So often with fun online tags or other types of Q&A posts that catch on and spread like wildfire, they've been passed from blog to blog for so long that one would be extremely hard pressed to find their original source. Not so with the Antique, Vintage, and Retro Nevers Q & A that my very dear friend (and immensely talented sewer) Inky from On Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax created a little earlier this year.
She was inspired to create this series of questions (and answers) based on things in the vintage (et al) world that she would likely never do. I thought this was such a fun, original spin on a set of questions that are designed to help your readers get to know you better. As such, I knew instantly that I wanted to try my hand at answering her original set of eight questons as well and am delighted to have a chance to do so today.
So without, further ado, may I present my answers to Inky's great Antique, Vintage, and Retro Nevers questions.
1. What is one antique/vintage/retro item you’d never want to receive as a gift or would never think of purchasing?
Anything directly tied to the Nazi regime of WW2. I believe that it's very important to preserve such items from a historical and cultural standpoint and do not take issue with those that collect them (assuming they're not neo-nazis or the like themselves), but it's something that I would absolutely not feel comfortable owning myself.
2. What are three movies made in pre-70's Hollywood you've never seen and want to see?
Ooohhh, there are so many! To the best of my memory, I don't believe that I've yet seen 1941's The Devil and Mrs. Jones, 1946's Gilda, or 1954's The Barefoot Contessa. Catching any or all of those three would be a blast!
3. What are three movies made in pre-70’s Hollywood you've seen and will never watch again?
This is genuinely hard, as there aren't many old movies that I didn't enjoy - if only for the fashions and hairstyles involved. Honestly, I'm not sure. Sorry!!! I guess I'm every director's dream critic! :D
4. What is one antique/vintage/retro item you own, but never imagined you would?
My complete and total dream 1940s style tilt hat, created for me by wildly talented Australian milliner, Tanith Rowan.
5. What is one thing you do relating to vintage you never pictured yourself doing?
Very good question, there are definitely a few things that fall into this camp, but believe it or not given the abundance of out outfit posts here in recent years, when I began blogging, I was still way too shy and self-conscious to put my picture online (very often at least).
It took about three years of solid blogging and feeling at home in the vintage community, as well as growing and maturing as a person, before I reached a place where I was able to stand in front of the lens and more over share the end results of doing so with all of you (assuming, at least, that Tony is the person behind the camera! Though I'd totally let a kitty take my photo, too! :D). I'm so thankful that I reached this point because I know that it's helped to enrich my blog and my life itself a great deal.
6. If you could never dress outside a specific decade of the past again, what decade would you choose?
I'm going to play fast and loose with the definition of a decade being a ten year period and say, as I have many a time before, that without a doubt, I would select the years spanning the launch of Dior's immensely famous New Look silhouette in 1947 to ten years later 1957. This period in time is such an incredibly rich, vibrant, elegant one for fashion and it has spoken to my sartorial soul since I was a small child.
7. What is one thing you could never bring yourself to do to an antique/vintage/retro item?
Knowingly do anything to damage a perfectly good (intact) vintage item. I usually won't even have my vintage garments altered in the slightest way because I just can't bring myself to "hurt" anything that has survived in its present shape for this long. I don't chide those that do, of course, and know that this is a hot button issue for many in the vintage world, but again, it's just not something that I'm personally down with when it comes to my own vintage items.
8. Is there an antique/vintage/retro item you own that you would never give up?
Any of the small number of true vintage items, such as the gorgeous c. early 1940s crepe dress that I chatted about not too long ago here, that belonged to my own family members. These pieces have been with us for generations now and I hope that I can pass them along to the next one, too. (Note: That photo is not of my own relatives, I just really liked it because it showed multiple generations of the same family all in one image).
{To learn more about a specific image, please click on it to be taken to its respective source.}
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Thank you very much for creating this delightful, creative set of questions, Inky. I hope that others will take both our leads and blog about their own answers, too. If you do, by all means feel free to share the link to your post here with me and over on Inky's blog with her as well.
Tell, my dears, what are some "vintage nevers" in your books? What questions might you ad to this list? And, conversely, what are some of your "vintage alwayses"?
