Vintage Link Love: June 2014

After several years of blogging experience, I can tell you with complete certainty that there are two times of the year in particular, more than any other, when the internet turns into a bit of a ghost town. One is Christmas (as discussed in this 2012 post), the other is the start of summer, with a general reduction in the amount of activity seen on the blogging front throughout the duration of the season.

My online availability most often boils down to the state of my health, not the weather, so I wouldn't say that I go MIA quite as much as some folks come June, but even I've been known to spend more time offline when the mercury is skyrocketing well past 30C, there's an absolute abundance of things to do outside, and my sandals seem to be all but beckoning me to slip them on and hit the warm pavement.

{Glam and glorious, summer is a time for getting outdoors, shaking off the last vestiges of winter's heavy mood, and painting the town red, as they say! Image source.}

It's extremely important, perhaps in ways that with the internet and its impacts on peoples' lives still being so relatively new (in the grander scheme of human history, I mean) we haven't even fully realized or acknowledged yet, to spend time offline, doing all the sorts of wonderful things our ancestors, as well as most of us ourselves in our younger days, did before the web came along, and rarely does that ring more true than when summer is here in all its sun drenched glory.

That said however, most of us still spend some time, perhaps even a lot of time, online during the roasty-toasty months, myself included, and while we're here, it's wonderful to have some engaging stories and blog posts to fill our time with. To cap off June, I've wrangled up twelve diverse, enjoyable, and informative links that I hope you'll enjoy whether you're reading them on a tablet at the beach, your laptop in the backyard, your desktop at work, your phone on the go, or anywhere else you happen to find yourself as we dig our heels into the hot sand at the beach and gear up for what promises to be another awesome summer!

♥ Quick Tutorial: Do you do the moon? (Half moon manicure): In recent years, amongst both vintage and contemporary fashionistas alike, the half moon manicure has seen a steady rise in popularity once again. Most instructions for creating this elegant look yourself call for the use of binder ring circle stickers, nail tape, or similar products, but not this easy-as-pie, flat out fabulous how-to that Bex shared recently. One read and, if you're like me (I find the adhesive in most stickers and nail tape gives my sensitive skin a rash), you'll never go back to doing your half moon manis any other way again.


♥ What If Famous Paintings Were Photoshopped to Look Like Fashion Models? (*Warning may not be safe for work*): In a post that does a superb visual job of illuminating just how much our general perceptions of beauty and body size have changed over the decades, this piece highlights several immensely famous paintings and alters the women in them to have figures that are more akin to those of today's super models. While I do adamantly believe that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, I for one much prefer the original versions of these pieces and wish that our culture would keep a more open mind when it comes to the unbeatable loveliness of a womanly figure like those in the original versions of these timeless masterpieces.


♥ Cecil Beaton: costume balls and country house decadence from the 1920s to the 1970s: Unquestionably one of the most successful fashion photographs of the twentieth century, Cecil Beaton shot for the likes of Vogue and Vanity Fair and produced thousands upon thousands of incredible, beautiful, and strikingly appealing images during the span of his lengthy career, including several especially swanky and glamorous ones that are highlighted in this photo filled piece from British newspaper, The Telegraph.






♥ Don't believe everything you see: It's not everyday I read something online that I would, no joke, rise to my feet and wholeheartedly applaud, so when this stellar, spot on post from Daffny over at A Vintage Nerd elicited that very response in me, I knew that I'd be sharing in come the end of this month. Delving into a topic that doesn't get a fraction of the blogging press coverage that it should, this fantastic post is an important reminder of why we should curb our negative feelings, envy very much included, of other people that we see and interact with on the web.


♥ How the Cold War Shaped the Design of American Malls: Ever wonder how and why many American (and, I'd venture to guess, by extension, Canadian) malls of the last century came to look and be laid out the way they are? Well, whether you have or haven't, if you're a history buff, I'd venture to guess that you'll get an informative kick out of reading this cool post on the subject from Curbed (which I discovered via my dear friend Janey, aka the Atomic Redhead, who posted it on Facebook recently).


♥ Deadly Victorian Fashions: This article, from acclaimed Canadian news magazine Maclean’s, takes an engrossing and educational - gander at some of the frighteningly dangerous fashions that our Victorian foremothers subjected themselves to all in the name of looking chic and trendy.




♥ Vanity Unfair -- What's Up With Modern Sizing?: By way of the blog over at fantastic vintage clothing seller Better Dresses Vintage's site comes a thought provoking, well written, and highly engaging piece that focuses on the absurdity of vanity sizes and how it relates to the modern woman today. Anyone who has ever wondered why you're closet has three to five different 21st century sizes in it is sure to appreciate and find themselves nodding along the whole time in agreement with this terrific post.


