OK, I won't post anymore beautiful dresses that I don't wear. I will wear them and remix them from here on out (although not exclusively). This last dress was my reception dress at our wedding this past March. As you can tell, it was a vintage and uber casual affair. I got this (and my wedding dress) on Etsy for about $26, and I purposely picked out something that could be worn casually after the wedding. There is nothing wrong with this dress (other than the fact it's from a vintage pattern or is actually vintage, and the waist is 1" above my natural waist, but it still fits). The pleats are beautiful, the skirt full and so of-the-moment midcentury, and the color easy to coordinate.
Just for fun, I tried on the vintage crinoline with this dress. It's very cute, but is it wearable outside of a theme party? I am not one of those amazing vintage ladies who can rock victory curls, ruby lips and still look contemporary with their reproduced looks, like the great Gertie. But I tried anyway:
I don't feel like a Peggy or a Betty, despite the pearls and the crinoline. I think it's cute, but it looks off to me. And I realized why. Not to be too racially over-deterministic, but while there were plenty of people of color around in the 1950s, I associate strong midcentury looks with white-Americans. I know that plenty of people all over the world wore these styles, but somehow anything before the late 1960s/early 1970s feels a bit off on me (except hippie and some mod stuff, which I think has been mainstreamed a lot). With laws like the Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924, there weren't loads of folks who looked like me here in the states, until the passing of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. For some reason, 1940s styles don't make me feel this way, but that is probably because of the 1940s revivals in the 1970s.
But this is just an impression I have, and it doesn't reflect empirical evidence. There were thriving Chinatowns, significant populations of Japanese, Filipino, and other Asian American communities in the United in the midcentury.
What do you think about vintage looks, accessibility, and race? I am not sure what my discomfort is from, because I like prairie looks a lot, and I am pretty sure no one looked me in the midwest prairie in the turn of the century (although Little House was pretty popular in Korea, according to my parents).
Hope you have a lovely Friday!
Edit: Thanks to Liz of Scholar Style Guide for the heads up on this threadbared post, which deals with this issue much more succinctly!
Dress: handmade vintage, via Etsy
Shoes: BC Footwear, via Nordstrom Rack, and Tahari, via Ebay
Belt: thrifted
Pearls: vintage, via etsy
Cardigan: Limited, thrifted
Just for fun, I tried on the vintage crinoline with this dress. It's very cute, but is it wearable outside of a theme party? I am not one of those amazing vintage ladies who can rock victory curls, ruby lips and still look contemporary with their reproduced looks, like the great Gertie. But I tried anyway:
I don't feel like a Peggy or a Betty, despite the pearls and the crinoline. I think it's cute, but it looks off to me. And I realized why. Not to be too racially over-deterministic, but while there were plenty of people of color around in the 1950s, I associate strong midcentury looks with white-Americans. I know that plenty of people all over the world wore these styles, but somehow anything before the late 1960s/early 1970s feels a bit off on me (except hippie and some mod stuff, which I think has been mainstreamed a lot). With laws like the Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924, there weren't loads of folks who looked like me here in the states, until the passing of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. For some reason, 1940s styles don't make me feel this way, but that is probably because of the 1940s revivals in the 1970s.But this is just an impression I have, and it doesn't reflect empirical evidence. There were thriving Chinatowns, significant populations of Japanese, Filipino, and other Asian American communities in the United in the midcentury.
What do you think about vintage looks, accessibility, and race? I am not sure what my discomfort is from, because I like prairie looks a lot, and I am pretty sure no one looked me in the midwest prairie in the turn of the century (although Little House was pretty popular in Korea, according to my parents).
Hope you have a lovely Friday!
Edit: Thanks to Liz of Scholar Style Guide for the heads up on this threadbared post, which deals with this issue much more succinctly!
Dress: handmade vintage, via Etsy
Shoes: BC Footwear, via Nordstrom Rack, and Tahari, via Ebay
Belt: thrifted
Pearls: vintage, via etsy
Cardigan: Limited, thrifted
I love this dress, it's so pretty and it looks so nice on you! I think the crinoline is great but if it makes you uncomfortable, don't do it.
ReplyDeleteWhat a gorgeous dress! I'm so glad that you're wearing it post-reception! Is it just me or does crinoline make you itch and sweat? That's why I sadly can't wear it on a bi-weekly basis in reality like I can in my fantasy world (where I also have tenure and Bailey no longer has separation anxiety).
ReplyDeleteI don't really have racial views on looking retro--I think that the 70s work really well with your build, and so it makes sense to gravitate towards them, but I also think that the 1950s work well. If you are concerned about the accuracy of the look, as you pointed out, plenty of people got here pre-1924. It is also true that Western styles were being worn all over the world, and certainly in places like Tokyo post-WWII or Hong Kong.
