Photo Friday: Dancing (Bird) Girls Edition

Good morning!

FRIDAY. IT'S HERE. IT'S NOW. I am glad to see the weekend within reach!

Today for Photo Friday, I have been admiring a few photosets featuring these little girls, a group of New Orleans sisters in the 1920's who also had a flair for dramatic dance (and dramatic dance costumes!). My, aren't they cute, though!!

Folks, here are the Ames sisters, circa year of our Lord 1925:

From oldest to youngest (as identified in this photo), the girls are Barbara, Mary Eloise, Marjorie, Alice and Dorothy. Marjorie, the little dutch bobbed girl in the center, reminds me of a prettier Barbara Hutton with her blond hair and dark eyebrows...she would grow up to be the mother of guy running this altogether too fun photo set. According to this caption, the Ames' mother signed the older three girls up for acrobatic dance lessons when they were bored with nothing to do one summer, and soon the two younger siblings joined the act, which they continued throughout high school, even opening their own dance studio. I love how dramatic and darling these little costumes are, and the idea that in the twenties', you could just join a dance studio without any of the dark, hypersexualized pageant overtones of today's over-glitzed, over-glamorized youth dance competitions (dude, Dance Moms. I'm just sayin). Look how precious and ethereal the girls look in black and white, in the midst of their poised posings.

While this dress is the hands down the one I'd most want to wear (hello, proto-Stevie) :

The bird costume, which two of the girls actually wore, IS KILLING ME FOR HOW CUTE IT IS. Look at the faux-avians in motion:

And this one:

Did you notice the headpiece is a beak and eyes? And how the crepe feathers actually remind one of a pterodactyl? The little girls' mother made their dance costumes, and I think she knocked it out of the park on this one. I can't even imagine how excited I would have been about this as a little girl. What colors do you think it was?

I have to get crackin' on estate sales, but you can read more about the girls and their eventual brushes with big time show business, including sharing performance bills with a lot of well known vaudeville names, in the caption to this professional photo from the forties'. There are A TON more photos where this came from (including this and this group shot, which is precious, and this photo of three of them, which is weird!), along with other snaps of non-musical (but just as interesting) members of the family.

So! Got any plans this weekend? Which of these little dance snaps are your favorite? Found any crazy old series of photos lately? Let's talk!

That's all for this week, but I will catch you right back here on Monday. Have a fabulous WEEKEND, YES, PRAISES, and I'll see on the other side! Til then.

Charles Frederick Worth Dresses at the Met (1870's-1900's)

Good morning!

DO NOT. WISH TO BE. AT WORK. TODAY. I rallied my spirits this morning hoping that feeling better about feeling better would make me actually feel better...uh, wrong. I'm bespectacled, feeling lousy, and down in the mouth about it, let me tell you guys. What will cheer me? Hopefully, lunch at the food truck with fellow downtown worker Kelsey and looking at so-good-they're-literally-in-a-museum late 19th century couture. CAN THIS BE THE CURE. I sure hope so!

Folks, the evening and day dresses of Charles Frederick Worth.

One of my favorite idle moment things to search, third after Etsy/Ebay and Google Books, are online museum holdings. There was a time when you would have to probably look up an obscure exhibit catalog to see exactly what the Metropolitan Museum of Art had up its sleeves in terms of its textiles collection, but not any more! It's 2014, and when I looked up the name of this extremely influential early dress designer, 78 full color listings populated the search results. I was interested in seeing more of the designer's work after reading about him in the in-DEE-spensible fashion reference text Couture: The Great Designers, by Caroline Rennolds Milbank. After coming across this in NPL's holdings, you'd better believe I've spent a lunch hour or ten pawing through the full color photos and biographies of some of the most influential modistes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

What's neat about the digital archive? Any dress includes several views on a mannequin as well as on living person-- how great a gig would that be, by the way, to get to model incredibly rare, museum-piece dresses for the institution itself? You can also click on any dress to download a high resolution, large format image of the garment. The dress above is an "afternoon dress" from around 1875, and while the smaller photo does give you an idea of the pleating, the fringe, the unusual neckline, the beautiful colors...look how much better this effect comes off in the inset I took from an enlarged photo:

The bodice, man! That is where it is AT. Look how the mottled gold-and-navy-blue print almost mimics bird feathers in a visual texture I would like to wear RIGHT. NOW. See how the buttons fade into the pattern and how structured the top is. Isn't it an absolute pleasure to see these textiles in color? I know I say it all the time, but take a moment to ponder all the nineteenth century daguerrotypes you may have seen or cabinet cards or even fashion illustrations in black and white magazines...and then imagine them in these bird of paradise colors. Unreal, right?

