Vintage Snapshot: Peekaboo Hotpants

Godfather James Brown was an enthusiast, singing in tribute to the countless women who, roundabout 1970, made hot pants a household name.

No, not these.

These.

The term "hot pants" was coined by fashion bible Women's Wear Daily, whose constituency of garment manufacturers was delighted to hit upon a style that rivalled the popularity the micro-mini, with similar cost efficiencies on fabric.

My favorite incarnation of short shorts has to be the frankly bizarre hybrid of hotpants plus maxi dress. To the rear, a skirt that plunged to the floor, offering the drama and majesty inherent in a train of fabric. To the front, a slit up to there, offering the altogether different theatrics of thigh-high exposé.



This look was typically worn by the raciest hostess on the block while serving cocktail meatballs to appreciative neighbors. Or, better, by a guest eager to scandalize the old-biddy organizers at a function where the dress code was formal.

Superfine peekaboo hotpants numbers are currently found on eBay and other vintage resellers, but they seem to have no official name. Try keywording "gown shorts tunic hostess maxi slit"--or be on the lookout for gowns by Alfred Shaheen, who was a repeat offender with this combo.

(sauna pants image from the delightfully weird ectomoplasmosis; photo of Veruschka by Henry Clarke)

How to Wear Vintage Hostess Aprons

'Tis the season where even the most lightly domesticated among us begin to think seriously about hostessing.

And there is no better helper to moving into that mindset than an adorable party apron.

I resisted aprons for years. But given my love for delicate fabrics and cooking with hot oil, and an innate inability to do things slowly and with great care--the point doesn't need to be belabored. Sautéed silk is not a good look.

Once the mind is opened to aprons, the possibilities are as wide-ranging as fashion itself. Cute little gingham numbers for baking pies. Starched bibbed whites for channeling Julia Child. And my favorite of all, the frilly, frivolous, transluscent organdy and organza half-aprons--like those Betty Draper wore when she was still serving Don dinner on Mad Men. These latter truly are fit for company--showing off a lovely dress underneath while denoting one's status as Goddess of Hearth and Home.

If you can sew your own, pattern sources like the encyclopedic So Vintage Patterns offer some wonderful options, complete with illustrations showing how to most effectively wear your apron (think Dovima modeling the latest Dior).


Or, have a look at dedicated apron blogs like Apronista . . .

Or take a cruise around online sources. Ebay currently offers this charmer, among many others.



Aprons. If you're going to throw a party, go ahead and tie one on.

(photo at top from Woof Nanny at Flickr, many thanks! Vintage pattern center from So Vintage Patterns, thank you too!)

Stealth Brand: Judith Leiber's Leather Bags

In the pursuit of truly spectacular vintage pieces--at prices that are within real-life budgets--it's usually best to think laterally.

For example: a mint-condition 1950s Dior suit rarely comes on the secondhand market for less than thousands of dollars. Ensembles such as these are museum pieces. Given their importance as historical paradigms, compounded by their rarity, the four-figure price is reasonable. Yet one can readily find a smashing Dior hat from the same period, of equal historical import and aesthetic merit, for under $100.

Another example. Mikimoto, the Japanese firm that pioneered the culturing of pearls, remains the industry's top practitioner. A vintage string of smallish pearls from the 1960s will fetch a price of $600 or more. But their scarves, which are brilliantly printed and crafted, and to my mind of no lesser value than those of Ferragamo and Gucci (if not quite up to the unsurpassed quality of Hermès), typically sell for under $30 on the rare occasions they come up on eBay.

Mikimoto=pearls. Dior=dresses, suits, gowns. Anything that deviates from the house's front-of-the-house products are less covetable to the vast herd of buyers. In no way does it mean that they are less brilliant, or beautiful, or fantastically made.

This is also the case, I believe, with the vintage leather bags of Judith Leiber.

Since most of us can't make it out to the family's museum and showplace garden in East Hampton, Long Island, here is the quick version of the lady's story. A Hungarian Jew, she diverted from Cambridge University studies in chemistry to become the first female member of Budapest's handbag guild. Evading the Holocaust, she married an artistic Yank soldier who brought her to the States, where she helped fund his printmaking pursuits with a small cottage industry making handbags. The firm went on to become one of the premium luxury-goods manufacturers in America, best known for its minaudières (pronounced minnow-dee-air). These metal-shell evening bags are encrusted with thousands of crystals, taking the form of glimmering beasts, Buddhas, hand-holdable replicas of famous works on canvas, and countless other bijou incarnations.

These little bags have become cultural signifiers, held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian, and on the wrists at society functions, where mere multicarat gemstones are dimmed by their supernova sparkle. (Luxuriating in the company's website, I became especially enchanted with the little apple above. Wear this with a glimmering nude silk jersey gown, and every man in the room is Adam to your Eve. But I digress . . . )

While jewelboxes like these sell in the thousands even secondhand, the firm's leather bags, which are equally well crafted, rarely meet that same lofty mark, simply because in most buyer's minds, Leiber=crystal, and that's that.

