March 11, 2013

Seven unexpected places to source vintage wardrobe inspiration from


As admirers and wearers of vintage clothes, most of us constantly keep our eyes peeled for ideas and inspiration when it comes to our outfits. This isn't to say, of course, that we can't come up with ideas for fabulous ensembles on our own, of course we can, but rather that we appreciate the sartorial aesthetics of our beloved mid-century decades so much we can never get enough of seeing examples of clothing from days gone by.

Whether you're brand new to wearing or vintage or have been sporting it for decades, it never hurts to have new sources of inspiration to turn when putting together your outfits, and today we're going to take a peak at seven such sources which go beyond the more obvious examples, such as vintage movies, magazines, catalogs, ads, and books. Those five are incredible for sure, but sometimes it's fun to shake things up and expand your inspiration horizons.




1940s vintage cookbook A Guide to Royal Success in Baking cover

Vintage cookbooks: When one thinks of vintage cookbooks, the first thing, naturally, that springs to mind is recipes! And, of course, that is generally their main purpose, but scores of old school cookbooks are teaming with vintage photographs and/or illustrations of women preparing, cooking, and/or serving food, oftentimes in daywear and an apron. Cookbook covers can be an especially good source of photographic inspiration, but don't forget to flip through the pages, too, as many cookbooks - especially those from the 1950s - are teaming with a delightful mid-century illustrations.



1940s 1950s vintage dresses at museum exhibit


Museum exhibits: Many museums the world over hold exhibits featuring vintage and/or historical clothing and costumes, and/or have permanent displays of such items. If you're lucky enough to live in a town with one or more museums, be sure to keep an eye on this exhibit schedule to see any upcoming shows relate to vintage fashion. By the same token, anytime you're visiting a new city, if your schedule permits, you may want to visit the museum (or museums) there to check out the vintage clothing, accessories, shoes and other mid-century items of all kinds that they may have on display.


Vintage 1950s Vogue sewing pattern 4697


Vintage sewing patterns: We all know that vintage sewing patterns are an awesome way to recreate period perfect fashions, but - regardless of if you sew or not - have you ever stopped to just admire the beautiful illustrations and fantastic fashions that most vintage sewing pattern sleeves (the packaging that patterns are housed in) are adorned with? Time and time again I've been struck by how lovely these tiny works of art and have often thought how gorgeous they'd as framed art unto themselves. Sewing patterns captured the fashions of an era perfectly and are a truly invaluable source of vintage wardrobe inspiration to my mind (for oodles of vintage pattern inspiration, be sure to check out last week's post Forty fantastic sewing patterns under $40.).


1938 vintage calendar cover, 1930s art

Vintage calendar art: Then, as now, oodles of calendars were produced each year, many of which included excellent illustrations and photographs depicting the fashions of the day. Far beyond just pin-up girls, vintage calendars (and their covers) sometimes showed featured everything from people at the beach to Norman Rockwell illustrations, women in domestic scenes to families celebrating the holidays together, all of which can be fodder for vintage outfit ideas.



1939 Fifth Avenue Girl movie poster featuring Ginger Rogers

Vintage movie posters: I'd venture to guess that just about all of us pay close attention to the fashions that appear in the classic movies that we watch, but when was the last time you paused to study the clothing shown on vintage movie posters (and, in this day and age, DVD/Blue Ray covers)? Oftentimes vintage movie posters highlighted the stars of the film in the most iconic, beautiful or daring outfits that appeared in the movie itself, and can be a great way to inject some straight-from-Hollywood style into your outfit repertoire.


1940s three women and a dog portrait


Old family photo albums: If you've been following this blog for any amount of time, you'll likely know that I am a die-hard fan of real world vintage photographs. As much as I love seeing old snaps of celebrities, there's nothing quite like the relate-able qualities that come from seeing images of folks just like myself as they went about their lives a few decades ago. There is perhaps no better record of exactly what people wore during a given era than the photographs taken during those years, and should you happen to have any old family photos available to you, I cannot encourage you strongly enough to turn to them for vintage outfit inspiration. If you don't (or on top of the photos you have), be sure to check out posts here such as Saturday Snapshots, as well as websites like Flickr that are positively teaming with vintage family photos.