Charles Frederick Worth is notable in fashion history for being the first dress designer to really define the idea of a "fashion house" where the clothes were trendsetting rather than trend-following, and the designers artists rather than simple tradespeople. After two decades as an apprentice and later salesman in the textile industry, Worth joined with a wealthy business partner in 1858 to open his own outfit, Worth et Bobergh, in his adopted home of Paris, France. With the success of his designs on Princess de Metternich, a fashion-conscious member of Princess Eugenie of Austria's court, he was launched as a major voice in dress making in France. His wife, Marie Worth, a former model at one of the shops Worth worked for in the 1840's, served as both a muse to her husband as well as his best advertisement. "In time," the Couture book mentions in its entry on Worth, "Marie Worth's wearing of a new style in public was enough to ensure its acceptance." Remind me in the next life to come back as a dressmaker's inspiration-- imagine the c-l-o-t-h-e-s this man must have made for her!

While the appliques on the skirt in the dress were the first thing that caught my eye, look at the gorgeous detail in the bodice...you got your lace...you got your brocade...you got your silk, your velvet...and that little embellished belt! The Met site mentions that fashion of this period was influenced by 1700's dress in the lace collars and cuffs. I love that even then fashion ouroboros'd itself, with cyclical revivals of past trends.

Another example of those 18th century sensibilities returning to 19th century clothing, look at this day dress, and all the beautiful little lace ruffles down the front, at the collar, at the sleeve. There's so much personality to this dress without even a girl to show it off, just on the mannequin's form...think of what this would look like on a living, breathing belle époque girl!

Speaking of, if you've seen it, don't these dresses remind  you of the costuming in possibly the most sumptuous period piece movie of all time, Scorcese's cinematic take on Edith Wharton's masterpiece, The Age of Innocence (1993)? I must be some kind of classic lit masochist, because I love to read Edith Wharton and Thomas Hardy in spite of how deeply, hyperventilatingly upset I get about their tragic plot trajectories. In the movie form, at least I can drown some of my dashed romantic hopes for the characters in all the beautiful, beautiful clothes from that last gasp of extremely formal daily wear. Look at this dress the near perfect Michelle Pfeiffer wears as the Countess Olenska in the movie. Set in the 1870's, this 1877 gown would have fit in perfectly with the other pieces!

Last but not least, this knock-yer-eye-out show stopping cape. Almost 150 years old, and look at the colors!

The Met caption on this dramatic cape is interesting, as I hadn't even considered how difficult it would be to manufacture the textile itself. Check it out:

Worth was constantly interested in supporting the textile industry as evidenced in this cape, which is designed to showcase its textile to the extreme. The textile itself has a repeat which is over three feet long making it stunning but also making it extremely difficult to weave. The dramatic fabric, "Tulipes Hollandaises," was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris and won a grand prize. The tulips have an aggressive dynamic quality about them with the brilliant, vibrant colors against the deep black background consistent with the seductive femme fatale sensibility of the 1880s and 1890s.

The more you know! You can read more about Worth and his famous fashion house here on the Met website.

So! Had any fashion labels turn your head lately? How do these antique clothes hit you-- dreamy and romantic or impractical and uncomfortable? What's your favorite movie for costumes and day dreaming? Let's talk!

That's all for today but I'll see you back here tomorrow for Photo Friday. Be good! Til then.

"A Good Man is Hard To Find" Lizzie Miles (Blue Jasmine Soundtrack)

Good morning!

I woke up this morning at six with the devil's own sinus problems--as much as I love this chocolate box varietal of weather (not), it's been playing havoc with my poor little bird-like beak! I called out of work, slept late, and now am shuffling around the house in my pajamas and a housecoat, like a mildly more glamorous version of that old woman on the Kleenex boxes and greeting cards...Maxine? At any rate, I needed some cheering up, and would you know, it came in the form of something I could even blog about! Pass me the Dayquil and let's talk shop.

Folks, meet Lizzie Miles.

I want to wear these clothes. And sing these songs.

I watched Blue Jasmine a couple weeks ago, and have to say I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I thought I would. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Woody Allen fan, rank him in my top five directors of all time, and have sat in tears in the middle of more than one of his pictures, even the tenth time I've seen it-- but this one was just not it. It was well-made, well acted...but it felt so F-L-A-T. Where's the sparkling dialogue and deep human drama? While the ending monologue is delivered beautifully, disturbingly by Cate Blanchett, I really couldn't understand what was going on with the movie besides a strange homage to Streetcar Named Desire. Couldn't feel either the necessary pity or scorn for Blanchett's duBois-esque character to be committed to the movie. Luckily, he's averaged about a movie a year for the last thirty, so hopefully the former Allan Konigsberg will dream up something I love next year. The best parts of the film, in my opinion, were Cate Blanchett's Chanel jacket (a kind of two thousand dollar armor, holding in what was left of what she thought she was) and the choice of Lizzie Mile's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" for the ending credits.