But isn't this Leiber bag, of aqua lambskin, just smashing as well? And its cost, while steep for an everyday purchase, is extraordinarily reasonable given that its style and quality surpass most of what's going for ten times that amount in department stores at the moment.

So, this entry is a fairly roundabout way of saying that if you want to find a brilliant buy for well under actual value, think out of the minaudière.

More examples with different sorts of items later this week.

(many thanks to Konasesame for the leather clutch image, Leiber apple above from the company's website, judithleiber.com)

O Woeful and Repugnant: Ugly Christmas Sweaters, Part 2

A well that doesn't run dry . . . more of the very ugliest holiday sweaters, courtesy of your local eBay sellers. Most of the exemplars below have already sold . . . but you will surely be able to find their like--or worse!--if you click on the links and then view the vendors' other items. See Part I here.

Below, a jumper that illustrates the hair's breadth between the naff-but-not-bad and misbegotten. Because this one, at first glance, is truly not bad. The colors, although plentiful and primary, are of the same value and sit in balance, much as those in a rainbow do. The design is crisp and pleasing. The 3D dinkleballs on the tree are cute and do not overwhelm.

So why why why are those skijumpers positioned so as to crash smack into each other, and then down onto the tree, dashing the dinkleballs and ruining xmas for everyone? People, we must think it through.



Next up, this less problematic--because conspicuously awful--Scottie xmas sweater. Which brings to mind another question. How come Scotties are always depicted as adorable and smiley on sweaters and such, while in the real world are surly and can't be bothered?

Before we move on, do take note of the model's good cheer. THIS is the way to wear an awful xmas sweater. And if it takes a righteous full cup of Bailey's best Irish Cream to get there, ya do what ya gotta do.



This next one's interesting because it's dreadful, of course, but also because it's really scary. Don't you just want to grab the lady skater by the arm and say "No! Don't skate up the river of ice to the house with that guy. DO NOT GO INTO THAT HOUSE!"



And last, but by no means least, this beauty, hand knit, no less. Recessionary cutbacks may have hit the North Pole, but it's comforting to know that Santa is still a go on the night.



(many many thanks to the sellers for gamely sending these pictures . . . readers if you like what you see, do click the links to see their other offerings . . . )

How to Fashion Up a Faux Fur Scarf

First: this entry is formatted in homage to one of my favorite blogs going, Blah to TADA, in which the ever-resourceful Claire transforms random household rubbish into amazingly cute and functional items. Like in three frames. The feed never fails to make me smile. Claire, honey, if you ever run out of raw material, come over to my house. We've got rubbish for years.

Anyway, I thought an excellent candidate for the Meh to Oh Yeah treatment would be a charity shop faux-fur scarf, because, having been modestly fashionable on the high street last year, the things are multiplying like tribbles right now in thrift store land. Pick one up for a couple quid/bucks, and then . . .

Dig around in your brooch box, and find the biggest, garish-est, most difficult-to-wear pin that you got. My choice was this black-and-gilt-and-rhinestone wild rose, which somehow just screams Mediterranean funeral, so it doesn't get out very often.



As it turns out, it's just right with the scarf, which can accomodate the brooch's nasty big pin with equinanimity. Arranged to rest like a stole upon the shoulders, it looks dramatic and vaguely regal, and would be smashing, I think, accessorizing one's favorite (but possibly a little too familiar) black party dress.



Thanks again, Claire, and please keep them coming.

A Different Way to Wear Vintage Charms

Bracelet? Meh, kind of obvious, plus it's difficult to see the charms when they're all bunched up around your wrist.

But how about this genius idea from Chanel, via the ultraglam Decades vintage boutique in L.A.?

A belt like this, when worn with a simple LBD, shows off the charms, shows off your waist, and is a great excuse for a holiday party conversation with that cute new guy on the sales team, because blokes LOVE fiddly little mechanical things that they don't quite understand, and it doesn't matter whether the charms are Chanel or wee gardening tools or itty bitty souvenirs -- really, as long as they're not Hello Kitty! you're probably in safe territory.

You can get an inexpensive chain link belt in, oh, any of a thousand charity shops/thrift stores in your given land. The charms may be a bit more challenging to collect, but vintage ones won't be terribly expensive either.

Or, of course, you could go for this very one. That teensy quilted handbag charm is adorable.

(image from Decades Inc. blogspot, which you must subscribe to, because it's like a little vacation in fashion heaven . . . )

How to Wear A Vintage Bedjacket Right Now

British model Daisy Lowe shows how (click on pic to enlarge): skintight leggings, stonking red heels, plain white tee and a beautiful black-lace-and-ribbon bedjacket. Her lacework cost £250/$421.

And here's one on Etsy.com for $40/£24. How easy is that?

(photo of Daisy Lowe by Willy Vanderperre for British Vogue, November 2009)