Elaine Hanelock "Hollywood Royalty" Prints (1968)

Good morning!

I'm reading a killer, K-I-L-L-E-R book right set in Hollywood in 1918-- I'd planned to review it some time this week and though I've been tearing through the chapters in my off-desk time, I'm still only about halfway through. Zut alors. It may be into next week before I finish it. The brilliance of the novel, however, has me thinking about the blinding passion I have for golden age of the studio system, which in turn had me trawling Etsy and Ebay for keyword "silent movie stars" under memorabilia, which in turn led me to discover these AMAZING psychedelic prints from the late sixties' by Elaine Hanelock. Some are silent, some are talkie...all are excellent.

Let's look at the goods, shall we?

Jean Harlow:

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As I mentioned in my review of her 1936 movie Reckless a few months back, no one seems to remember how "cute" Jean Harlow was! Sexy, of course, but something about the petulant, childlike cuetness of her translates on screen in a way that doesn't come across in her down-to-there, bias cut silk gown glamour shots. Her weird, faux-Anglican screen voice and that squeakiness, those flashing, baby doll eyes. She was just a cupid of a girl. I love the embellishment of stars and stripes instead of sequins no the Harlow poster's costume, and the acid-drip of the pink, white, gold, black, and fuscia palette of the background.

Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler:

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Comedienne Marie Dressler was a battle-axe of a woman, all mugging eyes and stout swagger, yet before her death in 1936, she enjoyed screen-queen level status as one of the top paid and most popular actresses of the thirties'. Her career spanned an impressive forty plus years, from her start as a vaudeville singer in the 1890's, to silent pictures in the teens and twenties, and finally talkies. Wallace Beery was Gloria Swanson's first husband (I still find this hard to wrap my head around) and one of the best of the brusque, blustering brutes of the thirties'. Dressler won an Academy Award in 1931 for her performance in Min and Bill, the picture from which Hanelock based this print.

Clark Gable:

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THE KING! ALL HAIL THE KING! Cary Grant and Clark Gable are two of the only actors I will watch in anything. Anything. And have! I've seen both CG's in almost every picture in their respective filmographies. One of my favorite facts about Gable-- in 1932, he stars with Jean Harlow and Mary Astor in Red Dust, a romance set on a rubber plantation in the wilds of Indochina (now Vietnam). Twenty-one years later, in 1953, he plays the same part in the remake, Mogambo, reset in Africa, this time with suitably young and glamorous actresses Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly in the roles Harlow and Astor played in the thirties. Why is that so funny to me? (Sidenote: both pictures are excellent...Red Dust is slightly better) I think this print is referencing the many foulards Rhett Butler wore in Gone With Wind, and bully for him! I think it's one of the most glamorous art pieces of the bunch. Aren't the purple highlights neat?

 Will Rogers:

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 I never "got" Will Rogers until I saw one of his last pictures, shot just before his untimely death in an Alaskan plane crash in 1935, called Steamboat Round the Bend. It was playing at the Belcourt a year or two ago and I was like, "Ah, let's give him a shot". The aphorisms he's famous for ("I never met a man I didn't like", etc, etc) read even better on screen than they do in print-- while a lot of that movie is ve-e-e-ry slow, there was a line Rogers delivers, mutteringly, about someone's joke being old enough to have come off Noah's ark, that snapped up my attention. A thrill of recognition ran through me as I remember my garroulous grandaddy saying just about the same joke, in just about the same way, a few years earlier at a family gathering. There's an old time morose, everyman humor to Will Rogers that appeals, appeals, appeals.

Clara Bow:

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While I don't think this looks as much like Bow as the others look like their real-life counterparts, this is still a GREAT print. How about those pink highlight hues or the graphic boldness of her bustier top? Bow has the most expressive eyes out of any silent movie star actress I can think of-- a competitive category, when you get down to it! Large, and dark, and just like exclamation points every time she's in a close up. As much as I think Garbo and Pickford and Louise Brooks and Lillian Gish are better actresses from the silent period, nobody seems as immediate as Clara Bow, as if you could just reach out and touch her whenever you see her on screen. It's not just the photogenic quality of her face (in which Garbo would have her beat), but the vitality of it. This print lavishly misses the point in that, but such in life.