                              

There's more spirit in this three minute recording than in the whole. rest. of. the movie. Call me a philistine, I felt like jumping off the couch and cheering about halfway through the track, more energized than any of the exchanges between sister and sister left me. Breathless, flirty, emphatic French punctuates the chorus, and the chanteuse does vocal runs as expressive as anything the red hot New Orleans jazz band is doing in the background. My favorite kind of music, truth told, is the torch song genre. Where people sound like they might actually die of whatever lasting heartache is compelling them to take the stage to let it all pour out. And doesn't the ragged melodious timbre of Lizzie Miles's singing just fit. the. BILL. in that regard. As vieux carré as red beans and rice, she's a singer from the old tradition of New Orleans jazz women. Naturally, I took to the internet to find out more about the woman whose voice I immediately fell in love with.

Seriously, where do I get these clothes?

Lizzie Miles was born Elizabeth Landreaux in 1895. Her parents were long-time New Orleanians who spoke French and Creole, and as a child, Lizzie lived down the street from a classmate who would become a jazz legend himself, saxman Sidney Bechet (another Woody Allen favorite). Miles began singing professionally around twelve, counting Sophie Tucker among her influences. She took to the road three years later, working in a minstrel act in a circus alongside her first husband, band leader J.C. Miles. A reviewer wrote at the time of one show, "Yelling can be constantly heard [in the crowd], 'Give us more of your Memphis blues!' Mrs. J.C. Miles is the only one of her sex in the company. She sings her favorite song, 'Goodbye, My Own Dear Heart' and sells copies like hotcakes."Miles's husband died of influenza, which almost carried off Lizzie herself, in 1918; she recuperated and regrouped at home in Louisiana before moving to New York in 1921 to continue with her singing.

Lizzie Miles's post-circus career included engagements singing with King Oliver, with co-leader Kid Ory, and a young Louis Armstrong and future wife Lil Hardin in the same band!! As I just actually let my mouth fall open. She toured France for a year in 1922, played with Fats Waller when she returned stateside, and hooked up with stride-piano legend Willie "The Lion" Smith. A just-starting-out Duke Ellington played lunchtime sets before the Smith band, and Lizzie says in this rememberance taken from her correspondence with a jazz historian, "I sure didn't like Duke Ellington's playing...he couldn't send me like Willie [Smith] or Reynolds [who played piano in Charlie Taylor's Southernaires, her favorite backing band]." Bust my buttons! Who doesn't like Duke Ellington?! Lizzie Miles, apparently! I love the idea of being a contemporary, working artist among some of these legends, and being able to have a professional opinion about people I would just take for granted as being as iconic as they come. To each their own, I guess!

Lizzie retired briefly from singing in the thirties' due to an illness-- she returned to recording in 1939, but the waning popularity of hot New Orleans jazz at the end of the decade translated into not many sales for the performer. In the early fifties', however, the genre enjoyed a renaissance and Lizzie herself worked steadily until 1959, clocking her last major performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Thereafter she sang gospel and devoted herself to a devoutly religious existence until her death in 1963, at the age of sixty-eight. I've pieced most of this biographical information from book excerpts on Google Books... you can explore some of the sources yourself via this link.

AGAIN WITH THE CLOTHES. Look how "real gone" she looks in the midst of the song

Back to the singing, though.

I've listened to a couple other recordings of hers now, and they all carry a signature style that makes me just want to listen to more. The hurriedness with which she runs through some of the lyrics, as if someone was about to rush her off the stage, as if she just couldn't wait to get to the end of a phrase, has the immediacy of a really beautiful jazz instrumental riff, and it just gets me EVERY. TIME. Her interpretation of some of the melodies of these songs are just as standalone as a really beautiful trumpet solo...so full of life! This is the same kind of twenties' music blues great Bessie Smith sang (who sang the definitive, but quite different, version of " A Good Man is Hard To Find") but the coquette-ish, big mama-ness of Lizzie's voice is something in its own category. She really knows how to "vamp" a chorus the same as a piano man would add his own little touches and trills to a melody. I. LOVE THIS. With the different attitude the early twenty first century has towards live music (musicians don't seem to "gig" or play residencies, house band engagements, etc as they did in the twentieth-century, when people went to supper clubs and night clubs to dance and listen to music), I think it would be hard to come up with someone who sings from experience like this. She's an amazing singer because she has been literally doing it, every single night, sink or swim in front of the public, for decades. Today, who besides your major established pop acts, who play hundreds of tour dates yearly, can say that they've had that kind of "chops" building experience? 

