A and P Supermarkets/Grocery Store Rant (1940s)

 Good afternoon, everybody! I got a story for you...a story of groceries and missed sartorial opportunities...gather round the old vintage campfire and I'll tell it to you straightaway. Yesterday, I pulled together what I, in my own conceited opinion, consider to be a knockout outfit for the occasion of Matthew's friend Ernest's birthday barbecue. Resisting an urge to wear white wrist-length gloves, I went out of the house in red lipstick, a double strand of pearls, a fifties' blouse I found at the Gallatin Goodwill, my go-to black skirt and dress belt, and a McHenry's ladies' hat from an estate sale a long time ago to cover my still-wet hair pinned underneath said hat. It looked like this:

 

 Lovely, right? If I do say so myself. You fellow decades-dressers know how it is when you somehow pull off the alchemy of putting together this skirt and that blouse and come up with something that makes you look exactly like the image in your head of how you wanted to look. Rare are those occasions! Yet, in spite of my costume success, I felt a little like a Sasquatch walking into the Greenfield Kroger's when we had to run in and grab a card and some kind of snack to bring to Ernest's party. In a storeful of people in sweatpants and tank tops, in cargo shorts and polos, in jeans and t-shirts, a gal in the above ensemble sticks out like a red lipped sore thumb! And of course, granted, dressing in head to toe vintage will often make you look like you've escaped a period-set dinner theater production...but man did I notice how slip-sloppily people dress to go to the grocery store! On the one hand, you may just need Cheerios and felt like running over to the store in your pajama bottoms wasn't a major fashion faux pas. On the other hand...you're in public! What if you run into your fifth grade teacher/best friend's mom/that dude you're crushing on from a local band/me? All of which are possible in a neighborhood grocery the size of this sucker. Whatever happened to dressing up, period...but specifically, whatever happened to dressing up to go shopping?

 These pictures from A &P advertisements of the mid forties' have assuaged my troubled mind on the count of how-you-should-dress-in-your-supermarket. While I know these are advertisements, I can't help but feel that people in the forties' at least put on a bit of mascara to hit the meat counter. The lady below is wearing a fur stole, forgoodnesssake. I must share with you that the caption of the picture below is "Favorite Meating Place for Particular People". Oh, forties' Mad Men. You crack me up. How handsome do the meat counter men look in their white coats and bow-ties? The shapeless blue polo shirts with "Kroger" stitched on the front of them, plus an apron, just doesn't have the sparkle of these old uniforms. Even the employees are dressed up, see!!

 Below, gloves? Check. Hat? Check. Smart little bowtie? Check. Ready to select superior produce? Check check.

 Look at the mile long feather on the hat at stage right. Plus more furs on that woman and the one to the left. That Russian sable looking coat is something I'd like to own. 

 Did you get a load of the blue turbaned thing at right, below? It would probably make me look more like a Dr. Seuss character and less like a Rosalind Russell type that I'd like, but I would still like to take a gamble on it if we ever met up in a darkened estate sale closet.

 A & P made its name as being one of the first grocery store chains, period; then continued to trailblaze with some of the first self-service grocery stores in America. I still like to daydream about a time in which you could hand a list over to a grocery clerk and he would dutifully pull and ring up all your items while you wait. Do you have any idea how much easier that would make my life? I feel like I spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the canned tomatoes trying to figure out which, of a thousand varieties, best suits my needs, when in the 1800's, someone would do that for me. Le sigh. Check out this Rosie the Riveter in her just-off work swagger. I excuse her from being dressed to the nines as she's obviously pitching in with the war effort. Plus she looks cute as a button. Do you see the beanie on the woman in green, or how handsome the man in the suit is? I do.

 What're your thoughts? Are you an unselfconscious vintage wearer or do you skulk around a little in your 50's/60's best, wary of the unwelcome stares? Would you go to the grocery store dressed in houseclothes or do you make an effort when you're seen in public to be spotlessly presentable? It's an important question! I think we're on to more Your Power as a Woman tomorrow, be sure to tune in! Til next time.

