Lipstick, Lettuce & Lycra

Why I'm Tired of the Good Old Days.

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by

Retro Chick
in ,

Yesterday I was innocently scrolling through my Facebook feed.

It’s a thing I often do when I should be doing actual work. I call it research and tell myself that I work in Social Meeja so, you know, this IS work.

Anyway, while doing very important Social Meeja research yesterday I came across a photo posted by a rather wonderful vintage site I follow. It was a 1950s photograph of a 1950s model in a 1950s suit. She looked very nice. I like 1950s suits, I like 1950s hair and I like 1950s Make Up, it appeals to me visually. Underneath the photo were a good smattering of comments from other people who also like 1950s suits. There were also a good smattering of comments from people who seemed to think that anyone who didn’t like 1950s suits dressed “like a tramp”.

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Now, I know that getting annoyed with the stupid comments people put on the internet is like booking a one way trip on the crazy plane, but it just made me start thinking about the sort of thing I’ve been hearing more and more often whilst floating around the “vintage” quarter of the interweb.

As “Vintage” gets bigger and bigger as a fashion movement and the word seems to have less and less actual meaning I’m finding myself exhausted by the constant assertion that things were better in the “Good Old Days”. It’s nothing new, of course, people have been saying that for years, but they’re normally at least people who lived through it complaining about the youth of today. Seeing people in their early 20s using their mobile phones to post comments on the internet about how much better things were in decades they not only didn’t live through, but their parents and grandparents were probably too young to really remember either is somewhat odd.

Using your personal fashion preference to delude yourself that you are somehow elevated above the perceived crassness of modern day styles and make comments that imply other women are “cheap” because of the clothes they choose to wear is more than somewhat odd, it’s just downright weird.

If you know anything about the social history behind those “classy” vintage images then you’ll know that in the 1950s those classier, more covered up bikinis you so love were seen as dangerously scandalous. Marilyn Monroe, that vintage icon of classy sex appeal, was called vulgar for wearing a plunging gold lamé dress to the Photoplay awards in the 1950s. All that’s changed is our cultural perceptions of those outfits.

06.wir.skyrock.netMy love of what we now call “vintage” partly grew out of an obsession with WWII and a book called Growing Up at War when I was little. I was fascinated by the hardships and by the inventive measures people took to overcome them. I mixed all that in with a good smattering of 1950s movies, a love of Poirot in the 1990s and a fondness for looking at pretty frocks and over many years that has seen an evolution of my style and interest in history. It never gave me an assumption that the way I chose to dress was somehow better than anyone elses.

I have expressed sadness in the past at the death of dressing up, but actually it’s something I feel like I’ve seen a bit of a return to a little over the last year or so. What I find sad is the lack of politeness in dress, within our current cultural “norms”, not specific fashions. (for reference. Wearing your pyjamas to the supermarket – rude. Wearing jeans to a wedding reception – rude. Wearing a short skirt to the pub – absolutely acceptable as long as I can’t see your knickers, if I can, sort of rude, unless you meant it and they’re your best knickers, not the ones with holes in.)

I’ve also written about how you should dress however you damn well please.

You don’t have to like all fashions. You’re perfectly entitled to express an opinion on them and even to make humorous comments suggesting teenagers should buy a belt and pull their jeans up, while secretly wondering how the hell they actually don’t fall down around their ankles (if you know, please tell me as it fascinates me).

There are reasons I am not a fan of specific fashions. The very short skirted, platform shoes, false eyelashed look that seems popular in the sort of pubs and clubs that make me feel very, very, old isn’t a look for me. I believe, personally, that it’s a fashion that is part of the pornification of culture, that it is designed specifically to make women appear vulnerable and available. What I don’t do, however, is assume that all the women wearing it are vulnerable and available, nor do I think it’s innately any classier to wear a skin tight 1950s dress and red lipstick, which lets face it, are styles that in the 50s did exactly the same thing as a mini skirt and platforms do now.

The 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards - ArrivalsThe clothes we chose to wear will always make a statement about us to the world, and one that we would do well to at least give a passing thought to occasionally. That’s the way the world works, we will be judged on the clothing we chose to wear, sad but true. I’m not even sure I’d argue that that judgement is always bad, life gets hellish complicated if you don’t make any assumptions about people based on outward appearance, but it’s a good idea to question those judgements you make and ask yourself why you are making them, particularly if you plan to make any actions or decisions based on them or post any stupid comments on the Internet.