John Barrymore:

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Acknowledged as one of the greatest stage presences of the early twentieth century, John Barrymore was, (more importantly, obviously) a bi-i-i-i-ig crush of mine back in high school. I was batty about him after reading a play called I Hate Hamlet by Paul Rudnick, and read a stack of biographies about his real-life exploits as a romantic young roué at the top of his field and later an alcoholic, tragicomic figure of pity in forties' Hollywood, a long way from success as the Danish prince in his greatest stage role. He's also fantastic in two perfect MGM early thirties' talkies, Dinner at Eight (Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, and Jean Harlow are in that one, to boot!) and Grand Hotel (Garbo and Crawford and brother Lionel co star!). What irks me most of all? Despite being attached to three of the most important figures of early 20th century stage craft (sister Ethel and the aforementioned Lionel were equally famous actors, the latter of which you might remember as the villainous Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life), the last name "Barrymore" is most easily associated with Drew. I don't even dislike the woman, but seriously.

You can see the rest of the 10 print set on this live auctioneers site. I love them all!

Well, what do you think? Which one would you most like to have in your home? Are any of these actors or actresses particular favorites of yours? Do you think the sixties'-heavy style of them is attractive or distracting? Let's talk!

That's all for today-- I'll see you kids back here tomorrow!

Weekend DIY: Vintage Handbag Makeover

 Good morning!

Well, I am glad to see you guys were as excited over my typewriter as I am! I'm going to have to see if I can't find some reproduction ribbon, or if I can jerry-rig some kind of solution to the inklessness. Then....THEN we'll be cookin' with gas, won't we? :) Today, I have a story of transformation...featuring skulls. You know you want to hear about it!

The estate sales I hit with my dad this weekend were a little lackluster. It may have been that we got a late start, i.e. later than our usual start time of 8 AM. I think I picked him up around 9:30 this time and I'm telling you, that crucial hour and a half made a big difference-- lots of the houses we visited were furnitureless, with a few drab little knickknacks still strewn hopefully around large indention marks where a cherry Queen Anne bedroom suite had been.

Soon, I'll do a luggage case and have a three piece set for traveling!

One house in particular was funny-- at a Patterson sale in Brentwood, it was necessary to remove your shoes at the door if you wanted to come in and look. I can kind of understand, as the house was a) already under contract by new owners and b), a gorgeous, white carpeted affair in a nice neighborhood. Lord knows the kind of clodhoppers attached to the feet of well meaning people, scouting out second day deals and tracking mud all through your fine future home, so ok. Dad and I both looked at each other-- the "provided [surgical] booties" in a communal bin next to the welcome mat looked neither enticing nor particularly sanitary, as each had been used before by some earlier-bird shopper. Still, I slipped off my flats and ran gleefully pieds nus through the house, while Pappy waited in the car. Aware of his patience-o-meter, which goes into the red after about ten minutes with nothing to do, I was like a vintage seeking springbok, lightly leaping through each room. I picked up a purse in one bedroom, with an inviting half off the $6 price tag, bought it, and went back out to the car, realizing for the first time that it was a little worse for wear in terms of scuff marks, and also quite different from what I'd seen in the house. Namely, in color.

Me to Dad, squinting at the purse: I thought this was black.
Dad [appraisingly]: Nope. That's navy. [looking it over] It's not even dark navy, it's a kind of cobalt color.
Me: IT WAS DARK IN THERE AND I WAS HURRYING. [takes bag back into hand with a spiteful look at its coloring] Who even wears navy any more?!

Well, kiddlings, it was time to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

You remember the case from my Desperately Seeking Susan costume? It's one of my favorite DIY creations, and yet there are less suitable opportunities than you would think for lugging around an egg shaped train case with skulls all over it. Too big for a purse and too small for a suitcase, it's had some service as an overnight bag, but spends most of its time balefully looking down at me from my closet shelf of purses, seeming neglected. Eureka! I would do a similar do-over on this sad, sad blue handbag, and see what the results are. As you can see, I don't think they're too shabby!

All I did was masking-tape out the gold metal fixtures, then spray paint the whole thing black. Once it had dried, I took a metallic silver Sharpie and outlined the figures two or three times over. They look a little more gummy-bear like on this one side than I would like, but the side pictured on the second from the top one turned out really well, I think! The flat, vinyl surface of the purse, plus the cosmetic imperfections and the much hated navy hue, made this a prime candidate for a do-over, and I've actually put this handbag into my weekly carry-on accessories rotation. I haven't noticed much color deterioration yet, but it's only been a couple of days, so we'll see how hardy the materials end up being after a week or two in heavy use. You could do this with tons of stuff, though! I thought cut-up word poems or stencils of frog skeletons or any kind of thing would be neat for future cover-ups, if I find any more suitably distressed materials with which to try such a project.

Now, does that mean I would do this to just any vintage clasp handbag? Does heck go with no? Just to show that my loyalties are still correctly aligned, here are some purses from my collection that I would do absolutely nothing to cosmetically. They're perfect as they are!

Don't paint us! Plllleeeeeease don't paint us!