Photo Friday: Gorgeous Girls Edition

 We made it through another week, people! Here we are again on Photo Friday and I thought this glamorous set of ladies would be the perfect way to celebrate the end of the working week and maybe even inspire a "natural beauty" weekend for we tired workaday girls. Because putting on war paint is hard! Why not take it easy like this 1920's-and-earlier-gals? Above, a Scarlett Johanssen lookalike in all white poses in a photo-studio set-up garden bower. With years of trying to fit into impossibly tiny vintage clothing both behind and in front of me, my eye is always drawn to the a wasp waist in looking at antique pictures of women in their Sunday best, and oh how tiny this woman's midsection must be! I wonder if the ensemble was pulled together for a wedding or Easter services, or if it was a uniform of some kind. At any rate, she looks radiant. Below, I've scanned the back of the card, which gives us the girl's name (Dorothy McGuian) and the address of the "Electric Post Card Studio" in Fort Worth, Texas. What a great name for a business! Photo #4 on this person's family photos website was taken in the same studio, as was this, and this, and THIS, but I couldn't find an exact year on the studio's years of operation to date the photo in any of those cases. Dommage. Guessing 1910's? Thereabouts? Maybe earlier!

 I chose this photo out of a batch half because of its pretty subject, and half because of its shape. This is the only round, printed-type cabinet card I have, and what a winner! See the girl's smocked, round-necked blouse and poufy bangs, and the gentle tinting the studio's done for her hair and face. I think of the illustrated section of Victorian biographies where you see professional photos of the subject as a teenager, just before marriage, and think this must be that sort of portrait.Weren't young people so grown-up looking them!

 And finally, a little flapper doodle gal from the late 1920's/early 1930's. I love everything about this picture, from the gorgeous Art Deco mat to the girl's perfect spit-curls, early Joan Crawford style outfit, and adorable, girl-writer looking profile, so Edna St. Vincent Millay. High school graduation photo, maybe? Definitely a stunner in any case. I'm not pleased with my scanning job on this one, but I think you can see what I like about the picture in any case.

 Which photo is your favorite? Do you have any relative or non-relative knockouts in your vintage photograph collection, goading you on in your pursuit of the glamor of an era gone by? Remind me to tell you some time about the enormous photographic portrait I have of a woman in the 50's. I got it at Goodwill a dog's age ago, and a grander picture you've never seen. But we'll leave that for another day. :) Well, folks, that's all I've got for you at the moment. I'm going to struggle through the rest of the morning here at work with my sleepy self and then try to hit some estate sales in the afternoon before meeting Bab's mom for dinner. All in all, not a bad Friday to look forward to! I hope you have a great weekend, let me know on Monday about the spoils of sales you round up! Til next time.

Western Electric Color Telephones (1954)

 Good morning! I came across this ad for color telephones in a 1950's Life magazine and you know the first thing I thought of was you guys! Ok, truthfully, the first thing I thought was "Look at all those Bakelite lookin' telephones! They look like candy!". But then I thought of you. :) Western Electric, which served as the telephone set supplier to Bell Telephone Systems from 1881 to 1995, offered a dazzling array of color telephones for your home in 1954. The "500" model that year was the first to be offered in specific colors. Think of how exciting it would be to switch up your old coal-black model for a a bright pop of green or beige in the front hallway or the boudoir. I was so interested to see that the models came in monotone, with clear plastic dial:

 OR TWO TONE, with a black handset, dial, and number plate. How rockabilly does this little number look?

 The wallphone, always a favorite of mine, looks even better with the slim fifties' handle, as opposed to the later, mid 60's chunky handle. Which color of the ones below would you choose for you dream fifties' house phone? I'm leaning towards red, but with the two tone option so the handle is black. It looks weird to just have the faceplate a different color. 