ReplyDeleteAll of that is me saying, I think you are fine, I think the dress is lovely, and I am thinking about a post on feeling costume-y that might address the crinoline. I think it looks great, but I would not be able to bring myself to do it.
If I saw you walking down the street in this, I would not assume you were on your way to a theme party. Both looks are great, though the second is more consciously retro than the other.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the best things about retro is its inherent sense of play. With the second outfit, the playfulness of old looks worn in new ways comes out in contrast: between more masculine brogues and a feminine silhouette, between your contemporary hairstyle and the overall retro look. To me, that playfulness creates accessibility, especially if you think of retro (as I obviously do) as more about reference than accuracy.
I love this dress, with and without the crinoline. The color, the print, everything is so subtle and yet so wonderful.
ReplyDeleteDude, how did I miss your wedding post? I'd been craving these kinds of pictures, so thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAlso, are you not posting more beautiful dresses that you never wear because there are no more to post, or are you doing so because you (mistakenly) think you're boring us? If it's the latter, then I say keep 'em coming - then we can enjoy when you remix later.
And finally, I like what KellyBean said about being referential with one's retro looks. And you are referencing like nobody's business here, and looking awesome in the process.
Also (finally, for real): is Buster bounding into the shot there? 'Cause he looks like he's on his way in. Is he a ham?
This dress looks great on you, and I like your wedding dress. The cat in the bottom of the last picture is cracking me up.
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed seeing the dresses that you don't wear, since most of them are very cute.
Rad - I'm ringing in, again, because I forgot to respond to the race part of your question. It was interesting to read your thoughts about how you imagine white Americans when you think of retro looks like this one. After my time in Japan - and until Mad Men came along and switched things up, again - I tended to think of Asian persons, first, when I imagine fashion from the 50s and 60s. I do so because of the 50s/60s-ish gender roles so many of my students there performed. And I do so because so many of the ad's there made me.
ReplyDeleteOn the history front, Canada's got its own crappy legacy of crap treatment of the Asian peeps. 'Head taxes, WWII internment camps, and what have you.
Oh Rad. I don't think anything about vintage looks and race. I never thought about it until you brought it up. I'm looking at your first photo and I'm thinking, "oh great dress, I love it on her". Then the next, "Oh, an added crinoline. I like it. That's really cool. I bet she is having fun with that." Yep, that's what I'm thinking when I saw your photos.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, they are just clothes, and clothes are fun.
p.s. I feel off in anything hippie-ish, or tye-dyed, or fringed. It's not me, at all, and I would feel wrong wearing these items. Does that have anything to do with the "off" feeling?
p.p.s. I'd wear the dress with a jean jacket too.
p.p.p.s. I loved the wedding photos. My wedding was an equally simple affair. I will post my ring tomorrow.
@Melissa: Thanks. I am trying to muster the nerve to get use out of the crinoline.
ReplyDelete@LHdM: It is a bit hot and itchy. Perhaps I'll consider it again for an outing in tights weather?
@AFtK: Yes, it must just be a weird personal association, because those church girls look rocking in their 50s era clothes, right? I'd love to hear your thoughts on vintage/retro and costumey
@KB: Wow, what an analysis of the look. I wasn't even aware of the contrast but you are totally right on.
@PM: Thank you! I definitely need to wear this more, maybe even in the classroom.
@Rebecca: Thanks, I hope to remix them into cute looks
@A-Dubs: I don't think I have too many more that I haven't worn yet, and I can't wait to remix them. Also, that is Buster's head, although it looks like Lula's too! Also, I forgot about the radical appropriations of Japanese street wear. They are so cool. I never thought about how certain era looks get strongly incorporated into various fashion subcultures, but I like it.
@SU: Good to hear your thoughts about race and retro/vintage looks. It doesn't stop me, but it gives me pause for thought. Maybe there are just certain eras that we like more? I think you don't like hippie looks because you're very chic and elegant, and there's not much elegant about fringe (although it can look smashing on the right lady).
And thanks to those who like the wedding pictures!
Oh my gosh how did I not see the wedding pictures? Awesome. And hurrah for your thrifty non-trad. weddin' We did much the same - We spent only the money for the certificate and headed up to south lake tahoe to get married in the snow- just as we left we chapel it began to snow. It couldn't have been any more perfect if we had spent tons of $$. I'm sure you feel the same : ) I like that you borrowed from Quaker tradition and that you both had vintage threads: )
ReplyDeleteAs for retro- looks and race. It's not something I've thought about much. Wish that I had some pictures of my grandma in her 50's and 60's clothes...