There’s lots of things I don’t like about the modern world. too many different types of toothpaste, TVs that take over the entire wall of your house and out of town “retail parks” among them, but the fact that we have such a range of choice in dress and personal expression isn’t one of them.

I’m sure everyone who reads Retro Chick is a thoughtful and balanced person, a person with class and sophistication who would never dream of making sweeping judgements about a woman’s morals, sexual proclivities or attitude towards men based merely on the fact that they are wearing a 1950s suit, a mini skirt from New Look or a pair of dungarees and DMs, but if you do happen to know that person, feel free to point them in this direction.

RANT OF THE DAY OVER. Feel free to discuss in a grown up and civilised manner, as judged by me….

Comments

81 responses to “Why I'm Tired of the Good Old Days.”

  1. Vicky avatar
    Vicky

    I miss dressing up too. I refused to let my son wear jeans to a christening (in a church) even though his step dad was and the baby’s dad were. I was brought up that jeans were not for church – everyone thought I was mad :-/ Luckily I have like minded friends who would wear an evening dress to the opening of an envelope 🙂

  2. Perdita avatar
    Perdita

    I always wear my best pants without the holes in to the pub! Lol! As someone who does dress in a way which surprises folk (“oh, you do a grown-up serious job? But you’re wearing a 70s kids T-shirt and mini skirt..?”) I have to signal I’m ever so classy somehow.

    In all seriousness, I completely agree. My pet hate is people who wear clothes based on telling the world what they DON’T like, as opposed to telling the world what they do. As often I have said, adults are too old for the “too cool for skool clique on the playground” mentality. The jocks and the geeks and the cheerleaders and the rock kids (and the retro heads) can all play nicely.

  3. Raquel avatar
    Raquel

    I don’t think this is a rant, it’s really well written and very true. I read fashion blogs and comments on instagram lot for my work too, and sometimes I’m horrified at what girls say about each other. We should be standing by one another appreciating different styles. What an incredibly boring world if we all looked the same, or we were never adventurous enough to try something new….

  4. Porcelina avatar
    Porcelina

    Hear hear! I loved reading this, what a thoughtful piece.

    The bit you wrote about “making sweeping judgements about a woman’s morals, sexual proclivities or attitude towards men based merely on the fact that they are wearing…” did get me thinking though. Is it really just based on the attire? I think not. When we ‘size up’ a person we look at not only what they wear, but their body language, their facial expressions, their context as a whole. So, seeing a woman in a dangerously tiny dress and big ole platforms will look different a) if she’s stumbling around the gutters of the high street drunk out of her mind at 10pm, b) if she’s hosting some kind of awards ceremony or c) if she’s on a catwalk. The woman in the ‘classy’ 1950s dress that falls below the knee can still give off the aura of having loose morals depending on what she’s doing in it! (Although I’m dubious these days as to what loose morals are. I think they relate to sex, which baffles me if it’s between consenting adults, I’d be far more concerned about the morality of things like not stealing, swindling, killing people etc.).

    Yes, I have judged, I admit it, but it’s the way our brains work (I could go on about that, I studied Psychology), desperately trying to fit people into some kind of category. The danger is when people don’t take a second look, and give the brain some more information to soften that snap decision. (I hate all this ‘body snarking’ that’s gone on in recent years). I think personally I’ve got better at taking second, and third looks as I’ve got older. (As an aside, my partner of 6 years and I met at a party where he was swinging around a pole, and I was dressed in fluffy hotpants and bra and bunny ears. What could have been a brief affair if we’d gone by initial judgements has turned into the most wonderful relationship because we gave each other a chance and didn’t go by our gut instincts about the kind of people we were from what we were – or weren’t in my case – wearing.)

    I guess my point is ultimately about poise, civility and decorum. If they’re lacking, no amount of fabric can cover it up.

    1. Gemma avatar
      Gemma

      That’s true, judgements are based on more than clothing of course, though it’s difficult to get much more context from a photograph!

      I like the sound of the party you met at, sounds fun 😀

    2. lipstick lil avatar
      lipstick lil

      “I guess my point is ultimately about poise, civility and decorum. If they’re lacking, no amount of fabric can cover it up.”

      Wonderfully put!

  5. pixieanna avatar
    pixieanna

    PJs worn out of the house drives me BONKERS!!!! Especially as the people in them have clearly not bothered to wash their faces or yank a brush through their hair either. It doesn’t take five minutes to splash your face, pull a brush through your hair and put on jeans/joggers and a t shirt.