Vintage product packaging: Akin to movie posters, cookbooks, and calendars, vintage product packaging can often be a great source of fashion - and hairstyle! - inspiration. For example, vintage hair accessory packaging (such as that used for bobby pins and hair nets) often depicted women's heads (and sometimes part or all of their bodies, too) sporting absolutely beautiful hairstyles and ways to use said products. You needn't stick to just fashion related packaging however, remember to also soak up the images you see on everything from food packaging to record albums to household products. Anywhere a clothed figure is depicted, you have a potential source of inspiration!


{All images above are from Flickr. To learn more about a specific image, please click on it to be taken to its respective Flickr page.}


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It's easy - especially in this digital age where we're constantly bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands of different images each day, to see any number of the examples above, take them in for a split second, admire them, and then move on. Instead I encourage you to stop and truly study what you're looking at. Observe the woman (or women, or men, as the case may be) in the images before you and study her (or them) from top to bottom.

Look at her hat, her hair, her accessories, her garments, her hosiery, her shoes, and her make-up. Ask yourself what appeals (or, conversely, doesn't appeal) to you about her look. Do you have pieces in your closet already that you could use to recreate a similar outfit? Or, alternatively, if you're a sewer, would you be interested in creating such a look from scratch yourself? If you love an outfit (or hairstyle, make-up look, or single garment/accessory), would it be hard to track down something similar today either in the form of a original vintage, reproduction, or vintage appropriate piece?

Perhaps you like a look, but don't want to recreate it now, maybe you're tucking it away in your mind's inspiration file for future use and/or are studying it intently to help expand your general knowledge on a certain era. There is no wrong or right way to observe an image, but there is a way to help ensure it becomes engrained more deeply in your psyche and that it to truly spend 10, 20, 30 or more seconds studying that image and devoting it to memory.

This isn't to say, of course, that you must to treat every vintage image you come across like a book you need to memorize for a future test, goodness no, but rather a fun reminder of the marvelous power to help inspire and influence us that the vintage images around us have.

I hope that you enjoyed this list of seven wonderful sources of vintage wardrobe inspiration and that you'll share your favourites that haven't been mentioned here in the comment section. One can never, ever have too much inspiration on hand, so lets all pool our years of vintage experience and share those spots that fuel our vintage fires time and time again here.

35 comments:

  1. What great tips! I knew only two of them, and they've been very fertile for me (product ads and museum exhibits). Now I have new places to look. Thanks!

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  2. To emphasize one of your points, I find great inspiration looking at photos in local historical societies. They will display a photograph of a historic building, for example, but I will focus in on the ladies in the shot.

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    1. I'm an architectural historian and my colleagues have come to me on more than a few occasions to ask if I can help date a photograph by the clothes of the people pictured alongside the buildings/in the street! So I'm definitely with you on that tip - it's a great source, and you get lots of books now of towns "past and present" full of old pictures of people through the decades going about their business.

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  3. Great post! Yes, family photo albums are a wonderful source of inspiration! My Mom was quite a snappy dresser, AND she kept a lot of the good stuff! I find inspiration in her closet all the time. :D

    I agree with Kathleen, historical societies and smaller museums will have all sorts of great imagery at which to look. The stuff from Coney Island, the Tenement Museum (Lower East Side) and Staten Island History sites all have been fun and educational.

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  4. A great list - I never would have thought of vintage cookbooks for style inspiration!!!

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    1. I have a flyer for Asbestos tiles and the women in there look from around the 1940's, great clothes.

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  5. Great tips :) I find a lot of inspiration in vintage sewing patterns and vintage pattern magazines!

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  6. I love vintage calendar art and old patterns.
    Nice post, Jessica!

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  7. My nan had some beautiful dresses in the fifties, oh how I wish she still had them! But still, I have the photographs.

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  8. How fun! I've never thought of vintage cookbooks as an idea but you are right, they can be a great source. I know you have a few vintage cookbooks in your collection, will you make a post out of an idea from one of these cookbooks? This could be great fun:)) You know another cute source to get vintage wardrobe ideas from are comic books:)

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    1. Thank you, dear Joanna. Love your suggestion! Vintage comic books can be fabulous sources of fashion inspiration, too. I've always loved the outfits that Betty and Veronica wore in 1950s Archie comics, for example.

