Combining vintage with modern is a great way to wear the best of vintage and at the same time use the best of modern as well.
In the last article I talked about finding the right accessories to go with your vintage clothes and suggested a choice of bracelets. You might want to just refresh your memory of the article by clicking here (it opens in a new window).
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A luscious full dress fitted tight at the waist is today’s most flattering and up-to-the-minute silhouette and every girl should have at one in her collection. The problem is, and it’s often a big problem, what accessories do you wear to complete that vintage look and stop the whole thing looking naff?
Well, the worst thing you can do is pile on the accessories simply because you don’t know what else to do; in fact, it’s usually better to choose just one or two pieces that subtlety say ‘vintage’ without going too far. Looking around the blogs I found some great ideas and one of them was to use a stylish and very vintage looking bracelet and combine that with a vintage style handbag and smart fashionable shoes. Continue reading
Long skirts, so popular in the 60s, are set to be big (and long) for Springtime 2011! This is my prediction and it’s also the prediction of a good friend of Sixties Britain called Chasing Secrets.
To help you get ready for what’s in store, she has produced two very watchable videos on Chasing Secrets YouTube and they are, believe me, vital viewing.
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Gingham fabric has been around since the 1600s and is a more unusual fashion fabric confined these days to men’s shirts and girls’s dresses however, in the 1960s it came of age when used in many mod clothes.
Part of the appeal of gingham is it’s clean and fresh look and this suited perfectly the look that the early mod designers like Mary Quant were trying to create. In addition, and in a more subtle way, gingham with it’s small regular pattern seemed to match the need for a new look that would be both distinctive and smart.
Rockabilly is the term coined to cover the new fusion of rock and roll and country music that spread through America and then to the UK in the early years of the 1950s. It’s a handy term, too, to cover the fashion of 1950s and into the early years of the 1960s decade.
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After the war both money and ready made goods were scarce and also expensive and it would be another twenty or so years before both Britain and the world got back on its feet.
For a mother and a family in the 1950s and early 1960s, finding money for clothes was often a problem and many clothes were handed down from one sibling to another. But many, too, were hand made by a mother or by some other family relative. In fact, for many people, it was only clothes for a special occasion that were purchased, normal work or leisure clothing was produced by hand.
Part 1 Introduction
Part 2 Tie-Dye
Part 3 The Military Look
It’s often the accessories, not the clothes, that make the style and last week we looked at Britain and the Military Look. But that’s only half the story; at the same time Britain, like most other countries, was influenced by the hippie movement taking place in the USA.
This movement was based on a disaffection with the values and direction of society and wanted to see a return to traditional and older, seemingly more secure, values. Thus, the three overriding considerations for the hippie look were:
1. Make it yourself. Anything that could be home produced, like bead necklaces, simple metal finger rings, tie-dyed scarves or body painted artwork was extensively used and innovated. It was all the better if these were revived ancient or medieval art forms.
2. There was great respect for ethnic art forms that were hand produced rather than mass produced and these were sourced from wherever they could be found. In America, the art of the native Americans was valued while in Britain we looked towards the middle East and North Africa choosing leather work for belts and fastening and handmade bracelets along with all manner of jewellery as well as looking into our own past.
3. There was respect, too, for quality second-hand items. People spent time searching for used clothing that was both unusual and of good quality and virtually anything could be worn with anything else. I remember a girlfriend who had a very old but genuine fur coat which she wore throughout the year with anything, no matter how hot it was!
Part 1 Introduction
Part 2 Tie-Dye
Part 4 Hippie Accessories
Tie-dying, covered in last weeks post, was one way to create your own individual look but, in the late 60s, something much more military and unexpected appeared.
The Portobello Road in London’s Notting Hill district was (and is) famous for it’s street market and, in the middle years of the 1960s, it hosted a stall selling all manner of ex-government military uniforms. The stall, owned by John Paul and Ian Fisk, later expanded to a shop nearby called ‘I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet’ managed by Robert Orbach. The name of the shop was chosen to conjure up images of Edwardian clothing.
Posted in Fashion
Tagged 1960s, 60s, clothes, clothing, colours, dress, fad, hair, hippy, information, kitchener, men' fashions, military, portobello, sgt pepper, sixties, styles