 If you insist on staying Model-T traditional, however, Western Electric also offers you the following options, most of which I've never heard of. The "cut off switch" would especially come in handy when pesky siblings want to listen in on private, teenage conversations between your teenage self and potential dating material! I had a light-up phone in my bedroom in the early 90's, but this "light up dial" on an old model phone is news to me.

 And once again your color choices. Good job including "ivory" as a paint sample here, advertising men. I thought something was wrong with the print at first!

 Two phone stories from my family: 1) My mom found a weird "rental" charge while looking over my grandmother's phone bill in the early 90's. To set the scene, my grandma was one of those cool, "early adopters" gadget people who had a touch tone cordless phone with call waiting and caller ID in those late 80's/early 90's days when such a thing was the living end of home telephonics. In my Luddite household, we still had pulse dial and rotary phones. My mom was comparing charges for different functions to educate herself in case of the (entirely unlikely) event of our phone services and subscriptions being updated, and couldn't figure out to what one $4 charge referred. Upon calling the phone company, she found out that a 1950's, standard black desk-set phone, which had been stored in a back closet in my grandma's house for the last thirty years, was still racking up a monthly "equipment usage" fee, in spite of the fact that it had not been used since my mom was in grade school. Did you know (and I didn't until that day in the late 90's) that you used to have to pay for the set, which says, stamped on it, "Property of Bell Telephone Systems", and had an option to buy it sometime later in the company's history when the whole "renting your model" thing became too much trouble? My grandma must have missed the boat on that one, because she was still paying for a phone that was sitting in storage serving no earthly purpose for ye-e-e-ars. I think the whole rental aspect is responsible for telephones back in the day being so heavy duty... you might have the same one last you forty years, but would also have to pay for the privilege! Don't you find this hard to wrap your head around, in the age of dropping your phone in the bathroom sink and having to have it replaced for whatever ungodly sum (even with insurance sometimes!)? Would a simple monthly fee and guaranteed replacement be easier on us all?

 2) My dad worked for the company that prepares the phone book in the early 80's, and during his brief stint there scored this exact print (above), poster sized, from 1969, in a large frame, when it was being removed from the office during a renovation. I was always in love with it growing up, and still intend to wheedle it away from him some day in a moment of house-cleaning weakness. Do you see the video phone? DO YOU SEE. THE VIDEO PHONE. Love it. Were you aware that Saul Bass, famous for title sequences in movies like Psycho and The Thomas Crowne Affair, designed the AT & T logo? The more you know... Anyway, just a brief jaunt into mid-century phone practices! Which model or color of phone do you covet the most? Do you still have a landline in a bid for vintage authenticity, or have you, like me and everyone else I know, succumbed to the siren's call of cell phones? I wanted to keep the blamed thing but I only ever used it to hang up on telemarketers or call my own phone to figure out where I'd put it. C'est la vie. See you tomorrow for Photo Friday!

Keane Drama! (1960's)

I'm sure you fellow retronauts are aware of the large-eyed kids (cats, dogs, clowns, guitarists, ballerinas, etc) paintings craze from the mid 1960's- early 70's. How could you miss 'em? I've been in many the thrift store with a morose/mod waif staring out at me from a five-and-ten store frame in the home decor section, daring me to take it home and deal with its self-esteem issues. With the death of Thomas Kinkade earlier this week, I was reminded of the "low brow" art struggle that arguably began with artists Margaret and Walter Keane, a husband and wife artistic duo that were supposedly co-creators of the style that dominated pine paneled rec rooms across the country for two decades. Doing a little googling on the subject, I was surprised to find out that a Tim Burton produced movie with Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Reynolds is currently in production, called, aptly enough, Big Eyes. What in the world were they going to make a whole movie about, I wondered? Could the Keane story be that controversial? In a nutshell, yes.