      Indeed, I have quite a few vintage cookbooks and booklets in my collection. I've always loved picking them up for a song when possible (yard sales very much included!). I should take a gander through them one of these days and see if any feature a lady wearing an outfit that I have similar pieces to so as to emulate her look. If I do, then you bet, I'll do a post about it.

      Big hugs!
      ♥ Jessica

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  9. Oh you are so clever! I love your list!!! xox

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  10. Great post! I definitely never thought of cookbooks as inspiration but now I'll always take a second look! LOVE!

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  11. What an interesting selection. I have a few vintage cookbooks and had not thought of using them in this way. I find knitting and sewing patterns useful for hair and make up ideas.

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    1. Thank you, dear lady! I completely agree! I'm not a knitter or crocheter myself, but I've often pinned (or prior to Pinterest, saved such images elsewhere) vintage knitting, crochet and sewing instructional booklet covers and images because the fashions and hairstyles on them are so wonderfully inspiring.

      ♥ Jessica

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  12. Love your list, Jessica!! I too find loads of inspiration from pattern covers and old family photos. Sometimes I see something my Grama wore and the wheels begin to turn...I wonder if I could make that???

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  13. Such a great list! I love to look at old family photos to get a feel for what "real" women were wearing versus the Hollywood starlets.

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  14. I LOVE that Ginger Rogers movie poster - I want her outfit...!

    Great ideas to turn to for vintage inspiration. I also find that adverts for things like cookers and bathroom suites in vintage magazines (1950s/1960s) give a great snapshot of the trends of the time.

    www.mancunianvintage.com

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  15. I adore the details and soak them up! I can watch an old movie over and over again, just for the details.

    :) Hope

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  16. what a great idea to search for inspirations in vintage cooking books! really really clever! and also the calendar art and movie posters! i love to collect them!
    kiss,mary

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  17. How funny, I had recently been thinking of doing a post like this myself. :) I love what you picked for your list. If only bobby pins still came in such pretty packaging...

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    1. Thank you, my dear! I know just what you mean, there have been numerous occasions over the years when I'd started brainstorming (or even just mulling over) an idea for a blog post, only to see someone else post about it shortly there after. No reason at all though why that should stop one from writing their own version. It's always great to see different peoples' take on the same topic.

      ♥ Jessica

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  18. Old records- they have great cover art!

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    1. Absolutely, Kim, wonderful addition to this list!

      ♥ Jessica

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  19. Lovely photos, Jessica. I really enjoy taking in vintage visuals for fashion inspiration, even If I'm not lucky enough to replicate the look with thrifted finds all the time. It's also interesting to note the idea of what's-old-is-new-again theme when it comes to fashion. I even flip through current fashion and beauty magazines and like to see how some of today's looks emulate stars of yesteryear. Some things just never go out of style.

    <3 Jackie @ Let's Go Thrifting!

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  20. This is definitely inspiring! I would love to go back in time just for a little while and wear all their fashions!

    www.trendinginfashion.blogspot.com

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  21. Such an inspiring and thoughtful post. While I do have an few of my aunts old home ecconomics text-books that I like to flip through every now and then I would not have thought of any of the other ideas. such a brilliant post!

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  22. These really are great. I've always liked packaging and film for fashion ideas. I'm still loving your 40's vintage pattern post!

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  23. I just found you, and oh what a fun blog! I'm your newest follower. It's so nice to meet another vintage lovin' blogger. I'm looking forward to going through all the old posts I've missed up till now.
    Hugs,
    Julie

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  24. Yes... in my case, family photos are my favorites.
    I usually end up wondering where that dress might have gone.. sigh.

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  25. Great post! Thanks for the great tips for vintage inspiration!

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  26. I really adore your sentiment. It's true, we really do have to exert more and more effort to concentrate our attention on a single image these days -- but it's so very worth it! There's tremendous reward in noticing the details. :)

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  27. Oh I love going through old family photos for fashion!My grandmother was very stylish in her day.

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  28. What a cool post, Jessica! I never thought of these ideas, and thanks for sharing. :) Vintage cookbooks are the best, and i now i'll pay more attention to the clothes in the pics!

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  29. Great post, as always. I love the cook book idea, I haven't thought of that. I also love vintage patterns, and have thought about scanning the lovely images and making a decorative collage in a huge frame, or resize them once scanned for a smaller frame. :)

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