Rad, do you know the blog Fashion for Writers? (fashionforwriters.com) Jenny and Meggy regularly wear vintage ensembles and tackle issues much like the one you raise here both implicitly and explicitly. The ladies at Threadbared shared their thoughts on the FFW blog here (http://iheartthreadbared.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/in-vintage-color/) and as a reader of both blogs, I really strongly identified with Mimi's statement that "To me, it feels like Meggy renders visible the historical absence of Asians and Asian Americans in American popular culture as fashionable bodies –and through fashion as contemporaneous bodies– and also “corrects” this absence in referencing those bodies we know also lived then and there, and in doing so creating another archive through which we might imagine otherwise."
ReplyDeleteI enjoy seeing vintage looks on non-white women precisely because this is something we haven't been given access to seeing in the mainstream media before, and I've quoted Mimi here because she puts this feeling into words more eloquently than I've ever been able to do. As you say, there were Asian and Asian American bodies wearing these clothes, but if we don't think of them when we think of these styles, its because their participation in fashion (and culture overall, but that's a bigger conversation) has been kept out of the historical archive and thus, kept from those of us living and dressing in 2010.
Nothing about this look seems "off" to me, and if that's because I've been reading threadbared and FFW devotedly for months, we can begin to imagine the powerful work that blogs (and fashion) can do. Right?
-Liz
Wow. 'Some great stuff in the comment above. Also, Rad, I, too, forgot about the radical appropriations of Japanese street wear! I was thinking of my mostly adult EAL students, the housewives, "ground hostesses," and female office workers, as well as the married and single "salarymen" I saw every day for a year and a half. So much of what these very interesting people said about their lives and the strictly gendered social and professional roles they performed reminded me of what I'd come to think of a the stereotypical post-WWII neo-Victorian culture/s that emerged int the '50s and '60s across North America. They reminded me so much, in fact, that the people who wore those crinolined shirtwaists and straight gray suits and who lived lives of quiet desperation augmented by cigarettes and lots of booze (somehow, I always imagine housewives especially as closet alcoholics) in my mind's eye became Asian.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to say that I know next to nothing about Korean and/or Korean American cultures. Do you know if they are as strictly gendered and classed as the Japanese?
@La Fille, thanks, I'd love to see a post on your wedding if you've done one already (or if you do one in the future). It sounds lovely
ReplyDelete@Liz: Wow, thank you for all those great ideas. And for the links. I haven't had a chance to fully read them but they look really interesting. And what a powerful thought. I do think that the style blog world is generally limited to other bloggers, and definitely the intellectual/critical ones tend to be less read, but it's still a great thought.
@A-Dubs, actually thinking about it, that's probably been my experience with a pretty significant section of Korean culture, and Korean-American culture to some extent. But I only grew up in little pockets of Korean immigrant communities, not in huge ones like LA or NY, where I imagine there would be more diversity. But gendered norms are pretty important, even though high achievement (for both genders) is too.
There's something about hanging out in the business district in Seoul that is very Western old school. Men in groups smoking cigarettes, women in tailored pencil skirts, and housewives with gold chains and make up. But there's also alot of irony and diversity too, especially in the circles I ran in. There were crinolined dresses there, worn both ironically and non-ironically. But since my social circles there were academic and radicals, I didn't pay much attention.
So, can I accurately guess that you were part of the Canadian official college loan repayment program in Japan?
Oh, Rad, I cannot wait to meet you in person! Also, yes, that would be an accurate guess. It might actually be the law now that everyone must go.
ReplyDeleteOh I am late to the party. And I still love your reception dress and those shoes. Sometimes I dream about your shoes. I have a shoe problem.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fascinating discussion and I don't think I can add much to it. Though I do wonder about the reverse cultural fashion appropriation (not that I think you are "appropriating" anything with this look, Rad. As you point out, it "belongs" to Asian Americans as much as it does to non-Asian Americans). I've never worn a hanbok, or a sari, or any other culturally specific dress, mostly because I've never had occasion to but also because I'm sure I would feel "off"--and very conspicuously so--in something that "belonged" to a culture I was so obviously not a part of. But is this some kind of fashion "ghettoization" I am participating in? I would not wear a sari (well, maybe to a south Asian wedding if it was cool with the couple. Rad, you looked amazing in that sari for your brother's wedding) even though I think they are so beautiful, out of a feeling of respect for not seeming to appropriate something that does not belong to me. And of course, India has a very particular history with white, British colonizers so perhaps there is more of an issue there. But is that "respect" misplaced? Infantalizing? Privileged?