Do you not love, love, LOVE faux alligator handbags? You can tell I have a problem with them because every time I see one, I pick one up. Brown is very close to navy in my wardrobe playbook under "colors I never wear because all of my shoes and belts are black, all of the time", and yet here you can see two brown handbags I bought because the price was right (none of these were more than $4, I am positive about that) and I loved the trapezoidal little shape of them. So chic!

What do you think about my makeover? Was it sacrilege to spray paint a vintage hand bag? You should know I'm usually diametrically opposed to "upcycling" or changing the base state of about any vintage item, but in this case, as the thing was worn out and navy enough to draw a "just sad" rating from Michael Kors, and a "I'm going to save my shopper's dignity and make this into something I can use rather than something that has to go back to Goodwill" from me.

Do you have any vintage handbags like this in your collection? Done anything neat to rehabilitate a way-far-gone vintage piece? Have any neat DIY stories from recent memory? Let's talk!

That's all for today...see you cats right back here tomorrow. Til then!

Cuckoo for Craigslist: The $20 1920 Oliver Typewriter

Good morning! The wait is over! Get ready to see my big last-week score!

Last Tuesday night, I was hip deep in my usual routine of watching Rupaul's Drag Race and window shopping Craigslist, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the following ad:

I know I quote such amazingly low prices on stuff that you're likely to think some of the blarney of this past weekend may have rubbed off on me, but here is a pre-WWII typewriter, in the antiques section of Nashville's Craiglist, that is actually priced at $20. The ad had been posted an hour earlier, so maybe I still had a chance at getting my clammy little hands on this gem? And twenty smackeroos? Were they missing a zero? I even took a screenshot so you would believe me. I emailed the listing tout de suite and set up a meeting with a girl named Tina at the Maxwell House Hotel off Metro Center.

First thought? This is obviously a "fixer-upper" typewriter that has previously been submerged in the bottom of a lake, thus explaining the sale price. Second thought, this is obviously a serial killer that targets collectors-of-antiquity. I mean, even in the former scenario, a rust-covered, non-functioning nineteen-teen's typewriter should rate at least a fifty dollar price tag. I've seen broken down eighties' IBM Selectrics for more than $20. So I balled down to Rosa Parks Blvd after work on Wednesday and got the goods.

PEOPLE. LOOK AT THIS.

Oh, right. It looks exactly like it does in the other picture, except better! 

The Oliver Typewriter Company manufactured typewriters from 1895-1928. The "visible" type feature touted in the advertisement refers to an innovation Oliver made in typing machines, in that their model was the first you could see the type come up as you typed it (and thus realize immediately when you substituted a "q" where a "w" went, and would have to go back and type it over again). This model is the No. 9, and while the ad took its information from a 1912 patent featured on the labeling  the No. 9 actually dates from around 1916-1920. The girl I bought it from said that she and her boyfriend has picked it up at a yard sale in Franklin for $35 as "an investment", but they were moving to Washington state and the Craigslist ad was a response to her own threat that she would take it to Goodwill at the end of the weekend if her significant other couldn't find a new home for this old clunker. OH. MY. GOD. TWENTY. DOLLARS. The only thing better than getting something amazing is getting something amazing for pennies on the dollar. Tina said she'd had her email completely flooded with emails overnight, but since mine was the first response, she'd held it for me. FOR ME, FOR ME!

The "u-shaped typebars" are a particularly neat feature on this typewriter-- I didn't take a very good picture, but as you can see on this website, the typebars swoop down from either side in an elegant strike pattern, unique to the traditional semi-circle arrangement of the same. The ribbon is very worn, but intact.

The first thing I did after making the transaction was buckle this guy into the passenger seat of my Civic and drive out to my parents' house. Now, though the bizarre strand of genetic hoarding and collecting can be directly traced from either of my progenitors, they are also contradictorily harsh on me when they think I've spent too much money on something or have not spent wisely. They're the gold standard test for whether or not something is a good buy. We come from a line of Depression-era thinkers, both before and after the actual Depression, mouths to which the withering phrase "Well, I guess you've got more money than sense" is no stranger. However, they were practically as excited as I was!

Mom: [as I'm carrying the thirty pound typewriter in by its side handles and she helps me as I struggle with the screendoor] Dang, Lisa. DANG. Is that what you got?! How much did you pay for it?

Lisa: Twenty bucks.

Mom: Twenty bucks! That's nothing! That's a pizza! I can't believe they sold it to you for that! How much did they pay for it, did they tell you?

Lisa: Thirty five bucks.

Mom: See? That girl probably thought it had depreciated or something. Pssh. That is ridiculous. I can't believe that. [to my dad] Go get your brush and you can dust it off for her.