    I too support the right to wear what you damn well like but i see a lot of people who appear to have lost the ability to care about what they look like. I long to take them out of their ill fitting jeans/joggers and sloppy tops and put them into a well fitting pair of jeans or trousers with a pretty top (or even persuade some of them into a skirt or dress!)

    1. Perdita avatar
      Perdita

      If someone did something like try to persuade me into a skirt or dress (they AREN’T inherently smarter or better than trousers, just different) I would make extremely sure Inever wore either in their presence again. Ditto ‘pretty’ things. Unfortunately I have had to do this before within the vintage scene.

      If people are clean and covering the legal bits, I really am mystified by the desire to control what they choose to wear.

  6. Gemma avatar
    Gemma

    I would add to clean and covering the legal bits, that I do like people to be wearing things that are actual clothing! Pyjamas = Not clothing 😀

  7. Melanie Maddison avatar
    Melanie Maddison

    well said chick – discrimination is always discrimination and judging people by their looks is fascism – a law against onsies and leggings would be fabulous but a retrograde step for free will. Let the world wear what it wants and pause to remember those that cannot choose what they wear for whatever reason – I will still be wearing the tiara on the school run because I can 🙂

  8. Carolinesweetie avatar
    Carolinesweetie

    I enjoyed reading this and I agreed with what you said. It’s ok to rant, many of us say little and simmer away

  9. Tina C. avatar
    Tina C.

    What kills me about the “good old days” is the seemingly willful ignoring of the bad parts of the “good old days.” Sure, the aesthetic of by-gone eras is alluring (I’m partial to the 1930s–much like you my love of the era spawns from a book, in particular Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee) but lets not forget how racist, sexist, socially fraught those eras were. McCarthyism of the 1950s, Japanese interment camps in the 1940s, Jim Crowe in the 1930s, miscegenation and lynching all through the early 1900s and into the 1950s… These eras (much like are own) are really awful times to be a person of ethnicity and a woman.

  10. Karen Dodgson avatar
    Karen Dodgson

    Thanks Gemma, I don’t think you were ranting, it was a really well written and thought provoking article.
    When I was a teenager in the ’70’s, I was far too quiet and shy to dare wearing anything that wasn’t mainstream fashion. In the ’80’s, after plucking up the courage to leave a terrible marriage to an alcoholic, I went mad and made up for my lost teenage years by wearing a leather mini skirt and fishnet tights to go out clubbing. I’d be horrified if my teenage daughter ever looked like that, but I was still the same decent person underneath it all. I’ve now been happily married for 25 years, and probably more confident than I’ve ever been about dressing to please myself. I have a growing collection of ’50’s style frocks which I love wearing, and am trying to learn the art of back combing my hair! I also bought a pair of blue delpht china patterned DM’s after your recent article on them had me yearning for the pair I never bought when I was younger! Now I’m in my ’50’s, my greatest fear is losing the confidence it took me half a lifetime to find…..as I grow older, I wonder if people will think I look ridiculous at my age, and I wish it didn’t bother me so much but sometimes it does.
    I think what I’m trying to say is wear what you like, try not to judge (unless your out in your pj’s or worse still, your hair rollers!) and just be happy with your choices, they are what makes you so special and unique. Well, that’s what I keep trying to tell myself, anyway!

  11. suellen avatar
    suellen

    what I remember about the dress codes of the 1950’s was it was restrictive and you were very much judged by what you wore and where you could shop…if you did not own a hat you were not going to church and if you went downtown to the bank you were wearing nylons, no matter what the temperature was, and the hat…the sixties was about breaking out of that mold..

  12. Lena avatar
    Lena

    Ah, so well said. I find it very very hard not to edit (ok delet them all to be totally honest) or comment on the Facebook comments mentioned. Everyone can have their own opinion but it is incredibly narrow-minded if not falsifying history…

  13. Helga avatar
    Helga

    Excellent post. I also love Lena’s follow up on Queens of Vintage.
    I have often laughed about people being dewey eyed over the past-as my G would say, “what, when women died in childbirth and men went to war?” Love the clothes, the decor, wouldn’t want to live in the times. 🙂

  14. retro rover avatar
    retro rover

    This has been commented on a lot of course but I just have to say here here! Its so upsetting when people glorify the past to the point that they don’t realize how many people really struggled for freedom and equality and would have done anything to live as we do now

    kate