Flickr Favourites: June 14, 2015

{1959 illustration by Paul C Burns ~ Totally Mystified}      
 


{Polka Dot Milkshakes ~ Jamie Anne}  


{Who's watching the movie? ~ Salty Cotton}  


{1950s smiling couple riding tandem bicycle built for two ~ Arnold Kabini}  


{1952 Dunlop ad ~ Totally Mystified}  


{Love Beach ~ Patrick Hayes}


{Montgomery Ward Summer 1959 catalog ~ Capricorn One Vintage}  


{Pink Dining ~ Salty Cotton}

  {For Young America at Play ~ Salty Cotton}  


{Kookie Vol 2 EP by Edd Byrnes ~ Totally Mystified}



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

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Like many vintage lovers, I count 1978's classic musical movie Grease amongst my favourite films of all-time, as well as one that had a powerful influence on my passion for the past as a youngster (another biggie was A League of Their Own, as I chatted about here way back in 2009). I can't help but think of this movie whenever the hottest season the year looms into sight again and often find myself singing or humming Summer Nights as it does.

While I'm not searching for a warm weather romance (I'm already blessed with to have found my boy, by which I mean, man, who is definitely "cute as can be!"), I do love the spirit of this hit song and how it makes me think not only to the season at hand, but to the countless times I watched Grease on VHS as a child. I knew it verbatim at one point and can still mouth most of the lines when I watch it these days.

Though one obviously looks at Grease with different eyes as an adult than they do as a poodle skirt wearing six year old who loved to dance and was nothing short of infatuated with the era (some things never change! :D), I still have a serious soft spot in my heart for this musical and make a point of catching it at least once a summer.

The images in this month's edition of Flickr Favourites are not specifically from, or relating to, Grease, but they all call to mind the same kind of feel good, toe tapping, happy-go-lucky take on the mid-twentieth century that this classic movie does. They're warm, fun, summery, and perpetually appealing, much like Sandy and Danny's ability to each break into the same song simultaneously while chilling with their respective group of friends.

I think that for just about all of us, whether we're big musical film fans in general or not, there is something about Grease that speaks to our souls as vintage lovers and that makes us yearn to spend at least a little time at Rydell High. For it there that a very idealized version of the fifties exists, no one says a word about the fact that the "teenagers" look like they're in their 30s, puppy love can turn into something so much more, and the sun is always shining right up until those Suuuuummmeeerrrrr Niiiiigggggtttttttssss roll around and anything suddenly seems possible so long as you want - and sing about - it enough! :)

The history of white buck shoes

Towards the end of last week we took a gander at classic mid-century schoolgirl inspired ensemble in the latest installment of Vintage Fashionista Friday. Today in the ongoing spirit of the return of classes for many this week, we're going to delve into the history of buck shoes, which were especially popular with students during the 1950s.

{Image source}

Though they were never (in no small part because of how tricky they were to keep pristine looking) quite as widely loved and worn as their similar looking cousins, saddle shoes, bucks were nevertheless one of the most commonly sported styles of shoes amongst the younger crowd during the mid-twentieth century.

Bucks, so named because they were sometimes made of made of buckskin (but more commonly suede), found a large following with male, and to a considerably lesser extent, female wearers, and though they were often seen on those in their high school and college years, they also had a fan base with snappily dressed gentlemen of almost all ages.

{Image source}

Though bucks were most commonly found in white, similar (if not identically styled) suede shoes were also a hit during the rocking days of the 1950s, when none other than Elvis Presley himself made blue suede shoes an immortal classic with his wildly successful 1956 song of the same name (which, interesting, was actually recorded first by Carl Perkins the year before, though it's Elvis' version that most people think of when picturing this toe-tapping tune).

Suede shoes could be found in a range of other colours as well, but ultimately it was white bucks that - despite being a significant challenge to keep clean - proved most popular, no doubt in part because of the fact that they were often sported by another successful singer (and teen heart-throb) of the era, Pat Boone.

{Image source}

So well known was Boone, in fact, for his passion for this particular type of footwear, that he was sometimes called The Kid in the White Bucks, and numerous images abound of him sporting an always immaculate pair of these sturdy white kicks.

Much like Pat Boone himself, white bucks carried with them a natural sort of ingrained air of being clean-cut, presentable and youthful. Looking back on the decade more than half a century later, it's anything but a stretch to say that in a way bucks represented the wholesome image that youth culture - and by extension society itself - was supposed to represent. Good kids who did they civic duties with a smile, went to every pep rally, and were keen on using words like "gosh" and "golly".

Though a certain percentage of the younger generation did indeed fit this mold, it was not representative of the all teenagers, and thus - fittingly, one might say - intentionally keeping your bucks scuffed and dingy during the 1950s was in fact seen a sign of rebellion in some circles.

Most people at least gave keeping their bucks looking ship-shape a fighting change though, often employing a pencil eraser to remove stains, followed by a good rub down with a moist towel, sponge or scrap of soft fabric, with especially persistent stains getting treated to a scrubbing using white vinegar (then, as now you call also buy a product called a Buck Bag, which is designed specifically to help keep your white bucks in tip-toe shape; here's a vintage example of a different brand, which was rather charmingly called a Bunny Bag.).

