At the Train Station

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Lynn
Found photo from the collection of Todd Higgins

I know that people used to dress up to fly on airplanes, but I didn’t realize that the custom also applied to train travel. According to the smart people on the website Mid Century in Color, this photo was taken at the downtown Minneapolis station. The woman in yellow is being shown off for a long trip, eventually ending up in Norway. Although the background is gloomy, it must be Spring judging from her bright yellow outfit. Combined with her flowered hat, it looks like something she bought for an Easter Parade. Is Norway ready for her?

Our traveler’s friends are not nearly so colorful, although they are also quite well dressed. They wear hats, gloves, and jewelry. I even spy at least one pair of high heels–no dowdy shoes here. Although most of the hats fit close to the head, there is a wide variety of styles–boaters, berets, cloche, with a dish hat in the back. Even the little dog comes with headgear.

Posted in 1950s | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Remembering Claire Shaeffer

Posted on January 24, 2025 by Lynn

It isn’t often that I get to meet someone who is a celebrity in my world. For me, it’s not a actor or author, but rather the sewing expert, Claire Shaeffer. This remarkable teacher, writer, and collector of couture died last week. Read an appreciative obituary here. Not only did I take two of her sewing workshops in Palm Springs, but I also got to interview her once in her beautiful Palm Springs home.

People came to Claire’s workshops from all around the world. In the two my sister and I attended, there were people from New Zealand, the UK, Canada, and Germany. I was lucky since I lived just an hour and a half away. Moreover, two of my aunts lived nearby. One time my mother also came, turning the educational trip into a mini family reunion.

The workshops introduced members to couture sewing techniques. The first one centered on methods used in Chanel’s signature cardigan jackets. The second focused on the designer Yves Saint Laurent. Claire also shared examples from her extensive collection, at times loosening the lining to show what was inside. For a slideshow on Chanel jackets, she even invited my mother and two aunts to enjoy her beautiful photos of examples from around the world.

Some experts hoard their hard earned knowledge. Claire was just the opposite. Everything she taught in her workshops she made available in her many books, DVDs, and magazine articles. Her Vogue patterns were lessons in themselves. Always tech savvy, in her eighties she even started a YouTube channel to share what she knew. Long before her death, she had arranged to have her couture collection sent to Syracuse University, a school with a strong program in fashion design. Her family has asked for donations to the school in lieu of flowers.

Rest in peace, Claire Shaeffer. It was an honor to know you.

Posted in General | 3 Comments

The Fur Coat and the Older Woman, 1977

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Lynn
Found photo

The woman’s long fur coat marks this as a very prosperous couple, even more so than the man’s expertly matched plaid suit. Fur has long been a status symbol for American women, and especially older women according to fashion historian Patricia Millbank. “They seek to offset the creeping appearance of crow’s-feet and gray hairs by wearing more expensive clothes, bigger jewels, and flattering furs.” (New York Fashion, 202)  According to a furrier who started work in the 1950s, his standard customer was fifty years old and had received the coat as a gift from her husband. (Lisa Belkin, “For Thriving Furriers, Protests Pose Threats,” NYT, 12/17, 1985.) Mink was the fur of choice. Those who couldn’t afford a full length coat like this bought fur stoles or coats with fur collars.

I think the pussy bow on its own would have helped me place this photo in the 1970s, but luckily there was a date printed on the back. She looks confident in her coat, but anti-fur activists were already at work in the mid 1970s, trying to change fur’s reputation from luxury to “inhumane frivolity,” in the words of one Sierra Club member.” (Blair Sobol, “Wrapping their Ills in Furs,” LAT, 11/14/74)  A decade later, she might have been worried about wearing her coat out on the street.

Posted in 1970s | Tagged | 1 Comment

Big Hair, Early 1960s

Posted on January 10, 2025 by Lynn
Found Photo

Is it perhaps a big hair competition between a younger and an older woman?  If so, the younger woman won with the biggest beehive.  As perhaps suits their ages, though, the older woman’s smooth updo looks refined compared the other’s concoction, with its fluffy high curls. 

According the blog Glamour Daze, the beehive hairdo was first featured in a hair style magazine in early 1960.  For many, it became the style of the decade.  While I tried to raise the height of my hair in high school, and plastered it with hair spray, it was too short to match any of the creations of some of my fellow students. 

1966?

Given the skirt lengths of young and old, we can easily place the photo in the early sixties, when dresses were short but not yet above the knees.  The young woman wears a sheath dress with short sleeves.  Is that a penguin print?  Her mother (I’m just guessing) wears the trusty shirtwaist style, still quite popular at that time.  And what about the other two?  One is dressed for the kitchen, apron included.  The other wears a black sheath looks and ready to go out.  What did the little dog make of it all?

Posted in 1960s | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Rosa Parks’ New Year’s Card, late 1980s

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Lynn
Library of Congress

This photo shows Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks with her longtime friend and advocate, Elaine Steele.  At about the time when this card was sent out, Steele had helped Parks start a foundation honoring Parks and her husband.  Note their festive clothing–a bright red dress for Parks and a shiny gold top for Steel.

I’m wondering if Parks also sent out Christmas cards or if this was her way of marking the holiday season.  It’s a handy solution, when you think about it.  Not everyone is a Christian, but most people celebrate the calendar New Year, even when they have other ceremonies honoring their own traditions.

Maybe this is something I should consider next year.  Here’s what mine might look like.

Smithsonian Institution

I wish you all a good start to the New Year!

