Daisy Fairbanks Vintage

Dick Clark on American Bandstand

“It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.”

Icon of American music television, Dick Clark.

 

San Francisco 1906, Woman and Man in the Rubble

Today is the 106th anniversary of the famous earthquake and fire.

I love the calm, yet determined expression in this woman's face and body in the middle of the devastation.

Vintage Swim Cap Fashion

Via Jezebel we discovered an adorable presentation of 1950's swimming caps. Using the puppet stage of Punch & Judy, women in strapless suits peek up in variously decorated rubber caps. Remember, most women didn't really swim in the sense we know today. Instead, they bathed, mainly going for a dip up to the neck at most. The reason? It took a lot of effort to style & set the hair, and no woman wanted to end up with a limp, unstyled coif for the remainder of the day. So much has changed for the better, but I do find the swim caps cute!

 

First Lady, First Vintage - Michelle Obama Wears American Designer Norman Norell

via the Huffington Post

Lovely photo, lovely family, lovely dress. Plus, super cute Christmas elves!

LACMA Fashion Exhibit and the Ideal Silhouette

Via my one of favorite guilty pleasure blogs, GoFugYourself, I was directed to this interesting behing-the-scenes look at the careful consideration that goes into dressing mannequins for a historical fashion exhibit.

photo via UNFRAMED, LAMCA blog

Something that visitors to a museum may not stop to consider are the structures underneath that support the weight of the potentially fragile fabric and structure of the garment. While reading the article, one thing that stood out to me immediately was this statement about the museum's mannequins:

We have male and female mannequins that were built to represent each dramatic change in the fashionable silhouette from the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries. For women, corsets, crinolines, and bustles dictated not only idealized waist-to-hip ratios, but also posture and whether “fat” was pushed up, down, in, or out.

Fashion designers have always created with an idealized figure in mind, and that ideal changes over time, right along with popular culture such as music and art, and the celebrities themselves. Before there were cameras, the celebrities of the day had the trendiest dresses made, and sat to have their portraits painted. Two hundres years ago, the fashionable silhouette was an Empire waist, which required not much structural alteration fo a woman's own figure. Fast forward fifty years, and in order to have the fashionable silhouette, a woman needed a tightly corseted waist and layers of pouffy crinolines. In the Twentieth Century, a similar timeline followed - Edwardian era fashion required a columnar silhouette with a more relaxed waistline, and Mid-Century gave us the New Look, with a girdle cinching the waist and again, the full skirted hourglass silhouette.

Today, instead of having portraits painted, celebutante wanna-be's put on the trendiest clothing and handbags, and dash about town to be photographed by paparazzi and end up on TMZ. We no longer have corsets or girdles, but there are waist-slimming spandex undergarments and fad fasts and diets. And don't forget the current epidemic of figure mutilating cosmetic surgeries. Many today would shudder at the idea that Victorian women had ribs removed to achieve the wasp waist (even if no such thing actually happened) but think nothing of liposuction or breast augmentation. All in the pursuit of the fashionable silhouette.

Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915 opened October 2, 2010 and runs through March 6, 2011 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

 

The Alfred Shaheen Experience at Glamoursplash

It's true. As a blogger sometimes I'm a big phony slacker, and at such times I find it necessary to draw your attention elsewhere. Glamoursplash, for instance, where my BFF and birthday sister Pam has been blogging up a storm on accounta the fact that a major Alfred Shaheen fashion retrospective has hit the her glittering, glamourous metropolis. An exhibit, mind you, that I have yet to get offa my hiney and see, and which, if I miss it, it will be because I'm a stressed-out super busy single mom and not an actual slacker.

Anyway, mosey on over and take a look at Pam's in-depth articles on Alfred Shaheen, Master Printer.

About the exhibit, with exclusive photos.

About Shaheen Textiles.

Shaheen Fashion Roundup.

About the Aloha Shirts.

Exclusive interview with Shaheen's daughter.

Here's a little gallery of Shaheen that we at Daisy Fairbanks have to offer:

The 100 Year Anniversary of the Bra

Though the credit for inventing the modern brassiere goes to Mary Phelps Jacob, women have had the additional sartorial challenge of containing the breasts in order to ease movement since the dawn of time. We have wrapped and padded ourselves variously to suit the both the whims of fashion and the variety of size and shapes among women.