Owing to this modern age we live in, I don't have to depend on a first rate, scholarly music library to have access to exploring more about Lizzie Miles-- Spotify has us covered with a ton of her recordings just waiting to be streamed by me, you, and whoever else should take an interest in this "matron saint", as one article had it, of New Orleans jazz singing. I can't get the embed link to work, but just look her up, it should appear in your Spotify app like this (minus the bikini side bar ads and the club music they keep advertising in between my songs...people! I am not interested! You are barking up the wrong tree!):

I have worn my silly self out talking about Miss Miles; now it's your turn! What do you think of "A Good Man is Hard to Find"? Were you a fan of the Blue Jasmine movie itself? What is it about this kind of old time jazz that appeals to you? Let's talk!

I'm gonna go lay my weary bones down, but I'll be back tomorrow, Lord willing! Have a great Wednesday. Til then.

Max Factor Celebrity Ads (1946-1947)

Good afternoon!

I keep getting later and later with these posts, but to tell you the truth, I think lately I've been only about half awake until the midday! I don't know what's going on with my sleep schedule-- I vaguely  remember listening to this Robert E. Howard horror stories audiobook while mending books this morning, and wolfing down some brown rice and tofu at lunch, but if there were any steps between those activities, I do not remember them. I got to the nonfiction desk about an hour ago and went "Wait...what did I blog about this morning....I DIDN'T BLOG THIS MORNING!" So here I am, penitent, still kind of thinking about the werewolf in the short story or how I should have made more tofu, with a Tuesday afternoon post for you. On Max Factor ads featuring forties' celebrities, no less.

On with the glamour! :)

This lipstick spread featuring Rita Hayworth was, of course, the first thing that caught my eye. Three panels of arguably one of the most beautiful movie stars of the whole decade...plenty of reason to stop dead in my tracks! A major mid century advertising coup, if you ask me. How do you like the different colors of red here? "Clear Red, Blue Red, and Rose Red" are yours to choose from! I think clear red is the closest to my beloved Revlon Fire and Ice...sometimes I like to daydream about a world where your color choices are red, red, or red!

Notice the use of hair colors in the second paragraph (below the bullets): "Are you a blonde...a brunette...a brownette...a redhead?" I THINK I MAY FINALLY HAVE A NAME FOR MY HAIR COLOR. Note the explanation on this blog that in the forties', "the term Brunette was reserved for ladies with only the very darkest shades of brown or black hair. Brownette came after because there wasn't really a special term set aside for the medium-hued category." THANK YOU. See, I have always hated referring to myself as either having either blonde or brown hair, because I have neither Veronica Lake blonde hair or Ava Gardner dark hair...and doesn't it sound like I'm writing some awful YA literature to call my hair "wheat colored"? It really is some color in between blonde and brown...I wish there was a better term than brownette, but I appreciate the fact that someone, at some time noted a missing term for my hair color.

Isn't Hayworth stunning in these photos? I always feel sad, having read biographies about how unhappy a lot of her life was, to see how breathtakingly pretty and A-L-I-V-E, vivacious she seems in her movies. Truly something special. Also, I want that blue headdress/dress in the above photo, please, thank you.

The next starlet I found hawking lipstick I would like to wear was none other than height-of-beauty Judy Garland, circa 1946. Seeing some of her color movie performances of the forties, you wonder how anyone could ever refer to her as "weird looking" or "ugly". I guess if you had to literally appear in a movie opposite Lana Turner or other conventional beauties of the day, it might be difficult for you if your face didn't exactly measure up to the Golden Ratio, but to have a voice like that and those wonderful dark, soulful eyes? Maybe as a 21st century viewer, we're so used to unconventional prettiness or jolie-laide actresses that I can't understand someone (including Garland herself) not thinking of her as a total cutie. Plus, her HAIR in this advertisement. YES, MAMA, YES.