Dad: [going to get the brush, calling back from his office] Can you put this in your will to me? [Note: As much as my pappy loves me, if I ever end up mysteriously disappearing, please check to make sure that some recent vintage transaction hasn't pushed him over the edge to homicide...HE IS ALWAYS ASKING ME TO WILL THINGS TO HIM]

Lisa: I was afraid you guys would be like "Oh, you shouldn't have bought this great big old thing that you're gonna have to find somewhere to put in the house, and twenty bucks was too much to spend, and blah blah..."

Mom: No! Not at all. I would have bought that.

Dad: [cannily, dusting] You know, if I'd have been smarter about it, I would've been like, 'Aw, it's ok, kid, you know, everybody makes mistakes...and you're young, you didn't know any better. Tell you what, I'll give you twenty-five dollars for this clunker, just so there are no hard feelings about the whole thing.'

Mom: [to my dad] Don't press too hard on those parts with the writing on it. [to me] And you'd make five bucks! That offer stands!

Lisa: NO WAY.

Mom: I'll trade you my projector. [Note: said projector is a 1920's home model which, though missing the motor, is extremely impressive to look at and cost her $6 at a sale they went to without me. WITHOUT ME.]

Lisa: No deal!

Needless to say, much laughs were had, and I felt so proud I thought I might bust about the whole transaction.

Q: Do we love it? A: DO WE EVER!

And does it work? Let's take a look:

           

Look at the sneery little freeze frame from the first part of the video! My side angles are not my best angles. Bonus points if you can tell from which Oscar-sweeping favorite movie of mine this dialogue is wholesale paraphrased (if your curiosity is killing you, the answer's here). But do you hear the clack clack clacking? Could you believe it? And if the ribbon weren't so inkless, I assure you, it would cough up some beautiful print, if the faint markings it did make are any indication.

My dad said he would lend me an old typewriter stand he has in the attic somewhere as soon as he could unearth it. "It's from the forties', so it wouldn't be period-perfect for the one you have, but it'd still be better than nothing!" he offered. Yahoo! Now I just have to make display space for it somewhere in my office!

Do you have any crazy old typewriters hanging around the house or the attic? What's the wildest deal anyone ever gave you on Craigslist? What do you think about my find (or my 1930's newspaper man impression)?

That's all for today! I'm gonna muscle through this gloomy Monday and I'll see you guys right back here tomorrow! Til then.

Photo Friday: A Cavalcade of Color Edition

Good morning!

What kind of a Friday would it be with that the photos of another family should grace this humble blog? I so loved the color and splash of the pictures from this flickr stream that they were an obvious choice for inclusion in this week's batch. Folks! Come for glamour, stay for the hairstyles.

Two words: Lamp. SHADES.

The woman in the red dress on the sofa, holding the little baby, is I think Sharon (if I'm decoding the family Christmas card right), who is married to Bob. And what an adorable 1950's and 60's couple they make! How lovely their family looks gathered together in these full-color snapshots. Because I used the search term "mom 1962", I came up with a number of well dressed women in lipstick and pearls, but this one could give Wanda Jackson a run for her money in the brunette good looks (she's temporarily blonde in the above photo) and style, style, style.

Want proof? Look at her hair in the photo on the left, below. That bouffant, bangs, lipstick, and painted eyebrows combination is so spot-on for a glamazon of the time.

The house in the first picture appears to be one of the other ladies' in the picture (maybe the older woman?), as Sharon's house is MCM to the nines'. See the sunburst clock on the wall? The gold pleat pinch drapes and the red Eames-ish saucer chair of the photo on the right? OH, there is so much more in the background of other photos (the aforementioned chair set, this sectional, for example, for which I would give my eyeteeth). Sometimes I think about what thrift stores and second hand stores must have been filled with in the seventies' or eighties', when the more progressive of mid-century people would have scrapped the Danish modern look for something more decade-appropriate. I know there were plenty of stalwarts, as we can tell from going to time capsule estate sales in which nothing is out of place for a 1956 built home, but think of the others who were out with the old and in with the new!

Above are two perfectly composed family-in-the-yard-on-a-holiday shots. In the photo on the right, Sharon is actually pregnant with her third child, Rob, who appears in his father's arms in the slightly later photo on the left. Have you seen a more glamorous maternity ensemble? Until I really looked and saw the next photos in the set were in a hospital with a newborn, I didn't even notice she was expecting! The blue hat atop the bouffant, the sling back heels, and the purse of my  dreams are all killing it. And how about the two little girls coordinating and matching (respectively) ensembles? These dresses look just like something Cindy Brady would wear (high praise in my book).

What a cute little girls' room! See the matching dust ruffles-to-curtains, and the blue duvets? See the oversized stuffed animals flopping over on the little storage piece in the corner? See Sharon's thong sandals, white cigarette pants, and lavender top?