 Walter Keane's eyes with one of his subject's eyes What I didn't know about the Keanes was the level of d-r-a-m-a concerning the little be-sweatered, ocularly over-endowed urchins and who, exactly, was responsible for their production. Check out the dispute section of Walter's wikipedia page, where it sounds like an amicable enough divorce between the Keanes in the mid 60's turned acidic after Walter started making grand statements in the press about his place in the artistic canon. Margaret responded by saying she hadn't collaborated with her then-husband on the paintings after all, but was solely responsible for their artistic output, and ohhhhh the media hoopla that accompanied them apples. In the early 1980's, Walter lost the rights to the big eyed kids in court when Margaret apparently painted an example piece in the court room during the lawsuit in a People's Court worthy "paint-off", and Walter was unable to produce anything owing to his "sore arm". Sounds fishy, right? Obviously an open and shut case of the male dominated, patriarchal society of the mid century robbing a woman of her artistic voice, and a historical wrong being righted in the mean time with the just restoration of her name as the sole author of these paintings. Or was it? Photographs from the height of their popularity show the Keanes happily painting side by side, in two similar, but definitely distinct artistic styles. Which begs the question.... ....who really painted the first "big eyed" painting? Let's look at an article from the Youngstown Vindicator (great newspaper name, by the way!) from December of 1961.  Movie star and great-girl-crush of mine, Natalie Wood, poses above with poodle and two Keanes... let the controversy begin! The one on the left was painted by Margaret, and the one on the right was painted by Walter. Which one looks more like the prototypical big-eyed painting, hers or his? In my mind, the answer is a resounding "HIS", but let's see what the reporter had to say about the difference between the portraits:

 While I honestly prefer Margaret's portrait to Walter's, I think it's clear which is more "wide-eyed". Below, another "working together" session with the Keanes. Look closely and compare their canvases.

 Look at the quote: "Walter specializes in wistful children with large, dark eyes. Margaret does soulful young women...somewhat reminiscent of Modigliani." I don't think anyone would mistake the wet-cat-in-the-gutter-with-saucer-shaped-eyes for a Modigliani, and yet how closely does Walter's work resemble what we think of when we think of that school of kitsch art? Last, but not least, another glimpse of the delectable Miss Wood at her swimming pool with the artist couple feverishly painting the portraits we saw in the earlier picture with the poodle. Assuming Margaret didn't really paint BOTH pictures and just stage the whole scene as being a husband-wife art team, is it really fair to say Walter wasn't the originator? I wasn't able to track down much more outside of some Life magazine articles I've linked to at the bottom of this post. I guess we'll have to see the movie to find out!

 I'm not sure where I stand on the whole issue of the Keane art style in the first place. While I admire their kitschiness and applaud that "out there" style, I don't think I like them nearly as much as I like similar knock-offs (like the Eve painting I mentioned in this post). I actually passed up on the opportunity to buy an over-the-couch sized print of the girl in the bottom right hand corner of the pictures I posted at the very top of this article, crouched on what looks like a lunar platform...partially because it was faded, partially because it was outrageously priced, partially because I just didn't like it enough. But I can't lie to you, the controversy angle actually makes me more interested in the whole business. What do you think? Do you have any Keane or Kean knockoffs in your homestead? Are you gaga over the google eyes or are you kind of on the fence about their creepy cuteness? Further reading:

• Margaret Keane: My Story about her becoming a Jehovah's Witness (...?)
• Information about the Reese Witherspoon movie (2012)
• 1965 Life article "HE painted 'em!"
• 1970 Life article "SHE painted 'em!"
• Website on big eyed paintings + memorabilia, including the knockoffs I like
• Another blog about Keane, including scans from a exhibit catalog and a family portrait they did of Jerry Lewis's clan, in with Jerry himself in a Pierrot-like costume (I can't make this stuff up)

Til next time!

Your Power as A Woman: Hygiene and Exercise

As promised, I've been reading through the 1956 women's self help book Your Power as a Woman and lordamighty...the minutiae of every day gal-living in the 1950's! I've been imagining myself as an Eisenhower-era housewife of my current age, unemployed, married, and bent on self-improvement, picking up this book at the corner drugstore in the same impulse buy that made me pick up the Whitman's sampler and the copy of Screen Star with Liz Taylor on the cover (she was in Giant that year!).