A new kind of "lip make-up," huh? How great is this lipstick case, btw? When I first joined the cult of daily-lipstick-wearers a year or two ago, the aforementioned Revlon Fire and Ice came in an adorable vintage-style silver metal case as part of a "throwback" promotional...now I have to grab it in just the regular black tube. What was interesting about this though-- I bought my first tube or two at Walgreens, figuring, hey, it's a drug store, this is where you get makeup, right? Cost? $8 after tax. "Welllll, I'll wear it for like six months, that seems reasonable." I was in Walmart a few months later in a desperate bid to avoid going to Kroger's (I spend so much time at the grocery store with my diet because it seems like nothing ever keeps), when I realized I needed a new tube. Walmart cost? FIVE DOLLARS. I know, I know, evil corporate conglomerate, blah blah...but seriously, how can Walgreens get away with charging almost forty percent more (thank you, calculatorsoup.com)? I digress. I wonder how much one of these "sensational new lipsticks" cost in 1946?

Speaking of Lana Turner, here she is as a REDHEAD...which, why, Lana? Why would you have any color hair but that butter-yellow Technicolor shade that so showcases your blue eyes? I've never liked her much in her movies, but accede to her fans that she's easily one of the MOST glamorous of late forties'/early fifties' movie stars. The Johnny Stompanado murder stuff really eeks me out, even though you'd THINK the interstices of my interest in true crime and Hollywood would make that a more appealing affair than it is. At any rate, though, why the red hair, girl! Almost unrecognizable from your normal self, here! You might look better even as a brownette! Cass Timbelane was a 1947 MGM release, in which Lana's hair is her usual blonde (assumably, anyway, as it's in black and white) and she romances Spencer Tracy (hmmmm). However! The movie Green Dolphin Street, also released in 1947, does have her with this hair, but in a period piece set in 19th century England. Talk about a change of pace (and hair) from her iconic 1946 role in The Postman Always Rings Twice.  At any rate, to paraphrase Frank O'Hara, "Oh Lana we love you [go back to blonde already]"

And last but not least, a pre-I Love Lucy Lucille Ball, when she was still queen of the B movies, advertising "a sensational, new, and utterly different lipstick that offers a flattering new fashion in lip make up for you." You don't say! I love the mustard colored coat with the green striped blouse, her RED red hair...but couldn't they have done the background in any other shade to better show off the coloring that earned LB the nickname "Technicolor Tessie"? PS do you love or do you LOVE the eyeless, lipsticked heads in this and the Lana Turner ad?

I have to get back to work, but enough about me! Which actress do you like the best? Have you ever tried Max Factor makeup? Where do you stand on vintage reproduction makeup-- what colors have you had success with in recreating a vintage look? Are you a blonde, a brunette, a brownette, or a red head? Do you look better in lip colors with more orange, true-red, or pink to them? Let's talk!

Have a great Tuesday evening, be good, and I'll see you tomorrow (hopefully a little earlier!). Take care! Til then.

Weekend Finds: This, That, T'other

Good morning!

Happy Paddy's day, kids! And here it is again-- top of the workaday week. How was your weekend? Me, I'm ambling into Monday jonesing for more coffee and trying to hold my eyelids open. However, as Monday is preceded by the weekend, and my weekend is all about estate sales, you know what that means! It's time for me to unveil some of my finds from the Saturday-that-was.

Wanna take a look?

THIS is easily my favorite thing:

Why, hello Shawnee pig cookie jar. This guy came from an estate sale just off of Hillsboro Pike in Green Hills. There was a beautifully hand lettered sign on the corner directing us to an enormous, new construction,  kind of chateau-ish house, where three men with interests in interior design were hosting a joint collector's sale. Items there included rich toile drapery, pretty pieces of glassware, and a pair of tickets to see Cher here in town at the end of the month. The latter was advertised on an also beautifully hand written sign, behind a little boombox pumping out Cher tunes, which read "Paid $1,000 Make Offer". I only wish I could! I ONLY WISH I COULD (sidenote: I might have to spend $75 on a pair of nosebleed tickets...just being honest). On a table next to some pottery I almost dropped on the gd floor ("This place is booby trapped," I said to my dad as my heart pounded in my chest, having caught the bauble at the last moment), were two Shawnee pigs, this one and another with a little bit of pink and blue paint left on him. I liked the paintless-but-for-eyelashes one best, and asked one of the sales people if they could do better than the asking price of $30 on the tag, which they could. Twenty bucks for one of these things! I see these pigs all the time at antique stores and the flea market, but I haven't seen one in the wild for under $60, so this was an extreme coup. And can you get over the flirty little expression on his face? Matthew misheard me refer to him by brand and inadvertantly made up the perfect moniker for this little guy, "Johnny Pig". I'm looking forward to displaying him in a place of pride in my kitchen!

These are photos from the estate sale listing-- look! There's Johnny Pig right there! I wish a) any of that Pyrex had been there on Saturday morning and b) the sconces on the left weren't $150.

