Grannies on the Red Carpet, 2024

Chang Li Hua and Yi Yan Fuei at the 2024 Oscars

It’s not every day that older women can steal the show on the red carpet.  However, that was the case recently when Chang Li Hua and Yi Yan Fuei showed up in Hollywood dressed in custom Rodarte.  Vogue even took notice. They were there because their grandson, Sean Wang, was nominated for the documentary he filmed starring the two—Nai Nai and Wai Po.  It’s a short, heartwarming film.  See it if you can.

The film documents the daily lives of Wang’s paternal grandmother (Nai Nai) and maternal grandmother (Wai Po), who live together in the Bay Area.  Filmed during the pandemic when Asians were under attack, Wang gives these two old women dignity and humor. It shows them at everyday tasks, like washing dishes and hanging laundry.  They also dance, sing, and exercise, trying to keep fit and avoid falls.  Although the film has moments of “aren’t old people cute,” Wang shows his grandmothers without condescension.

Their everyday clothes, shown in the film, are not so glamorous.  Like many old people they dress for comfort and ease of movement. 

But obviously they have taken to their new roles as stars with gusto.  Even when they don’t have custom Rodarte designs, they show up for special events looking fabulous, using red as their basic theme.  The very good news is that Chang Li Hua (Wai Po), at the age of 86, is now getting new film roles.

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Regina Anderson Andrews and the Power of Libraries

Regina Anderson Andrews is on the left, New York Public Library

As a lover of both libraries and theater, it perhaps inevitable that I discovered Regina Anderson Andrews, playwright, actress, salon holder, and librarian in New York City from the 1920s to the 1960s.  Anderson (1901-1993) was born in Chicago and moved to Harlem in her early twenties.  She immediately became a participant in the cultural scene. Together with W.E.B Du Bois, she helped to found the Harlem Experimental Theater, for which she acted and wrote plays.  Her apartment became a setting for lively literary gatherings, including such important writers as Langston Hughes.  Although she does not feature in many histories of the Harlem Renaissance, her biographer Ethelene Whitmere calls her an important link between the vibrant personalities that created this cultural flowering. 

Marian Anderson and Anderson Andrews.  New York Public Library

The picture above with famous singer Marian Anderson illustrates her enduring friendships with African American artists. 

Anderson earned her living working for the New York Public Library, eventually becoming the first African American to head a local branch.  She used her position to sponsor arts programs and community gatherings, enriching the cultural life of the many different New York neighborhoods where she worked.  Her high standing in the library earned her recognition as one of the city’s most notable Black women at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. 

1955 photo, New York Public Library, with Anderson Andrews on the right

Almost all the pictures of I’ve found of Anderson Andrews as an older women show her in clothing I would call “librarian plus.”  They are conservative to a point but with something extra to make them a stand out, like the cut work on the dress in the top picture and the wonderful shoes in the photo above.  Perhaps the photo with Marian Anderson, displaying bold jewelry, is a more accurate depiction of her style.

Who helped to transform American libraries from quiet storage spaces for books into vibrant community centers?  Regina Anderson Andrews was a key player in that transformation.

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Eunice Johnson–Black Power Fashion

Ebony Magazine, via the New York Times, 1991. Eunice Johnson is in pink

It is hard to overestimate the contribution of Eunice Johnson (1916-2010) to African American fashion in the United States.  She and her husband were the founders of Ebony and Jet.  Although she worked as secretary and treasurer for the Johnson Publishing Company, early on she began to follow her passion for couture fashion.  Rather than keeping that love to herself, she shared it widely with Black audiences throughout the United States through her runway show, the Ebony Fashion Fair.  The yearly events raised money for Black hospitals, charities, and scholarships.    

Born in Selma, Alabama, Johnson moved to Chicago to get a Master’s Degree in social work.  There she met her husband and together they built up a Black publishing empire.  She started the Fashion Fair as a charity event for a friend in 1958. Eventually the road show traveled throughout the country, making some 200 stops a year. It lasted until 2009, a year before her death.

