Knit One, Purloin One

Today it's my pleasure to share some images from a Villawool Hand Knits booklet from the mid-60s (don't you love the "knitted" Villawool logo?).  There are some pleasingly odd pictures and delectable vintage woollens herein, but what initially struck me was the face of the model on the cover, who appears to be stealthily tip-toeing out of a waiting room, clutching a purloined magazine.  Does she remind you of anyone?

 

Seems that her accomplice is left pondering how to slink past the receptionist without attracting attention to the massive modern painting she's lifted from the wall.  Don't worry honey, just a little more swagger and the hypnotically swaying red fringe of your stunning jumper will be all she notices.  Why not take the cherub wall plaque while you're at it?

Having a decoy dressed nearly identically is always useful when it comes time for the police identity line-up.  

"The woman I saw stealing the book was a blonde in a sweater.  Yes, I'm certain of it.  But... just a moment... she could have been a red-head... or was it a cardigan she was wearing?  I'm sure it was some sort of Aran style knit. Yes, no, I'm almost certain of that. Officer, I can't think... could I have a glass of water?"

It's Nerida's first day on decoy duty and after forty minutes of attracting every eye to the very window she was doing her best to shield, she wonders whether she should have asked the girls what "unobtrusive" actually meant....

We find Jocelyn standing guard at the back door, wrapped in an oversized orange marle sweater with dauntingly massive pom-pom trimmed collar, and impenetrable dreams of revenge. 

Meanwhile, Delores having finished the last few rows of her suit has used her crochet hook to pick the lock of the liquor cabinet.  No icon of sobriety came up with those daringly chic half-concealed buttons.

Back at headquarters, religious door-knockers are easily deterred if you greet them clutching a mock-up coven manual and invite them in for tea and sacrificial goats.  

Australia in the 1960s was a lovely place, so very far from the rest of the world that a major pattern company could describe a suit as "Chanel Style" without fear of litigation.  Looking at these trompe l'oeil pockets it's safe to assume that the worst Chanel's lawyers might have done was to spray their colleagues with café au lait as they spluttered with incredulous laughter.  Not even the models could contain their mirth at the optimistic description.

Okay, any takers on a look-alike for Suspect Number One?

I thought she could easily masquerade as The Thunderbirds' Lady Penelope.  Perhaps it's not the facial resemblance so much as her disquieting air of being not - absolutely - human.

 

(Note: if any of these designs totally grab you, drop me a line and I'll be 

glad to email you a scan of the pattern.  Have your llama wool ready!)

Lobster dressing, ma'am?

"Lobster" - such a pleasingly absurd word, it's worthy of Rowan Atkinson. At various times throughout the 20th Century the lobster motif has waved its printed claws in boutique windows from main street to salon - its dual evocations of the ocean (as native habitat) and luxury (ending its life as fine cuisine) appealing both to the consumer's inner child clamouring for a trip to the seaside, and her adult princess's innate sense of entitlement to privilege.

On the street today you'll see lobster prints surfacing again. The lobster is a graphically munificent creature - generally rendered in head-turning bright orange or red, it lends itself to being represented either straight or gracefully curved, beautiful in intricate detail but immediately recognisable even at its most stylized. ModCloth offers this nice contemporary example:


As a vintage Lobster maven, finding vast oceans to trawl, you may wish to cast your own nets. Or you may prefer to employ the help of a stylist who appears naturally equipped to share your vision:


But don't send all your friends to the same guy. How embarrassing to find, when you head out feeling entirely unique to meet up with the girls at the pier, that everyone else has been given the same style advice. Plus your Dad insists on coming along as chaperon.


When it comes to vintage Lobster dressing, my considered advice is to take it slowly, ease into it. Accessories are a painless place to start - how about beginning with a wonderful Art Deco Lucite lobster brooch or Bakelite belt buckle?


Alternate these for a week or two - grow comfortable in Lobster. You'll soon be ready to introduce the initial area of textile . . . perhaps an apron?


Following this, the real fun begins. By now your friends, family and co-workers should have run out of breathtakingly witty crustacean allusions, leaving you free to burst forth in dazzling Lobster glory. Take it to the pool party and keep your eyes open . . . if you see a cutie whose Catalina trunks match your 1940s Sweethearts in Swimsuits 2-piece, he might be "the one"!


Don't forget to take a nifty little appliqued cover-up to pop on after your swim . . .


. . . or a plain blouse with this wonderful 1940s Horrockses skirt would work just as well.


Now you're ready to conquer the world in head-to-toe arthropod style! Whether your preference be for a single, striking lobster as on this mid-century sun dress by Ann Jeffres of Miami Beach (love love love the colourful ribbons forming both decoration and single shoulder strap) . . .


. . . or a repeating pattern which may have the odd picnicker mistaking you for a tablecloth . . .