The obligatory "by the mantle" photo of the husband and wife, and then the whole gang, including two pups! I am unendingly jealous that the little pre-teens on the right got to wear black go-go style boots and pleather jumper ensembles. They look like tiny Nancy Siantras! See how the dad, Bob, has suits in both forest green and a golden rod tan color, and looks slick as can be in either of them. And the carpet! And the carpet. I have determined from close study that this is the exact carpet in my grandmother's house, except hers was an avocado green color. Did your grandparents have nutty carpeting like this in their house? I love the statement it makes, especially compared to boring, boring off white and taupe in 100% of new construction houses these days.

Speaking of new construction houses:

While none of these photos were captioned, they look like pages from the 2013 "Houses Lisa Would Like to Live in" catalog (buy now!). And the landscaping!! Those yucca looking plants near the door! The ivy along the perimeter of the yard and that perfectly manicured plot of grass in front! Here's the same place in a "before" shot....see what a difference carefully landscaping can make? It's cute even without all the foilage, but whoo wee, how lush it looks with it!

I think this may have been the duplex they lived in prior to the new house above? Or maybe it's somebody else's house, I have no idea. I do know that I am hopelessly in love with this confection of a pink-stucco building. See the pretty tilt of the roof that does a kind of mansard-like thing at the front? CUTE. AS. A. BUTTON.

At any rate, there's your full color photos this Friday! Which snap is your favorite? Did you and your siblings have any matching or coordinated outfits in your youth? Did you live in a particularly "of the era" house or did your parents roll with the changes pretty well as one decorating school of thought gave way to another over the decades? Which one of these outfits or homes would you like for your very own? Do tell.

That's all for today, kiddos! I will see you back here on Monday with my crazy, crazy Craigslist find (anticipation level: high, haha). :) Til then!

Movie Stars for Woodbury Face Powder, Reynaldo Luz (1941)

People, I got the MOST. AMAZING. THING. from Craigslist yesterday. Unfortunately, I have not had time to perfectly photo document it in a way befitting to such a stellar score. But be forewarned! Monday is going to be a lulu of a weekend finds post! :) Today I have a couple of suitable-for-framing scans of famous 1940's leading ladies in a cosmetic layout, as portrayed by a famous South American artist. From the pages of Life magazine, great art, movie-related, and high fashion...what is there not to like?!

Reynaldo Luz was a Peruvian fashion illustrator who worked for Harper's Bazaar from 1923-1950, and also did freelance work for Vogue, Vanity Fair, and assorted commercial campaigns, like this one for Woodbury's 1941 Face Powder line. I! Love! Each of these! Let's start out with my favorite of the bunch:

Merle Oberon:

One of thirties' cinemas most exciting faces, exotic Merle Oberon actually had a far more interesting real-life backstory than any of the on-screen dramas in which she appeared. Born illegitimate and half-caste in Bombay, India as "Queenie" O'Brien, Oberon hid her mixed heritage and nationality in publicity releases, alternately claiming New Zealand or Tasmania as her former home, as she ascended to movie stardom. Oberon appeared with Charles Laughton in The Private Lives of Henry XVIII as Anne Boleyn, in (oh my God, one of my all-time favorite thirties' movies, period) Wuthering Heights as Cathy, with a devastatingly handsome Laurence Olivier, and as gender-bending authoress George Sand in A Song to Remember with Cornel Wilde. Her marriage to powerful British director/producer Alexander Korda established her place in Hollywood society and she spent most of her life as one of the best dressed and most elegant hostesses on the California coast. I love the way Luz has highlighted and even exaggerated a little her porcelain doll good looks and those startling hazel eyes. Ugh! I want to hang this in my house somewhere! The yellow of her dress contrasted with the dun-colored background and the red of her lipstick...it's just gorgeous.

Myrna Loy:

It's funny that I like Loy's ensemble the best, but the likeness is actually the least comparable to the subject of all of these glamour portraits. I've mentioned before that Myrna Loy's appearance in the series of Thin Man movies cemented her as one of the top female  box office draws of the thirties' and forties'. She was crowned "Queen of Hollywood", with Clark Gable sharing the regency with her as King of Hollywood, in 1936...you can see this adorable video for the coronation. I love her wry, piping little voice almost as much as her perfectly symmetrical, cat-like face, but there's something about the bone structure here that isn't soft enough for her features. The auburn curls are pretty, though! Loy is an "All-American Beauty Blend"-- a lovely blend of blonde and brunette strains". Aha! I have found my Woodbury Face Powder color! Though they don't make it anymore, you can see some of the gorgeous vintage compacts it used to come in here.