She became well acquainted with French couturiers and used her influence to champion the careers of Black models.  Pat Cleveland was one who benefited from her patronage.  Discovering that there was no suitable makeup for the models, who had to mix their own, she started the Fashion Fair Makeup line for Black skin tones and made sure that her products made their way into department stores.

Dress by Stephen Burrows featured in the Ebony Fashion Fair

She also fostered the careers of Black designers, featuring their work in her shows.  Stephen Burrows, Patrick Kelly, and Willi Smith all earned places on her runway.

Haute couture is a luxury item and it is unlikely that many in her vast audiences ever became customers.  However, couture clothes are an art in themselves, presenting a level of craft seldom seen in stores.  Eunice Johnson offered that pleasure to Black audiences nation-wide.

Posted in 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990, 2000s, 2010s, General | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Meet Bricktop, International Star

Photo by Jack Robinson

Born in West Virginia in 1894, Ada “Bricktop” Smith gained her nickname because of her red hair. Her family soon moved to Chicago, a center of African American culture, where she started performing full time at age sixteen.  She didn’t stop until the late 1970s, a few years before her death in 1984.  As a young woman, she made a name for herself in the US and then moved to Paris in 1924. In 1926 she opened her own nightclub, “Chez Bricktop,” a gathering spot for expat American artists.  Her autobiography includes this quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald: “My greatest claim to fame is that I discovered Bricktop before Cole Porter.”  This was the first of Bricktop’s nightclubs, which opened and closed in Rome and Mexico City, as well as New Orleans and Chicago. 

Although her many business ventures were never as successful as her first nightclub in Paris, Bricktop was a renowned jazz singer and entertainer for all of her life.  Both Cole Porter and Django Reinhardt wrote songs in her honor.  Near the end of her life, the mayor of Chicago declared an official “Bricktop Day” in admiration of her achievements.

From Bricktop by Bricktop

Most of the photos I found of Bricktop as an older woman show her in evening dress, fitting clothes for a nightclub performer.  A feather boa was often included.  Too bad I couldn’t find a picture of her with another favorite accessory, a small cigar.

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Mary Lee Bendolph, Gee’s Bend Quilter

Photo by Matthew Arnold on Souls Grown Deep

I imagine most textile lovers like myself know about the Gee’s Bend quilters, a remarkable group of Black women who developed their own strikingly modern quilting style in an isolated community in Alabama.  They became so famous that their work eventually toured major American art museums and became part of their permanent collections.

One of the best known of these quilters is Mary Lee Bendolph, who creates unique geometric designs.  She has exhibited with her fellow Gee’s Bend quilters and has also been featured on her own.  In 2015, she received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Work Clothes quilt, Souls Grown Deep

Bendolph works from strips of used clothing, insisting they have a spirit in them.  Her “Work Clothes” quilt contains not only pieces of old denim, but also scraps of what must be leftovers from old house dresses, the work clothes of women.  She constructed the quilt “Ghost Pockets” entirely out of her husband’s clothing.  “That way you’ll [her husband] always be with me, always covering me.”

In most of the photos I’ve seen of Bendolph, she is wearing what look to be simple cotton clothes.  I’m wondering if she, or someone close to her, has saved the worn out pieces to make quilts.    

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Portrait with Yucca, 1928

Found photo

I puzzled over this photo for a long time.  Is she an older woman or not?  Her cropped hair is certainly a style favored by the young in 1928, and it looks like she might be pregnant.  However, elements of her face, particularly her chin and the lines around her mouth, make me think she is older. 

Perhaps it is a later pregnancy.  One article I discovered said that the average age for women to have their last child in the 1920s was 42.  This woman might have been on the upper side of that average, nearer to fifty. The shoes won’t help us determine her age. Those fabulous strappy shoes of the 1920s were worn by old and young alike.

Maternity dress or not, it is interesting that it has no waistline at all.  If you read through this informative post on the blog Witness to Fashion, you will see that even maternity dresses had dropped waistlines in the late 1920s.  Perhaps this was some kind of overdress, with the hem of another outfit peaking out from the bottom.  It is possible that she made it herself, current styles be damned.