. . . you honestly can't go wrong. Lobster dresses are fabulous. They are of royal lineage. Below is the proto-lobster-dress . . . a 1937 collaboration between the visionary couturier Elsa Schiaparelli and surrealist superman Salvador Dali.


Interestingly, this original fashion plate sketch envisaged more of a sun dress, ideal for sauntering romantically along the tide line and stepping daintily on octopi.


A scenario which appealed to Wallis Simpson, pictured wearing the dress in this Cecil Beaton photograph, waiting patiently by a clump of seaweed for the tide to come back in as she rather fancies some braised octopus.


This post is respectfully dedicated to the beloved littlebig sister of Archimedes, celebrated and occasionally misunderstood down the ages for her proclamation "give me a piece of string long enough and a sausage around which to tie it, and I will move the yabbies* of the world".

*it's a little Australian freshwater lobstery creature :)

A Couple of Kinks in 60's Fashion

For weeks now I've been searching for just the right words to accompany the dreamy improbability of these mid-60s images. But I think after all they can do most of the talking for themselves.

The Kinks' drummer Mick Avory, endearingly wooden and the most ham-handed of dandies, models for Carnaby Street's John Stephen:





(Seen here with singer Kiki Dee.)


And teenage lead guitarist Dave Davies, adapting to the singular lack of props with leonine grace, notches up this Terylene campaign on his tally of adventures - sartorial and otherwise - in Swinging London. You could just tell that Dave would spend the remainder of the sixties not chatting up dollybirds, but assessing their outfits for Terylene content (doesn't it make you want to rush out and buy something in Terylene?)




Notice the intriguing ghostliness of his face in the middle image. I'm sad that the last picture had been cropped of text, and have also seen an ad from this series featuring a member of The Hollies. (Do you know of others? I'd adore to see them!)

Indignity In Extremis - His'n'Hers Fashion

If Time would part its swirling mists at just the right place we might witness the admirable thriftiness of a pioneer woman transforming a pair of worn-out curtains or an irresistably priced (if fairly unpleasantly patterned) width of cloth into a serviceable shirt for her husband, and an apron or shirtwaist for herself.

The paucity of professional photographers available in frontier towns, coupled with the pioneering man's innate self-respect, resulted in a sad dearth of early images commemorating this clothing phenomonen (if you have any - please get in touch!) but that frugal long-ago seamstress has a lot to answer for.

At least that's my theory, although others believe the questionable sartorial custom of couples wearing matching outfits to be of extra-terrestrial origin....


Mid-century his'n'hers (or "partner dressing") had an undeniable charm, a soda fountain wholesomeness of innocent teen commitment which was the logical extension of letter sweaters and class rings. Adolescents could get away with (and look adorable) wearing matching pieces of knitwear which brought just the right degree of unity to otherwise completely different outfits....




Then, as now, it was when they went for head-to-toe co-ordination that warning lights began to flash....


Resort wear and Hawaiian themed clothing have long been beloved by his'n'hers designers - of course it becomes difficult to lose a family member in an unfamiliar place if they're wearing the same bold pattern as you are....

Throughout the 1960s his'n'hers style remained on an even keel, retaining its air of sunny naïveté... although one gets the feeling that the female partner was always the instigator, at least the fellows continued to handle the look with relative aplomb....

Cue the 70s - Sexual Revolution - Liberation - nothing shouted "equality" more categorically than a confident woman strutting out in the same outfit as her man. Much of the time both of them looked fabulous....








But there were always going to be exceptions. These usually involved jumpsuits....




Apparently they ran out of wool before they could draft a "shorts for him" pattern - if only he didn't look so pleased about it....


When the 80s came around a natural consequence of architectural shoulder pads and power dressing for women was the cruel emasculation of men by means of fashion. The tables abruptly turned, and where the previous decade's his'n'hers style had been about women having empowering fun with adaptations of what their men were wearing, suddenly men found themselves being dressed up in barely altered versions of womens clothes. And although they obediently bobbed along on the tide, they weren't happy about it.

A penny for his thoughts....



No longer did matching outfits state a simple "we're together".

Now they screamed possessively "he's mine - you can't have him." To which the unspoken response was "if he dresses like that you can keep him - I don't want him."

This is the period in which you'll notice the male partner no longer smiles into the camera - sometimes he manages to force some kind of upward-curving oral grimace but his eyes are invariably either resentful or brimming with panic....





The passion for his'n'hers dressing is almost extinct in the Western world these days, (or executed so subtly that no-one notices . . . a couple strolling along wearing white t-shirts and jeans doesn't draw a second glance) with the notable exception of one high profile pair who obviously derive such joy from dressing alike that it might just come back into vogue one day soon....



In fact in the not-too-distant future every man and his dog may again proudly sport his'n'hers outfits....