrolet as I see the $3000 price tag?) :

Here's where the grandaddy cussing starts: "I ain't got no DADBLAMED THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS, what in the HELL do they want that much money for it anyway for a cotton-pickin' picture album, they musta done LOST their MINDS." Of course, when you think of it on a purely photo-by-photo basis, based on the description, $3,000 is probably fine. Also, it's sorority and Nashville-history based, so again, cash register sounds are not inappropriate. However, coming from the world of digging photo albums out of moldering bookshelves in dusty attics where such an item might cost $25, and that's a high-as-the-ceiling price estate sale wise, I was understandably a little shell shocked. And hearbroken. How much fun would I have going through all these photos?

As I'm trying to be more positive about things lately and resist that devil, naysaying, negative little mind of mine as a kind of pre-New-Years'-New-Years'-Resolution....instead of eating my little heart out and gnashing at my knuckles in frustration, I'm going to instead be thankful that the seller posted a bunch of sample photos on his ad. Jubilation! Let's get a look at them while we can, huh?

I guess a lot of what you would do in 1950's Nashville in the summer was go swimming! This may be down at one of the community pools or it may be at a country club (it is a sorority, after all)...what I do know is these swimming suits do not stop being adorable. And look at how tiny their little pre-Big Mac bodies are. These are the figures for which all those 24'' waist chiffon gowns I can't even get over my neck must have suited in their original use!

Now I love photographs, and I love ephemera  but the one thing I love more than either individual photographs or ephemera? THE TWO TOGETHER. My very most prized possession, vintage-wise, above all my clothes and hats and books and records (I know, I know, it's hard to imagine the concept of me loving something more than my clothes and hats and books and records, but bear with me), is a "Girl's Commencement Album" that I bought in 2003 upon graduation from high school. Did I tell you this before? It's filled cover to cover with photos, mementos, autographs, and sardonic little collages by Grace Peterson, an extremely tall, Teutonic looking gal (ring any bells?) who graduated high school in Minnesota in 1918. The book is a kind of history of her senior year, with scratched out photos of old boyfriends, a menu from an Edwardian Chinese restaurant in Minneapolis (??), ticket stubs from the theater (and a silent Doug Fairbanks, Sr. movie program!), even the stub of a Camel cigarette of a boy she had a crush on. It's just like magic being able to see that intimately into someone's very vibrant life, at a time which seems so remote and distant from our twenty-first century world.

Party invitations? Don't mind if I do. Doesn't this look like a sketch from forties' Harper's Bazaar?

Think of all the material here! You could actually write a little book about it. Here are some note-cards and scribbles from the ladies of Theta Omega; again, in terms of ephemera, how cool is it to have all these meticulously saved, formal stationery correspondence from the sisters of the group and back again? In my 1918 book, one of the best pieces was an envelope taped onto one page, which was labelled "the fatal letter". Inside was a card from a former boyfriend about his life in a new town, ending with something like "maybe we can visit each other some time if we can do it without fighting, but I guess we can". How personal! The giddy little vintage voyeur in me was tickled pink. I wonder what these notes say!

Look at their formal dresses! Oh, do not look away! I'm dying over the hoop-skirt looking confection in the middle on the left, and the black evening gown a dress or two to that center lady's right. Ah!

What do we address first, the "don't be a square" sign, or the undeniable pertness of the tiny beanie hats the girls are wearing with the first initial of their sorority proudly stitched at the top? How about that third girl from the left's spit curls? Please note that they are once again at the pool (see the water just behind them?).

"Here's to us, Gail! Here's to us!" say the girls in unison, toasting themselves in front of their little beaux, the one on the right of which looks like a more slick Steven Weber from Wings.

I think the sign in this picture pretty much speaks for itself. AND AGAIN WITH THE SWIMMING POOL.

I tried to figure out if Tommy Knowles was a crooner of any repute, but I'll settle for his cool looking microphone and his great, great hair in the absence of any Google info about him. See the assembled girls' beaming expressions?

Southern belles..I am impressed by the sheer froth of those gorgeous skirts. You know they looked just like camellias floating across a dance floor that evening.

Who's gettin' married! One of the sorority sisters, I guess! These books have everything!

Best for last...not only "Go theta".... do you see the sign? "The Long and Short of It" features a dachshund little guy in the middle of it. I give up! I wanna pledge! Too bad it looks like the gal group isn't still around. If you know any different though, do tell me when RUSH week is!

Were you ever in a fraternity or sorority? They were a big deal at the University of Tennessee campus during my tenure there, but I wasn't ever interested. The closest I got to Greek life was a Tau house party, the location of which (their frat house), was eventually reclaimed by the university to be repurposed as a student life center and advising location. I was like "I drank beer in their basement once!" whenever I subsequently passed it.

Which sorority picture do you think looks like the most fun? Is $3,000 crazy cuckoo nuts for a price tag, or can you see the wisdom in it? See the original ad while it's still up.

That's all for this week-- thanks for being such good readers and commenting when you can! I really get a kick out of your take on the photos and clippings I end up posting here. Have a GREAT weekend and I'll see you on Monday!