Virginia Bruce:

Virginia Bruce was married to my silent movie star super crush, John Gilbert, towards the end of his life, and appeared with him in the movie Downstairs. Look at how Art Deco the lines of this portrait are and how elegant the color blocking of the dress to the bodice are. Also, those golden curls looks just like buttercream. ..the texture of them in the portrait!

Dolores del Rio:

I used to have a photocopy of a picture of Dolores del Rio hanging on the front of my locker in high school, from Jeanne Basinger's book Silent Stars, I think. What a beauty! Again, Luza has chosen to highlight those high cheekbones instead of putting her full face with those arresting, pitch dark eyes, but such is life. I like the warm hues of her pink dress and green beaded bracelet. Though she came to Hollywood in the twenties' and was married to MGM art director Cedric Gibbons for the whole of the thirties', by 1941, she was divorced and dating the younger, wunderkind Orson Welles in his prime (here they are at an opening for Citizen Kane..looking surprised!). He said the nicest things about her in his memoir, Welles on Welles, which was comprised of a series of conversations the auteur had with director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich, about her...oh, I wish I could remember what the brand was...but her custom made step-ins and lingerie, and the traditional Mayan jewelry she would wear with her evening dresses. How nice to be remembered in such glowing terms!

Brenda Joyce:

Brenda Joyce represents a rare gap in my Hollywood film knowledge of that time period. I learned that she was in four Tarzan movies opposite Johnny Weissmuller, and appeared in 1939's  The Rains Came with fellow Woodbury beauty, Myrna Loy. Something about her wistful gaze in this portrait reminds me of some fifties' lady writer, but I can't remember who.

Here are all but one of the stars in color photography. Isn't Merle Oberon just the most striking thing?

If you're interested in this style of painting, Luza's earlier, more Deco illustrations are even better. Could these be more beautiful?

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See more of Luza's work here, here, and here.

Which one of the Woodbury acting beauties does your complexion most resenble? Which do you think is the fairest of them all? Have you seen any movies with these actresses in them lately? Been hog wild over any thirties' film personalities or artists? Let's talk!

That's all for today. See you guys back here tomorrow for Photo Friday!

Vintage Sewing Pattern Illustrations (circa 1965-1969)

Good morning!

I'm telling you, I am here to sing the praises of the new Donelson Goodwill. Opened a couple months ago, in a lucky stroke of convenience, just across the street from Southern Thrift on Lebanon Pike, I have been having the best luck out there on everything from dresses to cookie jars, and last weekend was no exception. In the craft slash miscellaneous area of the home goods section, I found these four patterns from the mid to late sixties'. You may think this is something you see a lot at Goodwills-- and you'd be right, if you're looking to make something Blair from The Facts of Life or Murphy Brown would wear. Sixties' stuff is becoming rare as hen's teeth at some of the local Goodwills, which is making me feel old. In high school, you couldn't go through one rack without finding something or other in an op art polyester. Golden years.

At any rate, I was happy to find these patterns and went ahead and scanned them in not only to show you some of the cuckoo, GORGEOUS patterns and silhouettes of these outfits, but also the top notch styling that goes into selling the precious bits of tissue templates inside. Let's look!

I actually think I could get into the finished product of this pattern, which offers two rompers and two bathing-suit cover-ups. Again, by virtue of my hard won experience as well as marathon viewings of Runway, the importance of careful styling is not lost on me. Let's look at how these fashion illustrations stack up in the accessories department:

I want to wrap a head wrap like the girl on the left! I am all about bows and scarves tied haphazardly around my head, as you might have noticed from recent outfit postings. The long-hair swept back in a wide-tied scarf on the brunette, with a tiny bump of teasing to the back, is another scarf option, as is bow-for a ponytail of the Gloria Steinem-glasses gal. The only thing I was like "Whaaaa....?" about is that shaggy mop of mossy curls on the girl to the right, but again, maybe in the context of 1968 or 1970, this would make better sense to me.

Oh WHEE, people. OH WHEE. This is one of my favorite patterns out of the bunch...in spite of its 32 inch bust, would you get a LOOK at the GORGEOUS women in the illustrations on the cover of this pattern? Cocktail dress in four styles. Exhibit A:

The blonde on the left has the best hair, makeup, and earring combo of  the whole lot. I love wearing doorknocker sixties' earrings like this, and the very best impact for them is with something simple, simple simple in terms of the rest of the dress. I know that seems like common sense, but the number of models in sixties'-inspired modern day editorials looking like Mrs. Howell from Gilligan's Island on a bad day...well, there are more of them than I liked to think about.  If you click on the close up, you can see she also has a bracelet to match the earrings. VINTAGE. COSTUME JEWELRY. SETS. Now you're speaking my language. I can't tell you how elegant I think a matching brooch and earring combo, or necklace and clips, or bracelet and necklace, looks to me. Because I am 85 years old at heart. Side note: did you notice the pattern buyer back-in-the-day has pencilled in some illusion panels on the dress so the top is not quite so bare?