The next sale had us back over on our side of town, to a tiny little house near Tom Joy Elementary. We hopped out of the car, parking on the street next to a ditch that was full of Krystal's boxes ("That's my kind of litter," my dad said as we stepped past it) and were greeted in the driveway by the welcome sight of a fifties' Westinghouse washer machine. A little rusty (almost identical to these two), but so cool looking and with the original paperwork from when the homeowner had bought it back in the day! Inside, the house was kind of spooky, but that's never much shaken us from the trail of good junk, and I was able to get this from one of the back bedrooms, which was full of children's toys from the fifties' through the seventies':

I resisted a framed photo of the ocean with the lyrics to "How Deep is Your Love" printed on the glass (not making this up) and found the above picture missing some of its plastic windows and propped up against a closet door. The round pieces are different NASA missions with the artwork from that space expedition's insignia...starting with the first manned craft in the late fifties' and ending with 1973 (the year the frame was manufactured). I love the faux wood grain, the raised print of the mission's date, and the center relief of the Earth...from spaaaaaace. Here's a closeup (though I didn't take a very good picture this morning):

This fifties' fiberglass lampshade was only $10, so I caved and bought it. Next time I see one of those great atomic-age bases without the shade...I'm gonna scoop it up and have a fabulous new lamp!

This "Bridge Set" of tablecloth and napkins was also at the sale for a dollar...and how can you resist! I found a little information on Indian Head cloth via this link, and the lack-of-zipcode definitely dates it to pre-1960. I just like the fact that it's a moss green with those dreamy little hand painted flowers and stars.

At a final estate sale in Hendersonville, I picked up a pair of lamps for my friend Kelsey, who was in the market for some. $15 for the pair! They're heavy as heck and have a maker's mark on the back that sets the copyright as 1958. Kelsey is happy to have some good looking lamps, and I am happy to be able to buy lamps even when there's a surplus of them in my own home. Here's a photo of one with a closeup...I like that the base kind of looks asymmetrical as the lamp extends from the cherub's head, not the center of the figure. 

                                  

And in case you thought you could get through a Weekend Finds post without a photo of yours truly, here's a snap Matthew took at lunch out at Nuvo Burrito the other day (MY. FAVORITE. RESTAURANT. I could eat the Berkley burrito they have there every day, forever). The dress I'm wearing is probably a seventies' hostess gown, but I think with a belt, a cardigan, tights, and boots it's appropriate enough to wear to work (or at least I took the liberty of making that decision for the fashion world). I should have saved it for today; look at all that green in the print!

                  

Speaking of Matthew, I left my phone on the kitchen table this weekend and when I picked it back up some hours later, someone....SOMEONE had set this photo to both the lock screen and the background:

                            

Isn't he cute? I love how his brow actually knits together when concerned.

So anyway! That's what I ended up with this weekend-- not much, but I feel like I've been better about buying "things I actually want/can use" versus "everything vintage they even have at a sale because look what a deal" (I'm trying to improve on that!). How about you? Did you find anything fabulous while out and about? What's the best thing you've picked up for practically a song lately? How much SHOULD one spend on Cher tickets when she's taken the time and effort to grace our fair city with her presence? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll see you back here tomorrow with more vintage tips and quips. Have a great Monday, be good! Til then.

           

Photo Friday: Mesmerizing Edwardian Addie Edition (1900's-1910's)

Good morning!

IT'S FRIDAY PRAISE THE LORD. And didn't I find the best, and I mean, THE BEST flickr set to show you for Photo Friday? This day is looking up from yesterday already. :)

I was on flickriver and looking for family photos (natch, this is what Fridays are all about here at She Was a Bird), when I came across this user's stream and about flipped my wig. People! This is a beautifully curated, exhaustive photo account of the user's family history, stretching back to the 19th century and the frontier of the American southwest. Does he have hundreds, upon hundreds, of high-quality resolution scans of pictures dating as far back as the 1860's? He does! Does he have descriptions of each photo subject, carefully separated into individual sets? He does! I spent almost all afternoon pawing through these galleries and marveling at the exhaustive work that went into photo documenting his ancestors' histories. What a labor of love these uploads must have been.

The best of the best, though? Addie, born in 1886, and her turn of the century and Edwardian portraits. Let's take a look!