♥ Career advice from Linkedin's founder Reid Hoffman: Though he wrote it with college and university graduates in mind, the extremely helpful and encouraging advice laid out in this PowerPoint style slide presentation from Linkedin's founder Reid Hoffman is amongst the best I've ever read on the topic. By the end of the 113 slides in this presentation, it was all I could do to hold back the tears, because I truly felt like so much of what this wise man said resonated deeply with me, a new business owner, as I navigate the ups and downs and many exciting new challenges of running my Etsy shop. Regardless of where you're at in your educational and/or professional life, this is a must read for one and all.


♥ 7 Iconic Hairstyles That Endure Time: From Twiggy's famous pixie to Jane Birkin's bangs, Harper's Bazaar rounds up and takes a quick peak at seven hairstyles that are both beautiful unto themselves and for their timelessly lovely staying (and styling!) power.




♥ Why You Should Make An Effort To Look Your Best Every Day: Recently Lottie Ryan, a fellow vintage lover and chronic illness fighter, launched an important new website called Who’s That Lady?, the aim of which is to encourage, support, and help women from the around the world continue to feel good about themselves and their appearance, even when battling serious health problems of all sorts. Though geared towards this demographic, Lottie's writing is detailed, fluid and upbeat, and is sure to find favour with those who are blessed to have good health as well.

I've lapped up and very much enjoyed each caring, thoughtful post Lottie has written so far and found that this one about the importance of trying to look your best every day jumped out at me in particular, as its core message is one that I've tried my best to put into practise as often as possible every day of my life, but even more so since becoming chronically ill twelve years ago. If you or a loved one is a chronic illness and/or disability warrior, I can't encourage you strongly enough to checkout and share Lottie's excellent new site.


♥ How to make ric-rac rose jewelry: I, like many people, adore a great craft that doesn't take oodles of supplies or advanced skills to make and which can help bolster our wardrobe once its complete. The immensely beautiful, timelessly stylish, and just plain fun ric-rac rose jewelry in this post from Australian blogger Bonita of Lavender and Twill delivers on all those fronts and will have you making a made dash for your sewing notion stash on the double!


♥ In Living Color: The Forgotten 19th-Century Photo Technology that Romanticized America: From the fine folks at Collector's Weekly, one of my favourite sites on the web, bar none, comes a detailed, educational, and highly appealing look at some of the earliest forms of colour photographs (such as Photochroms and Phostints), which will have you feeling almost as though you've stepped back in time and are really experiencing the world as it really was in colour back during the nineteenth century.

{All images throughout the list of links above come by way of the post that they are displayed directly beneath the write up of here. Please follow the links provided to learn more about these images.}

♥ ♥ ♥

Tomorrow is Canada Day, the birthday of my nation's confederation (all the way back in 1867), and a grand celebration from coast to shining coast. Four days later, my lovely neighbours south of the 49th celebrate their country's founding anniversary as well, and then just six days after that, my own birthday rolls around on July 10th. On top of these three important and fun filled events, this is a month that's teeming with excitement, activity, and enjoyment, both online and off, and one that would be my very favourite for the year, were it not for October, which holds that grand title.

There are scads of simple pleasures that are not to be overlooked during the seventh month of the year as well, from chasing down the ice cream truck to sitting outside on a sublimely warm night and counting the stars to the pulsating energy that fills this season, baked in golden light and the scent of sunscreen. I'm extremely happy that July is here and look forward to delighting in countless wonderful elements of this time of the year with you here in the weeks to come.

Here’s wishing you each an amazing, beautiful, and endlessly fun filled July, my dear friends!!!

*PS* 

IT'S SALE TIME!!! 

Have you heard? To celebrate Canada Day, the 4th of July and my own birthday (on July 10th) everything in my Etsy shop is currently on sale for 25% off! All prices have been marked down already to reflect this discount, so there's no need to worry about coupon codes. Happy vintage shopping!!

Vintage clothing sizing 101

Over the years one of the most frequently asked questions that I've received from those who are just starting to get into vintage fashion, or who have begun buying vintage clothing but don't have a lot of experience with it is, how come vintage sizes are a lot bigger than those today? Often followed quickly by, why am I such a larger size in vintage clothing then I am when I buy modern clothes?

These are excellent questions and today this post is going to answer both, as well as to explain a bit of the history behind ladies clothing sizing.

