Happy 4th of July!

Wishing our neighbors to the South a Happy Independence Day! Brighten the holiday with this fun Red, White and Blue 1950s Color Block Reproduction Dress. Large Size, $125

       

Some Like it Vintage has been invited by the Vintage Fashion Guild to contribute to the Vintage Red, White, and Blue board! Be sure to stop by for some great vintage 4th of July looks from our shop and others.

Have a wonderful holiday everyone!

These Happy Days Were Yours and Mine...

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I remember an old "Happy Days" episode (Season 2, Episode 18 to be exact).  Ritchie, Ralph and Potsie needed some spending money, so they decided to look for odd jobs around the neighbourhood.  They happened upon a very attractive divorcée who needed her fence repaired.  When 2 of the boys got tired of this manual labour, Ritchie was left on his own to finish the work.  To thank him, Mrs. Dorothy Kimber invited him to dinner.  This simple gesture made all three boys' imaginations go into overdrive!

"Ralph: With a divorcée, all you gotta do is establish a relationship.

Richie: With a glass of water?

Ralph: It's a start, Rich, it's a start. It gets you inside the house. Then, you charm your way into her private quarters. From there, you're just one subtle move away from paradise.

Richie: You go from a glass of water to paradise?"

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The boys watched while Dorothy and Richie shared a kiss on her front porch swing.  Richie wished that he was 10 years older.  He never revealed the details of that evening.

It's funny to think now that being a divorced woman was such a scandalous thing back in those days.  They were labelled as "gagging for it" as the Brits would say.  What about the divorced men?  Why weren't they fodder for the gossip mill?  It really was a mad, mad men's world working its double standard.

I fear that we are getting too used to hearing about divorce.  Just found out that another person I know has decided to end their marriage.  It's a sad reality and there's certainly no romance in the notion of a couple breaking up.  We're more jaded than ever before and there are those out there who no longer believe in true love or any of the other Utopian ideas from the past. 

These happy days WERE yours and mine... 


Carol

OBSESSION OR JUST DRESS-UP?

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On a recent episode of Anderson, he did a segment on a 23 old woman who is literally obsessed with living a 1950's lifestyle.  She was as uncomfortable with current fashions as her grandmother would have been. 

Sitting prettily on the stage, this woman, let's call her Amy, looked like she was magically transported from a glamorous pin-up poster.  Her boyfriend said that she was the real deal.  In the 2 years that they have dating, he had never seen her out of 1950's clothing.  Her home was like a Smithsonian exhibit as well.  Amy said that from the age of 13, she went into the past and stayed there.  She loved her grandmother's clothes and everything from that era.

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As much as the notion of beaming into the past appeals to me, Amy's mindset seemed a little too obsessive.  I felt she is hiding in plain sight from whatever she might be scared of in present day.  She would rather be in a permanent fantasy stasis than live in the today and now.

As part of the show's program, Amy was sent backstage to be "transformed" into a woman of 2012.  The team dressed her in skinny jeans, cute top, trendy dangly jewellery and reinvented wedge shoes.  Amy re-entered the stage looking very awkward.  Her boyfriend and audience responded very favourably to her make-over.  But Amy was looking uncomfortable in her new skin.  I thought she looked really age appropriate without the pancake face make-up, complicated up do and crinoline dress.  She had been trying too hard.  Amy liked her new look but couldn't wait to reverse the affects of her appearance.  She wasn't comfortable without her mask to hide behind.  Admiration of all things vintage should enhance one's life, not act as a security blanket.

Is Amy living in an unhealthy fantasy land?  Probably.  That funny little expression from Oscar Wilde comes to mind:
"Everything in moderation including moderation."


Carol

CORRINA, CORRINA...

I've seen this film many time, but when I happened to catch it on television the other day, I had to watch it again.  This 1994 film starring Ray Liotta and Whoopi Goldberg has such a quiet and endearing quality.  Set in 1950's America, a man suddenly found himself widowed with a young daughter, who was so traumatized by the recent event, she stopped speaking.  Desperate for help, Liotta's character eventually hired Corrina, played by Goldberg.  Corrina was not a typical black woman in the 1950's.  She was university educated and believed that she could rise above her station in life. 



Molly and Corrina
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 I loved how meticulously the director paid attention to the details of costumes, gorgeous vintage cars, the music which flowed beautifully in the background and the set design.  Hair styles were poofy and exaggerated, but right on the money.  The movie also showed the stark contract between the white people's Utopian lifestyles versus the oppressed black people's way of just surviving day by day.

Manny - Liotta's character was a product jingle writer.
His J-E-L-L-O song has always amused me.  The rhyming was rudimentary, cheesy but very fitting for 1950's style and sensibilities.

I was both shocked and amused by how the adults freely smoked in their homes and in front of their children.  Molly ended up destroying her daddy's cigarettes after seeing a television report about their link to cancer.
 

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There was also a slowly blossoming romance between Manny and Corrina.  Except for the obvious visual difference, they were in fact 2 peas in a pod with their love of music and lyrics.  Corrina was an unlikely nanny and caregiver for Molly, but her unorthodox methods proved to be successful and they endeared her to Manny.  Despite the many attempts by Manny's friends to set him up with women who were in his social class, Manny felt repelled by their vapid personalities and one dimensional thinking.

This film was criticized for not properly addressing the interracial relationship.  There was some opposition in the storyline but not the level to which one would have expected in 1950's America.  I like to look at this film as another fine example of an homage to vintage.  It was beautifully presented and I like that just as much as a good human story.

Carol