The exhaustiveness of the collection alone is something that makes it stand out from other people's online photo archives-- the quality of the photo scans are also noteworthy. But the subjects of the photos themselves are actually the best selling point of this user's photosets, and none so much as his grandmother Addie. From the description on the site:

My grandmother, Addie, was born in Wythe County, Virginia on November 30, 1886. Her family left Wythe County in 1899, and resided in Camden, Arkansas, then Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. During 1905, Her father and 3 of her brothers filed for homestead land a few miles west of Melrose, New Mexico, and the family moved there. On August 4, 1912, Addie married Walter of Clovis, New Mexico. Other than a few years in Wheeler County, Texas and near Ranchvale, New Mexico, they always resided in Clovis, New Mexico.  Walter and Addie had 5 children, J.W., Leslie, Virgil, George, and Marie. Addie died on January 4, 1971 in Clovis.  Her gravesite is located in the West 7th Street cemetery, in Clovis.

Her wide set, dark-eyed, piercing gaze and wonderful clothes get me in every. SINGLE. picture. I have laid off buying vernacular photographs (a fancy way of saying "other people's pictures") in recent years, excepting large portraits. ALL OLD PHOTOGRAPHY IS FASCINATING TO ME, ALL THE TIME-- which became a problem in terms of storage/display space/ room in the dang house for things that aren't photographs. However! I am almost certain that had I come across a collection like this, I would have to bend my rules a little to allow for inclusion of this wonderfully expressive-faced woman.

Here's Addie at 13, in a series of locket-photos:

Addie a few years later, in a checked high collared dress, a picture hat to beat the band, and a wary, pensive look to her that veritably leaps out of the photograph:

As stated in the biographical blurb above, Addie lived in New Mexico at the very end of the 19th century as well as the very beginning of the 20th, and lived into the seventies'. Can you even imagine? From horsedrawn carriages to the Nixon administration. That's completely amazing. From some of the ephemera and news clippings in the same set, we learn that she was a domestic for a time with a family in Melrose and later an office girl for doctor in town before marrying and becoming the mother of five children.

Here she is a little before her marriage, and WILL YOU GET. A LOAD. OF THAT HAT. I know most of you are probably going "well, if I wanted to wear a barrel drum on my head, I guess I would!" but I am no-joke, not all facetiously in love with the woman's pluck and extreme haberdashery. The whole outfit is so elegant and Gibson girl that I wish it was something you could wear in public today without looking like you were AWOL from some dinner theater company of an Oscar Wilde play. Why can't clothes be as elegantyly extreme nowadays?!

In a black lace overlay and possibly Southwest Native American necklace? Do you see the star-burst like pendant at her neck?

In another picture hat and crisp white day outfit...notice how tiny her waist is!

In another hat and a black velvet cape like the one I blogged about a little while ago...do you notice it;s the same necklace and collar and lace piece from the photo before? Think it was the same day with different outfits, à la picture day at school, except in a 1900's photography studio context?

With her sister, AGAIN IN AN ENORMOUS AND BEAUTIFUL PAIR OF HATS!

And here, as a married woman with her young baby and husband. That watchful look gets me every time! Her wedding announcement mentions how she was known for her sunny disposition, which I love in contrast with this severe expression. It reminds me of my great grandmother, who was truly one of the kindest and most loving people who ever walked the face of the earth, yet of whom not a single picture existed where she didn't look a bit like something out of American Gothic...pensive and serious in the extreme. Maybe it was the time? Maybe it was just the way her face settled? I don't know! But I love it.

Last but not least, the photos continue throughout Addie having raised her children and then had grandchilden and then celebrated her golden (!!) wedding anniversary...but I must say, the one I like best from the non-Edwardian years is this photo from the state fair in 1955, which was taken in a photo booth with her young granddaughter. See how she had lost none of her style-- that print dress! The turban! The ever-serious expression!

Do yourself and me a favor by going to check out this truly marvelous photo record. The man deserves such kudos for having brought these photos out from trunks and attics and photo albums and into the wide world, where people like you and me can enjoy them!

I've got to scoot off to lunch at the Indian buffet (yessssssssss), but what do you think? How do you like Addie? Which photo is your favorite? Found any pictures lately with a subject of such an arresting quality that you had to stop and look, and look, and look? What is it about other people's pictures that are so fascinating? Let's talk!

Have a great weekend! Find good stuff, and let's meet back here on Monday for more vintage fun. Take care. I'll see you then!

C.J. Sternberg, Commercial Illustrator (Textron Textiles, 1946-1949)

Good afternoon!

My, do I have a headache today! Do you think my skull and creepies from Tuesday's post have poisoned my juju or I just shouldn't have worn my contacts for so long yesterday? Either way, I'm blinking back a migraine here at the nonfiction desk, ain't it got me beat! I turned to Life magazine for a little midday solace, and from the years 1946-1949, did I or did I not find the prettiest late forties' textile ads to show to you?