I will say that when a woman I know said she wanted to have her eight bridesmaids (!) wear saris at her wedding in colours they chose, I kind of wondered about the appropriateness of this. She is not south Asian and neither were any of her bridesmaids. It was a purely fashion-inspired choice. It left a bad taste in my mouth BUT I also intensely dislike this particular person so I enjoyed finding fault with her where I could, whether it was fault or not. Yup, I'm also petty.
I love this post & comments. Made me think about lots of stuff I've never thought about before.
ReplyDeleteOh my how I love this dress! You look fantastic. But I also see from where your reservation comes regarding unquestioned and/or unreflexive nostalgia for the mid-century era in style. You're so smart and for what it is worth, I think you own (or perhaps reclaim) this look with effortless flair.
ReplyDelete@Jesspgh: Thank you! I can't wait to see your dresses!
ReplyDelete@Koo: Let's talk about them some more when you're back on the left side of the pond
@A-Dubs: I met a lot Canadians when I was in Korea doing that loan repayment thing. Most of them were cool, not as cool as you. I am looking forward to the IRL meeting too!
@DMed: I agree that we should think about contexts when thinking about appropriateness. I don't think no one of white British descent can respectfully wear a sari, but nor is it an article of clothing that one could just wear like a pair of jeans (of course, a pair of jeans could mean something very different in a very religious community, like some of the very conservative Christian groups in the US who are against women in pants). I don't know who owns certain kinds of clothing either, but it seems that we are less uncomfortable when groups who are less dominant appropriate/own/reclaim articles of clothing from the more powerful?
Eek, I am getting less smart this late in the day. But thanks for sharing about that lady you don't care for who had her bridesmaids wear saris. How did they even know how to wrap them? Yeah, I would think it was kinda weird too.
Rad, do you know the blog Fashion for Writers? (fashionforwriters.com) Jenny and Meggy regularly wear vintage ensembles and tackle issues much like the one you raise here both implicitly and explicitly. The ladies at Threadbared shared their thoughts on the FFW blog here (http://iheartthreadbared.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/in-vintage-color/) and as a reader of both blogs, I really strongly identified with Mimi's statement that "To me, it feels like Meggy renders visible the historical absence of Asians and Asian Americans in American popular culture as fashionable bodies –and through fashion as contemporaneous bodies– and also “corrects” this absence in referencing those bodies we know also lived then and there, and in doing so creating another archive through which we might imagine otherwise."
ReplyDeleteI enjoy seeing vintage looks on non-white women precisely because this is something we haven't been given access to seeing in the mainstream media before, and I've quoted Mimi here because she puts this feeling into words more eloquently than I've ever been able to do. As you say, there were Asian and Asian American bodies wearing these clothes, but if we don't think of them when we think of these styles, its because their participation in fashion (and culture overall, but that's a bigger conversation) has been kept out of the historical archive and thus, kept from those of us living and dressing in 2010.
Nothing about this look seems "off" to me, and if that's because I've been reading threadbared and FFW devotedly for months, we can begin to imagine the powerful work that blogs (and fashion) can do. Right?
-Liz
@Melissa: Thanks. I am trying to muster the nerve to get use out of the crinoline.
ReplyDelete@LHdM: It is a bit hot and itchy. Perhaps I'll consider it again for an outing in tights weather?
@AFtK: Yes, it must just be a weird personal association, because those church girls look rocking in their 50s era clothes, right? I'd love to hear your thoughts on vintage/retro and costumey
@KB: Wow, what an analysis of the look. I wasn't even aware of the contrast but you are totally right on.
@PM: Thank you! I definitely need to wear this more, maybe even in the classroom.
@Rebecca: Thanks, I hope to remix them into cute looks
@A-Dubs: I don't think I have too many more that I haven't worn yet, and I can't wait to remix them. Also, that is Buster's head, although it looks like Lula's too! Also, I forgot about the radical appropriations of Japanese street wear. They are so cool. I never thought about how certain era looks get strongly incorporated into various fashion subcultures, but I like it.
@SU: Good to hear your thoughts about race and retro/vintage looks. It doesn't stop me, but it gives me pause for thought. Maybe there are just certain eras that we like more? I think you don't like hippie looks because you're very chic and elegant, and there's not much elegant about fringe (although it can look smashing on the right lady).
And thanks to those who like the wedding pictures!
If I saw you walking down the street in this, I would not assume you were on your way to a theme party. Both looks are great, though the second is more consciously retro than the other.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the best things about retro is its inherent sense of play. With the second outfit, the playfulness of old looks worn in new ways comes out in contrast: between more masculine brogues and a feminine silhouette, between your contemporary hairstyle and the overall retro look. To me, that playfulness creates accessibility, especially if you think of retro (as I obviously do) as more about reference than accuracy.