New Year's resolution: Wear vintage, stage 5 continued

What flatters you

Now that I've expressed a bit of a carte blanche attitude about what vintage one could and should wear, I need to take one step back. I do believe you can wear what you feel good in, but you may feel better (and look better) in some vintage styles more than others. It is good to cultivate a sense of what flatters you.

Because “vintage clothing” has been defined as any garment twenty years old or older, you have a pretty big range to choose from!

Do you know what your best features are? Consider not just your figure, but your face, your hair, your neck, your ankles, your shoulders...heck, even your knees. There is an era and a style that is going to show off your best. In a general sense, the 20s and 60s favor a straighter, younger, thinner shape, while the late 40s through the early 60s was the hourglass era. I consider 1939-46 a somewhat more natural (neither straight nor exaggeratedly curvy) era, same with most of the 70s.

Take a look again at some styles I've shown from the 20s through the 80s:

ca. 1925

ca. 1930

ca. 1935

ca. 1940

ca. 1945

ca. 1948

ca. 1950

ca. 1955

ca. 1960

ca. 1965

ca. 1970

ca. 1974

ca. 1978

ca. 1985

ca. 1990

There are many more silhouettes from these eras, this is just a very general sense. Many more silhouettes and garment types are covered on fashion-era.com. This site contains an absolute gold-mine of information. I check this great reference often to help confirm my dating of items. Another great reference is the Vintage Fashion Guild's Fashion Time Line. Look for styles or components of styles that will help show you at your best. Many people tell me that they love such-and-such an era and that is all that interests them. If that is your case, you may limit yourself somewhat. I recommend staying open-minded.

One caveat: Before I get anyone too excited about very vintage and antique (defined as 100+ years old) clothing, let me caution you: Rare and delicate items need to be treated with respect and care, and may not actually stand up to wearable use. A great example of this, particularly because popular culture is currently mad for it: 1920s beaded silk dresses. These gorgeous creations are everything good except durable. The weight of the beading, sequins, and/or metallic threads applied to fine silk has just not stood the test of time in many cases. If you find such a dress in wearable condition, you should seriously consider (and I know this hurts) not wearing it, or just wearing it briefly for a photo. Clothing is in fact ephemeral. 

Next time: Alternatives to authentic vintage items

New Year's resolution: Wear vintage, stage 5 continued

Some inspiration for wearing vintage your way

Of course you want to find your own style, and you are looking at vintage as part of that. You don't really need anyone to model yourself after but sometimes someone else's style seems so right that they can inspire you in your own style.

It isn't hard to think of stars who wear retro looks well, and Gwen Stefani certainly does it very well.

Dita Von Teese always looks impeccably lovely in her vintage style, while Zooey Deschanel has a fun, modern, vintage-inspired look.

Then there are the television shows that have showcased vintage and made us all want to wear the looks: Characters in Sex in the City, as well as Mad Men, and the most recent rage Downton Abbey.

I am inspired by Vintage Style: Buying and Wearing Vintage Clothing by Tiffany Dubin and Catherine Bardey's Wearing Vintage. Neither one of these books is new (they're both about 10 years old), but the inspiration and information has not aged. 

. 

Look around online and you will find many archives and examples of vintage fashion from complete movies to magazines to advertisements. Look at myvintagevogue's flickr photostream, an archive of vintage fashion images from 1920 through 1965. If you want to be inspired not only by great fashion, but by great photography and modeling, search Google images for Horst P. Horst, George Hoyningen-Huene, Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, John Rawlings, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Richard Avedon and John French. 

I asked around for people who inspire others to wear vintage, and the range of examples I was given is incredible, a real testament to vintage fashion's reach and impact! Just a few: 

17-year old Annie profiled on Queens of Vintage, Tziporah Salamon, Solanah and Iris Apfel, who at 91 is still a tremendous inspiration

Next time: What flatters you

New Year's resolution: Wear vintage, stage 5

How to wear vintage

For the past month and a half I've been writing about wearing vintage for the novice, including details of fit, quality and value. These are big subjects, and I think it's time to have a little fun with the subject of how to wear vintage. Do you wear head-to-toe 1960s Mod? Or do you wear just a 50s sweater with otherwise modern clothes?

This is really up to you, and both can look great. I often see dos and don'ts columns where the head-to-toe approach is treated as a big mistake. All I can say is, if you want to dress like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina from top to bottom, you have my respect and admiration. Do what makes you look and feel good.

The other basic approach does appear to be favored, from a survey of 50 vintage wearers that I recently conducted. 80% responded that they mainly wear a piece or two of vintage mixed in with more modern clothing, 14% wear head-to-toe vintage of mixed eras, and 6% said they wear head-to-toe vintage, as much as possible all from a single era at one time.

62% of the respondents like dresses the best, with strong showings for jewelry, coats, bags and sweaters. I love dresses most of all too, but if you like vintage jeans, kimonos or 50s novelty print skirts best (as did three respondents), great! Vintage really frees people to create looks all their own, with their favorite components. My first blog in this series suggested wearing a vintage brooch as a vintage starter piece. If all you ever wear over 25 years old are brooches, fine!

Personally? I usually wear 1-2 vintage items every day

Next time: Some vintage-wearing inspiration