Win, win....and win.

First, a checklist for the improvement plan laid out by author Alma Archer during the course of the text. I love how little these goals have changed over the year! "Intrigue your man" is probably my favorite:



And a pep talk to those in need of one, even before they've started the program:



I could be any of those things! Where's "plucky young library employee with beehive and mania for fifties' social knowledge"? Well, they can add that in later editions, I guess.

Don't forget the ABC's (and D) of this improvement plan:



Hygeine takes up the next chapter. These chapters breeze by! And let us examine the importance of beauty in everyday life:



I was reminded, in reading this, of a post I think Solanah at Vintage Vixen did about people asking how she could wear beautiful vintage outfits every day, all day, full time, and she replied, "I only have beautiful vintage clothes!" I wish I could find the exact post, but it was something along that line. A remark which I treasure in my heart, as well as try to keep in mind when editing my closet and paring down to just-what-I-love when closet space gets scarce. So! "Have you touched beauty today?" I hope so! And if not, let's make a plan to do so more often.

Archer expounds upon the many benefits of luxuriating in a "beauty bath" at least once a day...not merely "scrubbing off dirt" but planning "your emergence as a beautiful butterfly" through the wonders of bubble-based baths. I have to tell you, sitting here a few hours after my brisk morning shower at 7 AM, in which I am hardly cognizant of the basics, much less the finer points, of bathing, I feel pretty louche. When I could have had a beauty bath! But time, again, is a key factor in all this being possible. After the bath, she suggests putting eau de cologne on a still wet body, drying off in a big Turkish towel, and applying "dusting powder" before dressing. This routine sounds so Dinah Shore to me, and yet! I'm envious of that "perfume and powder" smell I'm sure this routine elicits.

Next, some exercises. Notice that the last is entitled "Bust Exercises". Notice me tittering to myself in the back of the room. The illustrations here are pretty neat, no?



Something to keep in mind while exercising, and maybe one of the most hilarious parts of the book (Archer, you snide thing you):



Next up, diet! You wouldn't believe the 14 day plan Al-Arch's got us on in the pre Slim Fast, pre diet shake days....real food but real little of it, in my reckoning...but you decide when we get there.

Yours in MidCentury perfection attainment, til next time!

Weekend Finds

Hello again! I hope you Easter chicks didn't go overboard for the holiday like my bab and I did. Lord have mercy. Now confronting me and my healthy diet every morning, in a yellow-candy-eyed-stare-off, is The Professor, a five pound, hollow Palmer chocolate crisp bunny who wants to teach me a thing or two about how delicious life can be. I was delighted by the box's 60's illustrations, and the fact that a bunny could earn a doctorate, but I won't lie, it IS a little intimidating thinking about tackling that sucker without plunging headlong into a pre-diabetic coma. But I digress. Didn't do much shopping this weekend (the social calendar was F-U-L-L between dinner and a movie on Friday, a wild and crazy wedding out of town on Saturday, and Easter lunch with my folks on Sunday), but I did get a couple things weekend-before-last that I hadn't had a chance to show you. So behold! Items of one week's vintage... take a look:

 

 

 Remember the post I did not two weeks ago about Forstmann wools? Well, wasn't I lucky enough to find this Grace's of Nashville "Ermina" winter coat at a sale at very tip top of a hill out Forest-Acres way. I have a whole flippin closet of winter coats, but not an "Ermina"! So I bent one of my cardinal rules about not stuffing the closet when I already have similar items and picked it up for $7. The princess cut! The white wool! The faux tortoiseshell round buttons! I was a goner. But I did put back like six Donna Reed-looking sweaters to atone for the rack-space. My conscience is clean....ish. :) I'm still lugging around tons of trade credit at McKays from a spring cleaning of my bookshelves, so what did I do? Go get more books, natch! They've moved into a larger building in Bellevue, and the eerie thing about it, fellow Tennesseans, is that it resembles TO THE LETTER their Knoxville location. It's crazy! If you'd dropped me in there blindfolded, I would have thought I was in Knoxville. Much larger, many more items in stock. Well, a few less items after my trip:

 I've been really focusing on the retro/actually vintage crafts and recipe books lately. Also, that safety pin necklace craft book is OUT OF CONTROL...shall I make a huge, knock off turquoise Native American pendant? I shall! So many instructions for batik and bean art, I am going to have to make a conscious effort to try and DO some of these crafts rather than to just read about them (Iknowyouknowhowitis). My Aunt Donna came down for Easter with my Uncle Harold and brought me a sle-e-e-e-w of 1970's-1990's antique appraisal manuals and reference guides, as well as some coursework and materials from when she took a distance learning course on becoming a certified appraiser. "Pretty much all of this stuff you can get online now, but I thought you'd like to have them, and if you don't, you know, you can take 'em to the used bookstore, give 'em to Goodwill, whatever." I choose to keep them! "Oh," she said, "And your mom told me you're really into antique cookbooks, so I brought you these." STOP! THE! PRESSES! 

 I didn't take a picture of the other one for some reason, but this "Woman's Exchange Cookbook" is from 1901, and the other, "The White House Cookbook" (looks like this), featuring recipes from Washington women and former first ladies, is from 1907. Jeepers! I think the oldest cookbook I had before this AMAZINGLY KIND GIFT was a copy of the Inglenook Cookbook from the 1910's. I'll have to report back after I get a chance to look through them better, but the page it fell open to at random was a recipe for turtle soup that began "Plunge living terrapin into boiling water. When life is extinct, remove toenails and shell." ((as I run screaming from the room, clutching the book, hollering "BAB! YOU HAVE *GOT* TO SEE THIS!" in ghoulish delight and disbelief)).

 

 Here's a pretty rhinestone-and-sequin-and-bugle-bead collar I picked up at the same estate sale with the coat. I am CRAZY about throwing one of these on with a heretofore "plain Jane" dress and having enough pizazz to knock out an electrical board. The combinations possible with this and other dresses are just unlimited! We love it.

 Mermaid drink garnish, anyone? Set of 60 for $2.99 at World Market'. They also had little cocktail swords for making hors d'oeurves that I am probably going to go back and get next time I'm in Hendersonville. Heed my words: No kitsch kitchen is complete without them!!!! I'm usually kind of on the fence about that store, but their cocktail party section is just ridiculous with stuff I need for my next shindig. I just have to make sure no one swallows one in a fit of inebriated absented mindedness. Ready for the piece de resistance? Behold...the AL MENAH fez of your dreams:   

 I felt mondo guilty about buying this when I promised myself to cut down on superfluous, space consuming items of interest but no practical application, but I did it, and I'm glad I did, by Godfrey! Do you SEE this hat? I'm not sure of what the rules are about non-shriner/temple people having shriner/temple memorabilia, but I assure you, it's in a place of great honor in my house. From the rhinestone embellishments, to the Egyptian figure on the front, to the little scimitar keeping the fez's festoon in place...I don't even know where to begin. There's some moth damage on the front left of the hat, but who cares? I spent the lordly sum of $20 on this guy on the last day of the estate sale (50% discount...because someone even less sane than me would have parted with $40 for this guy). Note that manufacturer Harry Osers, listed on the lining, boasts "Fine Handmade Fezzes and Masonic Jewlery". There were whole stores for that?! The Postal zone, rather than a zip code, makes me think this hat probably dates from the 50's. And it is dearly loved by me! That is something of which we can be certain. Look at Matthew modeling the gem. Isn't he a cute?

 Anyway, that's all the loot that's fit to print for this week. How were your weekend hauls this month? Any buried treasure unearthed? Let a girl know! Til next time.