Let's keep a good thought that the Advil kicks in, and on with the show:

All the ads in this post are from a company called Textron that manufactured a line of day, lounge, and under wear in the midcentury...from slips to pajamas to blouses to dresses, Textron literally has you covered in the forties' and fifties'. Super interesting fact about this company? When I googled "Textron", I came up with a company that appeared to deal mainly in helicopters and small aircraft. "Aw, the old textile people must have gone out of business and this is some new outfit with the same name." TURNS OUT, same company! While Textron began life as "The Special Yarns Corporation" in 1923, it diversified into an industrial conglomerate during the course of its almost one hundred year history, including Bell helicopters among their holdings. This history of the company on their corporate website sounds like a textbook example of business adaptation.

But the clothes aren't what we're here for, folks; it's the advertisements themselves that knocked my (non-Textron produced) socks right off! Above, an underwater fantasy of a sinewy, ermine haired nymph undulating in her nightclothes under the dark and lovely sea. This tableau stopped me in my tracks, and I wanted to see if there were more similarly visually stimulating spots for the company. As a matter of fact, there were plenty!

How do you like this girl in her yellow slip towering over a Dali-like landscape of sand, shadow, and diminishing perspective? I like it fine! These illustrations were done by a commercial artist named C.J. Sternberg. You can read more about this woman's career and art on this website, maintained by her daughter...the illustrations she did for these Textron spreads in the forties' are some of the most imaginative, beautifully artistic ones to come out of the decade, if you ask me.

Look at this Greek goddess in her hostess gown shooting parachuted little hearts-and-arrows down to earth! How about those artist angels working on sun-ray'd spools of fabric? Don't you just want some prints of these for your own home? I'm thinking about tracking down the originals in the periodicals here to make color copies. So gorgeous!

More surrealism in the form of roses and vines in more hostess gowns....

EVEN MORE surrealism in the form of ladies' in feathered hats, springing forth from robins' nests. We should be focusing on the blouses being touted here, but how can you focus on separates when they're everything else?!

The flying hair is so fabulous! SO. FABULOUS. As are her dress and the pagoda-laden dreamscape she's involved in here. Notice that the parachute theme continues.

Spiderweb, dandelions, and a beautiful indigo sky:

Act like I would not wear a headress exactly like this, and replicate this ensemble with the addition of a sheer blouse (see mannequin)... the elegant drama of all these ads is really what gets to me. The same thing I was saying the other day about what I like in 1940's interior design-- whimsy with form-- could easily be applied here.

More dandelions, and those oddly foreboding shadows that remind one of same-era Harper's Bazaar fashion photography.

Tangent: notice the vintage slip sizings on the banner fluttering near yon rose bush tree-- 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 38, 40, 42 sounds like someone calling numbers before a play in football, but those stand for the spectrum of women's dress sizes at the time. 

As borrowed from the always informative AND fashionable Jessica Cangiano over at Chronically Vintage, here's what some of those sizes shake down to (as printed in a 1955 Sears Catalog for your 1955 dress ordering convenience):

• Size 10: 32.5 bust, 24.5 waist, 34 hips
• Size 12: 34 bust, 25.5 waist, 36 hips
• Size 14: 35.5 bust, 27 waist, 38 hips
• Size 16: 37 bust, 28.5 waist, 40 hips
• Size 18: 39 bust, 30.5 waist, 42 hips
• Size 20: 41 bust, 32.5 waist, 44 hips

Compare those to the modern sizes (including the 38, 40, and 42) on this website. This is one of the many reasons it drives me INSANE when someone mentions Marilyn Monroe's proportions as some kind of guide as to how women were curvier and more accepted back in the fifties' as opposed to now, in the post-Twiggy, post-Kate Moss era. MM's dramatic hourglass measurements of 37-23-36 would be swamped in a modern plus size...the fourteen or sixteen your cousin's Facebook post presents the bombshell as being is a vintage 14 or 16 and even then that's not entirely accurate (see this near-perfect Jezebel article for a WHY DOES IT EVEN MATTER side of the argument).

End tangent. Look at my favorite of these displays, woman-as-tree:

How spooky and beautiful and perfect and way more about the picture than the blouses could this ad be!

Well, my headache is still trying to spring out from behind my poor little eye sockets...woe! Woe unto me! I hope a prescription of strict bedrest, True Detective (I'm two episodes in!), and a non-alcoholic cocktail of crushed ice and diet Sprite will save my life after work today. What about you? Which of these ads capture your imagination? Seen any surreally gorgeous pictures lately? Let's talk!

Hold out hope for me and this whopper, and I'll see you back here, God willing, for Photo Friday! Take care, til then.