Does the soapweed yucca give us any clue to where the picture was taken?  I have yucca plants in my backyard, so I originally thought might be California.  It turns out I am mistaken.  This plant originates in the grasslands and prairies of the US and Canada and is cultivated in many other places, so there is little chance of pinning the location down. I think she is posed to show just how tall the plant can grow.

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“Five Babushkas,” 1970s. A Photo by Rod Bradley

Photo by Rod Bradley

I’m slowly forgetting all the Russian I learned in my career as a historian of the Soviet Union. However, I do remember that the proper plural of the word babushka (grandmother) is babushki.  I suppose I should be glad that the photographer knew what babushka meant—it is not a term for a head scarf.  In Russia it is used for any old woman, grandmother or not.

I found this photo in a collection of poems, short stories, and photographs called When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, named after the famous poem.  It is an inspiring collection with many wonderful pictures, but Rod Bradley is the only photographer  famous enough to find a life on the internet.  This one comes from a collection documenting life on Venice Beach, California.

When I first saw this photo, it was hard to guess where it was taken.  It could have been on Brighton Beach in New York City or maybe even a lonely beach somewhere in Russia. The women all wear light colored coats of various vintages.  Perhaps the one front and center with its giant buttons is from the sixties.  Two wear headscarves (a platok in Russian), two wear hats, and one is bareheaded.  Only the sandals on the left and peaking out on the right show that it is not dead winter. 

How interesting that only one is looking at the photographer and none looking at one another.  I imagine they came out every day just to sit in the sun, whether they had something to say or not.

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A Remade Sari Dress, 1971

Found photo, dated on the back

I was ready to call this remake of a sari an unwelcome appropriation of traditional clothing.  A South Asian woman on my block who sold her saris before she died expressed a final wish that they not be cut up into dresses.

However, in my search for sari remakes I discovered that this is a practice in South Asia as well.  Why not reuse the stunning fabric in another design? 

Sari fabric can be up to nine meters long.  One end, called the pallu, is highly decorated and traditionally worn over the shoulder.  The rest of the fabric has fewer decorative elements, but usually has a strip echoing the pallu along the side. 

With some knowledge of sari fabric, I think I can see how the dress was constructed. Whoever made it placed the pallu on the bottom.  The pattern of the fabric changes around the wrist, indicating a seam.  The dressmaker used the remaining fabric to construct the rest of the dress, embellishing the waist, sleeve and neck with the side trim.

What was the occasion for this dress?  I hope it was not for a costume party. If someone found it decades later, lets hope they reused the beautiful fabric again. 

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A Clutch Coat in the Early 1920s

Found photo

I’ve never understood clutch coats.  They are meant to be open at the neck, and sometimes you even have to hold them closed with your hand if no other fastener is provided.  But don’t you get cold around the neck, undermining the purpose of a coat altogether?  This one might be fastened somewhere around the hips, but it still leaves her throat and a good bit of her chest exposed.  Fashion—who can explain it?

Given the cut of the coat and the shape of the hat, this picture most likely was taken in the first half of the 1920s.  Skirt lengths rose and fell during the decade, reaching their longest in 1923.  Even so, the coat is quite long. Perhaps this older woman did not want to expose much of her ankles.  And here’s another puzzle–the trim is fur and heavy looking, while the main material appears somewhat flimsy.

Given the leafy trees and thriving lawn, it certainly doesn’t look very cold out.  Perhaps she is giving the coat a test run before the winter. 

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New Year’s Day at Ocean Beach in San Diego, 1918

The San Diego Historical Society via the Online Archive of California

Greeting the New Year with a dive into water is a tradition in many parts of the world.  In South America the water might be warm, while in Russia it is surely icy.  Although temperatures usually hover in the sixties in a typical San Diego winter, the Pacific is a cold ocean.  I suspect it took some willpower to pose for this photo.

It appears that at least two families are pictured here.  The oldest looking woman stands in the center in a long bathing suit with modest trim around the neckline.  She also wears a bathing cap.  The younger woman to the left of her has on a more interesting outfit decorated with stripes on the bottom of her suit.  Note her lace up gillie shoes, a style with no chance of coming off in the water.

At the moment this picture was taken, the adults look quite dry.  Do you think they made it into the ocean?

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