I love the woman on the right's  huge brooch, and the little gemstone clip at crown of her perfect stewardess hair.

Did I speak too soon? PEOPLE. Where can I buy wigs in my own natural hair color that will give me this insane sixties' magazine layout hair like this? Just like something out of Vogue at the time. I wonder how hard it was to keep the false pieces on your head, or if you would just do some kind of overall wig to get the tonsorial tendrils just right. Either way, I want to find out! On the right, the kind of British girl singer or secretary on the go hair I leave to annals of time. The earring are cute, though.

These baby doll style dresses are the BEES. KNEES. Check out the Cleopatra like details on the one to the far right, and how I love all the patterns going on in the other three. I think the original owner went with the second from the right style, owing to the little check mark above the model's shoulder. But the Cleopatra dress! What about the Cleopatra dress!

Here, the hair and makeup is much less impressive than in the last spread, but then the dresses are more colorful. Do you see how the aforementioned style D has the illustrated model barefoot and with the best hair out of the bunch? I wonder if the slouchy waist of the illustration is just part of the illustration or if it would be more flattering in the real life, finished version.

Last but not least, a little Mad Men formal wear. CUUUUTE. I want to run across one of these lovely things in textile rather than paper form at that Donelson Goodwill!

I know the girl's hair on the left is a little crazy à la Dr. Seuss, but that BOW? That bow, people? It's cute and I don't even care who knows it! Plus the necklace, plus the neckline. The more sedate style on the right is punched up with some large drop-style earrings, and that's something I can unapologetically get behind. Do you see they match the brooch? You see it. You know it's the business. Woman on the right, you win this round.

Well, there's the goods. Which hairstyle or accessory or dress do you want to take home for your own? Have you found any crazy patterns or pattern envelopes in your thrift store shopping trips lately? Which coiffure do I need to adopt as my next do it yourself project?

That's all for today! See you kids tomorrow.

Vintage School Collectibles

Good morning!

Kimmie from That Girl in the Wheelchair posed an interesting question to some fellow vintage bloggers and me in an email the other day:

Hey ladies-

I have a question. My sister teaches in a school that is really old and they have a lot of old desks, filing cabinets, globes etc (from the mid century likely). In the summer, they are demo'ing the school...and they are basically throwing a lot of it away. Because you all are salvage queens. I told her I would put my feelers out and find out what would be worth salvaging. If she finds anything good..she is gonna put her name on it. 

Oh my GOODNESS, oh my GOD. What an opportunity. And do I have a million opinions on this? I do. I got so excited I up and did a whole post on it. Folks, let's talk vintage school.

Vintage Flashcards Multiplication Tables Aged Paper Black Print Assemblage Supplies 1960s Lot of 10

My dad being a career teacher and lifelong picker, I grew up with tons of cast off school and industrial-style appointments in our house. In the early nineties', he had the opportunity to do a similar clean-out to Kimmie's sister's situation with another teacher at Isaac Litton High School, before it was demolished, instructed by his principal to "go out there and grab anything you think you could use". I don't think that principal, at the time, realized the streak of vintage hoarding that runs through my dad's side of the family (and right onto into the present generation, in the form of me!).

School Chart - Elementary School Poster - Mid Century - English - Industrial - Ideal School Supply Co. 

My imagination lights up like a pinball machine every time he tells the story of filing cabinets full of old service awards, typewriters in the typing class neatly put away with their dustcovers, library tables and clocks and roll down maps and manipulatives all here, there, and everywhere, waiting for a first day of school that was not coming. He said the spookiest part of picking the boarded-up building was a) opening a closet to find a full-sized model skeleton (which went to a science classroom at his then-home school, Highland Heights), and b) coming across a blackboard in one classroom upon which someone had neatly written the message, in chalk, "Time is not refundable". Whoooo! Spooky, right?

VINTAGE 1960s Women's Volleyball Trophy / Gold Metal on Wood Base / Athletic Achievement

They found sliderules and compasses and correction ribbon and the metal box the newspaper treasury was kept in (still in the black with $5.25, all in quarters). They found posters to teach fifties' teens about the importance of personal hygiene  flashcards in French, a couple dozen grosses of pencils still in their boxes. Carbon paper, and bunsen burners, and desks with storage under their fold up table tops. A framed letter from the then-governor of Tennessee commending a recent fifties' graduate's brave death in the service of his country had probably hung in the school's front hall at one point, but was placed in a storage cabinet with other awards to make room for a trophy display case. It was so insane that all these things were just being left. A closed down school is the very definition of a collectibles salvage situation-- go in, and save what you can!