{Image source}

While bucks are most commonly associated with the 1950s, they sprang onto the scene earlier on in the century (for example, they appear above in this Regal shoe ad from the forties, complete with classic red rubber soles) and quickly grew to be associated with another (at least on the surface) clean-cut segment of the population: preppies (some of whom they remain a hit with to this day) and by extension, well-to-do college students.



{These particular bucks more mushroomy-grey than white, but the text in the ad makes it clear what kind of demographic they're appealing to all the same. Image source.}



Much akin to white attire frequently sported for activities like tennis and polo, the wearing of white bucks not-so-subtly implied that one wasn't about do anything with their day that was likely to soil their sparklingly pristine snow white footwear. They were, in that sense, the ideal casual shoe for the man or woman of leisure and means.



{For the kind of look an Astor would no doubt have approved of back in the day, pair your snazzy white bucks with argyle socks, as suggested in this vintage illustration. Image source.} 

Are bucks still on the market today? You betcha! Brands ranging from J. Crew to Cole Hann, L.L. Bean to Orvis have, and/or still do, produce white bucks, which really do make for a splendid choice of stylish summer footwear.

For those hoping to score the real mid-century deal, vintage pairs can still be found both online (etsy, eBay, etc) and off, though the fact that they were so tricky to keep clean means that you may have a harder time tracking down a pair than you would of saddle shoes from the same era.

As mentioned earlier (and highlighted by the images in this post), bucks were primarily a man's shoe, though one does occasionally see vintage pairs of lady's white bucks and bucks in white, brown and assorted other colours are still produced for women to this day (for example, I have a darling pair of vintage appropriate pale pink suede bucks that I bought in gently used condition on eBay a couple of years ago). By and large though, saddle shoes were much more common amongst teen and college aged gals during the 1930s through to the early 60s, when both styles of began to die down in popularity.

Though bucks may never again surge to the level of popularity they saw during the 1950s, they remain an endearing, classic footwear style of the era and one that works especially well if you're aiming to put together a vintage school fashion inspired ensemble.

Just make sure you pick up an extra pack or two of erasers if you do, so that you can keep your white bucks in as picture perfect condition as Pat Boone did his. :)

Of sleepovers past and a little more present

Much as remains the case to this very day, when I was a little girl I usually didn’t have a large group of close friends. Incredibly shy and introverted, I was anything but popular in my early school days. However, thankfully, I did make a handful of good friends over the years, each of whom I have very fond memories of sharing slumber parties with.

The first person I would define as my best friend was a cheerful, much more outgoing gal named Talia, whom I was very close with during grades 1-3 (I moved several hours away towards the end of grade 3, and though we stayed in touch for a while afterwards, the distance eventually dissolved our friendship).

While I did sometimes have birthday parties with friends and classmates as a youngster, once the festivities of the day had wrapped up, it was the evening that I most looked forward to, because I knew that it meant a sleepover for Talia and I would get to share a one-on-one party of our own

Under the sweltering heat of a bright July night we’d haul our sleeping bags into the backyard,  glasses of cream soda (my favourite pop) and bags of Cheeto Paws (both special occasion treats for me in a household where junk food was highly restricted most of the time) in hand we’d chat and giggle, share secrets, play mad libs, plan our future, count the stars, and listen to an orchestra of crickets mere feet away from our heads.

{Me and Talia, on the left in the colourful t-shirt, on my 8th birthday in July 1992. Yes, I was very, very short as a child. I adore how happy and full of energy we look here.}

With my birthday coming up once more in just three days, I can’t help but reflect fondly on memories of sleepovers – be they birthday ones with Tal or others enjoyed over the years with different friends, at their homes or my own – from my youth.

Slumber parties have always been a fantastic part of childhood, experienced by most all of us at least a few times (if not dozens or even hundreds, if you were a major social butterfly) throughout of life. Sometimes they may have involved just one friend, at others five, ten or more gals would gather together for a night of little sleep, movies, yummy food, games of truth or date, manicures, pillow fights, playing records (or CDs), building blanket forts, and repeatedly ignoring our parents’ instructions to "stop talking and go to sleep".
Sleep, after all, ironically, has never factored much into slumber parties. A point which is evident in the following series of vintage sleepover photographs captured by photographer Lisa Larseen for Life magazine back in 1954.
































{All images via Life magazine's photo archives.}  ♥ ♥ ♥

There is such a relatable, timelessly fun quality to these images of teenage girls having a blast as they whittle away the hours of the night, doing just about everything but sleeping – well, for most of the evening at least!
I’m grateful for my childhood friends and the nights such as these that we shared. Now, mere days away from turning 28, I’d love nothing more than to gather all of my vintage loving blogging friends together for a celebration of our own.

As that’s not possible though, I hope you’ll join me in the jubilant spirit of sleepover goers everywhere and imagine we’re all gathering together in our favourite vintage jammies with as much junk food, mad libs, and classic movies we can possibly cram into one night of awesome slumber party fun.