Feminism and vintage/retro dress

[ElderberrySyrup]

Been meaning to start this thread for ages.

I've been doing a spot of vintage dressmaking lately and hence looking at quite a few blogs on the subject. 1950s style seems to be the most popular and there were a fair number written by women who dress in 50s clothes because they love the 50s, when men were men and women were ladies and everyone knew their place. Often it goes with being a happy Christian SAHM.

However there are also some who find something subversive in vintage style (eg this one - I don't want to link to the happy Christian ones in case it gets bitchy and they seem like sweet people whom I have no desire to upset.) Tea dresses worn with tattoos are quite common.

It has also struck me that a fair few of my feminist friends are into vintage style crafting and dressing. At all the marches I have been on there have been a few marchers who could have stepped straight out of the 40s or 50s (there was an Edwardian one at Million Women Rise IIRC) and I have seen pics of quite a number at Slutwalk.

So, I'm intrigued and fascinated. What is the connection, if any? Is it about resisting MODERN fashion? It would make more sense if we were all dressing as Suffragettes or 70s women's libbers, but that's quite rare. And the clothes are often no more comfortable, or less sexualised, than contemporary fashion. Is it about acknowledging the constructed nature of femininity? Or is there no connection at all, is it that in any group of women in the UK in 2011 there will be a few retro dressers (is that the case?) and it just happens that a proportion of them are feminists?

Any thoughts?

Did someone mention men in a feminist summer school?

LRD.

(Oh, sorry, my grin was to MoreBeta making like Zebedee, not Elderberry).

To come back to your earlier point WRT women's business dress, MoreBeta:

I think there are conflicting and confusing messages for women, young women especially. On the one hand they are told that they must reveal flesh to be fashionable; on the other, they are told that they will on no account be taken seriously if they do so. So they are faced with the choice of eschewing fashion completely or not being taken seriously by the very people who prefer them to show as much flesh as possible IYSWIM. It's testament to how much the fashion industry at ground-level is a slave to patriarchal desires.

Girls are told that men will desire them if they wear certain clothes, and then told that they must choose between being desired and being taken seriously. That's a hard choice for a young girl to navigate.

Helvetica I think the thread can only be improved by a few other fabrics daringly incorporated into the overall garment.

Maybe this is why I'm not that bothered by vintage - I'm not an hourglass and can't be arsed with the boning/padding needed to become one. :)

Interesting thread though.

Fascinating thread. ANother vintage-head here though I have never got on with the 50s, what I always loved is proper psychedelic/glam rock clothing. When I was in my late teens/early 20s this stuff was so massively unfashionable that I used to pick up gorgeous odds and ends in charity shops and at jumble sales for pennies. I would then wear it, and get roundly abused (someone once threw a can of coke out of a moving car at me...). Mind you, I appear to have an inborn talent for dressing to annoy people. Or I used to have. Nowadays I spend most of my life in jeans and jumpers, and actually have two or three odds and ends that can make me look like a normal office worker should I have to. As to party clothes, I think I've just got old enough to be seen as 'eccentric old bat' rather than being forever taken to one side and offered makeovers.

I don't want to wear 20s style - androgynous is not where I want to be. It doesn't seem in the remotest bit flattering and I have no desire to strap my bosoms down. I just don't have quite enough bosom for 50s style.

What vintage suits mildly-busted and big-calfed? Flares? :)

I knew you meant SGB - the two are quite different in my head.

Trouser suit

1. For those with larger busoms, have you seen pepperberry? They keep sending me catalogues because I am currently an E, alas only temmporary BF boobs.

2.Vintage sizes are tiny! I am sure this is why people swan around thinking they are not that fat (yes mother - YOU). When i was at my thinnest (a size 10 bottom/size 8 top) I tried on my mothers 1975 wedding dress - size 12 and struggled to get in it. Massive size inflation.

1. My PIL are still using the Arabesque they got as a wedding present 44 yyears ago. It is gorgeous!

Right. So who wants to make me a maternity dress?

This discussion is so fascinating! It is very difficult, this stuff about not wearing stuff if you were young enough to have worn it first time round. Frankly, at 50, it isn't always seen as ironic or retro, just sort of "left over"

Feck it! Don't Care!

I have always had a very eclectic wardrobe. 15 years as a Suit in the City dampened my creative instincts somewhat. And then freelancing and temping etc when DS was young didn't exactly allow me to Express my Inner, err, Moi-ness.

But I went back to University last year, at the grand old age of 49. So now I'm a full-time student and a museum volunteer and Yay! I can dye my hair scarlet, wear maxi-dresses all year round with DMs and velvet riding-jackets and cute hats and mad jewellery! My hard-working 40-something girlfriends and my 20's vintage style-Fascist Aged Mama despair of my saddo mid-life crisis appalling poor taste and my menfolk are embarassed to be seen in public with me. DS made me CHANGE CLOTHES before we went to the 6th Form open evening tonight.

Actually, the young female museum professionals I work with do an AMAZING line in cute quirky vintage Geek-Chic, and acccording to the boy-children fellow male students on my course they are HOT! More Mad-Men Stylee than my Recently Exhumed Goth thing, but it's SO nice to be surrounded by fellow vintage fans. I love the way gals mix it all up these days too, vintage + High street etc.

50s/60s maternity wear

Oooh, no I can't sew.

They are slightly the wrong era for me. I want a balloon sleeve and white gogo boots