One of the most common misconceptions about vintage sizing - which, for the sake of this post, is going to focus primarily on the sizing applied to garments between the the years of approximately 1930 and 1960 - is that women in the past must have been a lot larger than your average woman today. This simply was not the case at all, and in fact, the average lady today is both taller and wider than than her mid-century counterpoint.

Then, as now, however, women come in all kinds of wonderful shapes and sizes, and there has been clothing designed to (ideally) fit them right off the rack. Ready made, as known as ready-to-wear, clothing, complete with sizes tags, emerged from the industrial revolution as factory began to churn out millions of mass market garments, thus freeing many people from having to choice between either making their own clothing at home or turning to a tailor or seamstress for their garments.

Whereas today's ladies clothing size scale starts as zero or two, depending on the brand, in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, most clothes intended for adult women started their sizing off at eight, ten or twelve, not zero (or, as has even emerged in recent years, “subzero” or “00” sizing).

There was no size zero for adults during this time period, and it is only as the decades have progressed and clothing manufactured gradually lowered the size number applied their garments (wherein keeping the actual measurements of the garments themselves about the same as they'd always been) that single digit clothing sizes became the norm for adult many women.

While there are no hard and fast rules (especially as clothing size numbers continue to drop as measurements remain the same - a practise which is known in the fashion industry as vanity sizing), generally speaking, garments from the 1930s-1950s are sized double plus or minus one or two sizes than what the same garment, manufactured and labelled by a company today, would be. For example, a dress from the 1950s with a size 18 tag would likely fit a woman today who wears a modern size eight or ten.

Case in point, when it comes to modern garments (produced in the last decade), I wear anything from a size a North American 3/4 to a size 8/9, with sizes four on top and six on the bottom being the most common (or, if working off of a small, medium, large, etc scale, an extra small to a large, with small and medium occurring most often in my closet).

With vintage garments from the 1940s and 50s, I typically wear a size 14, 16, or occasionally an 18 (with size 16 being the one which graces the most tags in my vintage wardrobe). Then, as now, even sized garments (12, 14, 16, etc) were more common, but some brands used uneven sizes (9, 11, 13, 15, and so on), especially those targeted towards, petite women, women who wore "half sizes", and plus sized ladies.

As there is almost no consistency between brands when it comes to sizing today (there was some variance in past, too, but not as much as nowadays), your best bet, without a doubt, is to disregard the size number on a vintage tag and instead work off of measurements (this particularly true if you're buying clothing online and thus can't try it on in person first before purchasing).

Believe me when I say that, regardless of if you wear vintage or modern clothing (or a mix of both), one of the best things you can ever do for yourself is to pay little to no attention to tag sizes when it comes to quickly judging if a garment will fit you or not. Such numbers are incredibly arbitrary and should never influence how a person feels about themselves either.

Instead of striving to be a certain size, channel your efforts in to finding garments that truly fit you properly. The best and most important way to do this is to know your measurements. I highly recommend that you periodically measure yourself at various key points on your body and keep a list of those measurements with you when shopping (back in December 2011 I detailed how to do just that in a post called The list of clothing measurements I never leave home without).




{Measurements are your best bet when it comes to ensuring that you find the best fitting vintage garment. Do not rely merely on size numbers listed on clothing tags. Image source.}


Any online vintage clothing seller worth their salt should always include key measurements in their listings. Generally, depending on the garment, these will include bust, waist, and hips. Other measurements may include overall length, shoulder to waist length, waist to hemline length, sleeve length, neck circumference, back width, and inseam. If you come across a garment online that doesn't include these measurements, but instead just a size number, be sure to ask the seller to provide details on the actual sizing.

Just as I might wear a vintage size 16 and a modern size six, so too am I different size in the 70s, 80s and sometimes even the 90s, as clothing sizes continued to change throughout those decades (for example, I have 1980s dresses that range in size from 4 to 12, with size ten being the most common for me).

Measurements are always what matter most. A label could say size 739, if it wanted to, and if it fit me comfortably and was flattering, I'd happily buy that garment. I do not put any stock into tag sizes and never let a bigger tag size determine how I feel about myself, so long as I'm presently happy with my weight (and even if, for whatever reason, I'm not, I still try not to let sizing bring me down at all).

Once you know your measurements, you'll likely figure out that there's a small range of one to three vintage sizes that work well for you (for example, if you're very svelte, you may wear a vintage size 8, 10 or 12, whereas most ladies will likely wear larger sizes, ranging from 12 to 22 or higher) and that you'll naturally gravitate towards these sizes (just as you would with modern sizes) when shopping for vintage clothes, whether online or in person.