Posted in 1980s | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Christmas Cards as Decoration

Posted on December 26, 2024 by Lynn
Found photo

Although the turkey and turkey carver are in the center of the photo, the people seem less important that the magnificent display of Christmas cards.  They are still part of twenty-first century holiday traditions, but do families get so many anymore?  There are cards on the door frame, the bookshelf, and the wall.  It makes my own display, which easily fits on one small table, look paltry. 

I’m guessing this photo comes from the mid to late fifties based on the width of the men’s ties. In this household, red is the chosen holiday color.  The candles are red, the men’s ties at least have streaks of red, and the woman in the middle is dressed entirely in this color.  The v-shaped trim on her dress looks silver.  The red corsage might have silver accents, making a well-coordinated holiday outfit. Is she the hostess or the honored guest?

Note the drinks on the table.  The red beverage in the small glass looks like tomato juice and the main drink is a big glass of milk!  Maybe they had cocktails before dinner, but wine is not part of this holiday feast.  In my household, we toast with champagne.

Posted in 1950s | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Preparing for the Christmas Bazaar, 1962

Posted on December 16, 2024 by Lynn
Calisphere

It’s December in Southern California, which explains the summery looking dresses.  Two of the women, identified only by their husbands’ names, wear the trusty shirtwaists of the fifties.  The oldest looking woman on the right has on a patterned sheath that inches towards sixties styles.

I had hoped that the device pictured was a hat making machine, but sharp eyed reader Vireya noticed that it was nothing more exotic than a Singer Featherweight. See her comment below. The machines are rare today, but not so in the 1960s. My lucky sister inherited one from our aunt.

The dresses are quite ordinary, but the hats caught my eye, all quite up to date according to reader Mary Roback. Did these women actually make the hats on display above?  And could they imagine that hats would soon go out of style?

Posted in 1960s, General | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Mary Roberts Rinehart as Outdoorswoman

Posted on December 6, 2024 by Lynn
Historic Pittsburgh

When she was in her mid-thirties, the famous author Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958) experienced a radical break in her domestic life.   She discovered the American West.  She made the contact through a former Pittsburgh friend, Howard Eaton, who had started ranches in various spots in the West. From 1915 onward, she led a bifurcated life.  During most of the year, she was a busy author, wife, and mother in her luxurious houses first outside Pittsburgh and then in Washington DC.  But in the summer she went to Wyoming to live on one of Eaton’s ranches and take long horse packing trips through the mountains.  The picture above shows her in her mid-forties, proudly posing in her Western gear. 

Left—Right

She kept this up for decades, documenting her adventures in popular booklets such as Tenting Tonight.  It was a somewhat luxurious form of camping, including a horse train, cooks, guides, and trunks of clothing.  Nonetheless, she slept in tents on the ground and took dangerous adventures, like a four day trip shooting the rapids on the Flathead River.

Library of Congress

She even became an advocate for the Blackfeet Indian Tribe. Above you see her in a more common outfit, working for their interests in Washington DC.

One wonders what she would have been like if she had started her life in Wyoming, instead of in Pittsburgh.  In women’s magazines, she presented herself as a conservative, suspicious of many of the changes for women in the 1920s.  But in the summer, she lived for adventure–and dressed for it too.

Posted in 1900s, 1910s, General | Tagged , | 2 Comments

A Family Thanksgiving

Posted on November 28, 2024 by Lynn
Family photo

My mother loved Thanksgiving.  She died in February, at the ripe old age of 99, so this will be my first holiday without her for as long as I can remember.  The ones in recent years weren’t elaborate.  My uncles and stepfather had died and eventually my mother had to move to a care home.  Although my siblings and I did our best to make it a special day, with pies and champagne, it was no match for the celebrations she used to host at her house.

The photo above is a typical scene from one of my mother’s Thanksgiving feasts. She is on the left, her two sisters on the right.  It must have been in the early 1990s, judging by one of my aunt’s eyeglass frames. You can see the special china, rarely used, and the silver polished just for this event.  She always served cranberry relish (recipe on the Ocean Spray bag) in that fancy glass serving dish.  One of my uncles brought the wine and champagne and my youngest aunt made the pies. Everyone pitched in for kitchen duty.

It was a dress up affair for my aunts, who came in nice outfits and special jewelry.  My mother had a simpler style in general.  Everything must have been ready by the time this picture was taken because she already holds a glass of champagne.

This is how I remember her best—smiling and happy in her kitchen with her family all around her.  We were there to mark the holiday but also to celebrate her favorite day.

Posted in 1980s, 1990, 2000s | Tagged | 2 Comments

A Tale Told Through Shoes

Posted on November 20, 2024 by Lynn

This ad for Enna Jetticks shoes from 1965 reminded me of a section of the book The Thoughtful Dresser by novelist and fashion writer, Linda Grant. “I can think of nothing worse than to have been a middle aged woman who loved fashion in the 1960s, because fashion hated middle-aged women.” (146) If the middle-aged felt left out, then what about the elderly?

The message in this ad was (I think) supposed to be positive: If you are older, all you have to do is change your shoes (and your outfit, your stockings, and the size of your ankles and calves) and you would look up to date.  But there is a more sinister undertone as well. If you aren’t with the fashion program, somehow you aren’t a woman anymore. 

All of us know the transformative power of fashion, but there is a limit to the magic new shoes can perform.  Older women wore sensible lace up shoes for a reason; they provided stability and protected them from falling. Would any older woman have been inspired to change her footwear after seeing the ad?  Or would she have assumed that the current styles had passed her by?

Posted in 1960s | Tagged , | 1 Comment