Replogle 10 inch globe

Having melanine trays in the kitchen cupboards and those Heywood Wakefield school chairs in not only my run-down, inner city elementary school, but also in my childhood home, led me to have both a fondness and a certain immunity to vintage school collectibles as I became of an age where fellow pickers would be buying items along those lines. I remember the first time I saw a roll down map in a vintage-resale setting and casually looked at the price tag. What, five bucks? Twenty on the outside? Try $125. For a roll down map. Of which my dad had probably twenty in his classroom storage room and another five at the house. My jaw could have scraped the floor. Really? Was this stuff actually worth something? I mean, it was neat, duh, but I thought we were the only weirdos in the state with vintage classroom materials in a domestic setting. You mean it's fashionable?

Retro Rand McNally Asia Africa Middle East Pull Down Map 62" L x 54" W

Suddenly these type of chairs, which I swear were out on the concrete patch near the playground in my elementary school for the two PE teachers and the custodian to sit in, 365 days a year, until the color faded to a weird, pinkish bruise of a non-color, were at collectible stores with similar price tags to their actually-from-a-store counterparts. Granted, these in the picture come in an early seventies', Stevie-Wonder-album-cover color palette, but still!

Vintage Molded Plastic Chairs, Mid Century Modern Stacking School Chairs, Set of 4

Cognizant of these prices, I pulled together another number of things I thought Kimmie's sister might be smart to lay hands on. From my email:

Oooooh. What a neat opportunity! I'd say any kind of mid century atomic looking things would be winners. Card catalogs, old manipulatives or classroom decorations (times table, addition charts, etc for classroom use that are pre-1980's), steelcase desks, chairs... anything that looks like it came from the office set of Dragnet is just catnip for 21st century collectors. 

Vintage Pennant ROSLYN High SCHOOL Long Island NY big Bulldog logo antique felt

Check common storage rooms for old year books, textbooks, overhead projectors, radios, record players, and trophies (you would be surprised how many "50 year service awards" for teachers from like 1970 are collecting dust in the back of large metal cabinets because they needed wall space for sports awards). Typewriters!

Large Industrial Retro School Clock by Simplex

Mostly look for things that look neat, are obviously old, and don't weight 5,000 lbs (as much as I like steelcase desks, on second thought, they may prove to be the white elephant of fifties' furniture). It occurred to me, as I was typing this email, that honest to God, steelcase desks are like the very last thing to go at an estate sale. Right up there with ugly 90's console tv's, but not for lack of style. I think lots of people are into the desk, but the impracticality of moving this 1,000,000 pound furniture item that takes up a city block of interior decorating real estate is a real deciding factor for some people. As much as I love BIG pieces, they're not nearly as easy to sling around the house if the feeling moves you to change things up a bit.

Vintage Lockers Metal Industrial School Locker Storage Cabinet

Vintage School Locker Basket Gym Number Plate Wire Baskets

I feel like there are so many things that would be neat to have, it's almost hard to narrow it down! Yearbooks and school pictures are another thing I thought about. These wire gym baskets (above) are freaking awesome looking...we used to have them in the utility room of our old house (my current house) with extra power strips and extension cords and the like in them. Wouldn't they be pretty in a pantry with a bunch of bags of rice and beans in them?

Vintage school Photo of Massie School 1938

And science ANYTHING, right? If I had my way, there would be one room of my house set up like a 1930's laboratory. Why, because I have a secret interest in chemistry? No, ya dope, because it would LOOK. SO. COOL. I have just now learned that the zappy thing from James Whale's Frankenstein is called a "jacob's ladder", and that just googling "vintage laboratory equipment" is a treat. Kimmie's sister, find these things! Find 'em!

Vintage School Science pH Kit by La Motte

Last but not least, I had this exact classroom record player in high school, and it's still in the attic at my house (needle's busted, and it's such a weird one I don't think I can get another, but I can't get rid of it!). Best part about it is the "MARTHA VAUGHT MIDDLE SCHOOL" written in sharpie on two sides. Best part about it used to be the thundering sound you could get out of the box, and the fact that the speakers were built in. Le sigh. Maybe I'll get it back up and running some day!

Vintage Audiotronics 312T Transistor Classroom Record Player & Case

Ok, now it's your turn. If you got the same email above, what would you suggest for the vintage picker in picker's classroom paradise to try and nab before Rome burns? Any additional items that I missed? Do you have any cool vintage school items in your home? Let's talk!

That's all for today. I'm off to re-evaluate my home for a possible Frankenstein lab redecoration. Obviously. See you guys tomorrow!