Another point to keep in mind about vintage clothing sizes is that some companies produced different size ranges that were based off of different measurements. For example, throughout the mid-twentieth century, Sears often released the same garment in one or more of its most common size ranges: Juniors (designed for the slender teenage figure), Misses (average adult sizes), Half sizes (designed for women who were 5'3" and under and/or were of average height but fell between two even numbered clothing sizes), and Women's sizes (designed for plus sized gals).

For the most part, you really don't need to pay much attention to such terms, as they usually accompanied a size number as well. The one notable exception to this would be Women's sizes, which didn't progressively continue on from Misses sizes, as plus sizes do from smaller/average sizes today. Instead they often started at 38 and went up indefinitely from there (with 38 or 40 to 50 or 52 being a somewhat common size range). Again though, please don't worry about these numbers! You'll be using your own measurements when you shop for vintage garments and will simply be trying to find clothes that are as close as possible to those.

For those who may be curious, the following is a list - copied directly from the pages of a 1955 Sears catalog - that details the measurements, in inches, for the brand's Misses size range:


Size 10: 32.5 bust, 24.5 waist, 34 hips

Size 12: 34 bust, 25.5 waist, 36 hips

Size 14: 35.5 bust, 27 waist, 38 hips

Size 16: 37 bust, 28.5 waist, 40 hips

Size 18: 39 bust, 30.5 waist, 42 hips

Size 20: 41 bust, 32.5 waist, 44 hips


There is such an incredible variation in sizing between modern clothing manufacturers, that there's little use in showing you a similar size chart from one of today's brands. That isn't to say that each brand doesn't (in theory) stick to set of measurements across all of the garments they produce, many do, I just mean that this set of measurements is not shared universally between all clothing manufacturers. I suspect that just about everyone reading this post is familiar with how, when shopping for modern clothes, you can be one size in certain brand and a very different size in another (this is true almost no matter where in the world you buy your modern clothing from these days).

Vintage clothing sizes do not have to be a mystery at all, nor should someone ever feel deterred from wearing a vintage garment because the label says a size that it much bigger than the modern size they wear. One only has to hold up a size 16 dress from the 1950s to know that it's not a big garment in the slightest. In all likelihood, it will best fit a modern women who wears anything from a (North American) size four to a size eight or ten, depending on her personal measurements. But truly, there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to converting vintage sizes to modern ones or vice versa, and so once more, I must stress the importance of working off of your measurements.

These can certainly change over time to due to fluctuations in weight, but if you have a 38" bust today, you're likely going to fit into a garment with a 38" or 40" bust (assuming the seller measured the garment accurately), it's as simple, easy, and even fun as that. Once you know your measurements and have a decent idea of which vintage sizes fit you best, you can set about shopping for yesteryear clothing with much, much more easy and enjoyment.

Instead of flipping through a rack of garments that all have sizes such as 14, 16, 18, and 20 and thinking (erroneously) that they're all too big for you, you can instead (assuming one of those corresponds to your measurements) reach for your size and try it on in person, or buy it online (so long as the measurements stated in the listing will work for your body).

I may have touched on this point before in a past post, but it warrants bringing up again and is a very topical example to cap this post off with. It's often said that Marilyn Monroe, who was indeed famous for her va-va-voom curves, wore anything from a size 12 to 16. People often then rush to hold her up as a shinning beckon of plus sized beauty and body type because of this.

However, such folks are misguided because while Marilyn did in fact wear such sizes, they were vintage size 12s, 14s and 16s, not modern ones. If they were modern ones, she would fall into the lower end of the plus size scale, but again, they’re vintage sizes, which are equivalent to much smaller numbers today. As many of our own do, over the years Miss Monroe's weight fluctuated, but generally speaking, if she was alive (and the same size as she was back then) today, Marilyn would wear anything from a modern size 2 to a size 8 or even a 10, just depending on where she was buying her clothes.

By the same token, so too will your vintage size(s) differ from your modern ones. It would be virtually impossible for anyone who wears a size 16 in modern clothing to comfortably fit into a vintage size 16 and vice versa. You're not looking to match like to like, you're trying to find garments that fit you properly, and a list of your measurements is the key to making that happen.

So go out there, measurements in hand, and have a blast knowing that your vintage size is not the same as your modern one, and that such is exactly the same for everyone else on the planet! Fit, not size, is what truly counts, no matter if you're shopping for modern clothing or filling your wardrobe with nothing but vintage garments.