DeBevoise ad circa 1915

Early bras were thought of as promoting health, as well as offering "protection," (from what, we're no longer sure.) As usual, advertising played a large role in establishing womens need for this specialty undergarment.

In 1946, a film called "The Outlaw" was released starring an unknown actress named Jane Russell. Though it had been filmed five years earlier, producer Howard Hughes had a tough time getting the picture past the censorship board due to the way it portrayed the generous assets of the full-figured Russell. Hughes had a new bra designed for Russell, with an underwire that created structure independently of the straps.

The release of this film was a bit of a turning point in the consciousness of the male viewer.

Then, in 1947, Christian Dior launched his first collection, later known as the "New Look." The "hourglass figure" was born. Women now had a new template by which to measure themselves.

What this did to the undergarment industry was that now, instead of concealing and controlling, (you know, for our health,) women's breasts were the main attraction, meant to be out front, practically on the attack, like a torpedo or bullet.

 

And oh yes, it's all about the male gaze.

In the 50s, the Maidenform ad campaign made quite an impression, though I wonder if many women saw these fantasies of being in their underwear in public as more of a nightmare.

Then in the late 1960s, feminism emerged into the consciousness of American women, and the advertisers that marketed to them. Now the bra needed to represent freedom.

The 1970s may  have been a decade of natural look for breasts, but the 80s brought Madonna, with her lingerie-as-outerwear, and Jean Paul Gaultier, with his retro nod to the history of undergarments.

Now in 2010 we have what's-her-name's secret, constantly reminding us about our standing on the "hotness" scale, and celebutantes bragging about their plastic surgery.

Being modestly endowed myself, all I need is a plain cotton sports bra and I'm good to go. I own two. Take that, advertisers.

Madeleine Vionnet at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

"What I did is not fashion — it was designed to last forever."

As if anyone needs a reason to fly to Paris, the
Madeleine Vionnet, puriste de la mode exhibit is open at the
musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris, and runs through January 31, 2010.

One of the most innovative and influential designers of the twentieth century, Madeleine Vionnet not only invented the bias cut, she was also an early adopter of workers' rights and copyright protection of her unique designs.
Read an excellent review and see a slideshow at New York Times online.

Books available on M. Vionnet:

 

A virtual gallery of Vionnet:

 

Vionnet did her draping on a small mannequin.

 

 

via Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

 

A Woman With a Past - Barbie Turns 50

Getty Images

Always a working woman, always ahead of her time, Barbie is celebrating her half-century of influence on the psyche of the American woman. She can play professional sports, fly a plane, land on the moon, cure animals and children, run for president, fight fires and crime, all while staying svelte and wearing 3 inch heels.

Allan Grant / Time Life Pictures / Getty

Time Magazine has a nice photo slideshow detailing some of Barbie's highlights.

And in case you fell off the planet (like I did - hey, my laptop was busted) and missed the Barbie Runway Show during fashion week in New York a few weeks back, click here to see highlights and a slideshow from the 50 designers' tribute ensembles.

Getty Images

Pinkaholism

Pink is complicated. I can't think of another color that is as politically charged, and it's no surprise given the cultural history of pink.
Until the early 20th century, blue was thought of as the color of virtue and passivity and associated with the Virgin Mary, and was therefore ascribed to girls, while red, and its paler shade of pink, was thought of as a masculine color associated with strength and might (as in the British Redcoats.)

"There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the
generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The
reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more
suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty,
is prettier for the girl." [Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918]

After WWII, men returned to the workforce wearing either plain shirtsleeves and denim or the ubiquitous gray flannel suit, while designers had an entire color palette with which to support the modern woman's return to her "traditional" identity as home maker and consumer. Children's clothing manufacturers were divided as to which sex should be represented by what color. Greeting card companies, however, followed Thomas Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" and "Pinky" and began to assign the opposite palette when creating birth announcements.

Within just a few years, the new gender/color assignment followed through to industrial design in pink cars:

and home appliances:

Here's a delightful scene from one of my all-time favorite films, Funny Face starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn, expertly costumed by the iconic Edith Head:

Color assignment for the sexes fell off the radar for a while in the 70s and 80s, while androgyny was fashionable. In fact, in the mid 80s we found gender reversal in fashion, with women wearing men's suits and men wearing pink. (That's a whole 'nother post.)

In the early 21st century pink seems to be making a resurgence yet again, to the dismay of some modern women who see the "pinkification" of women and women's issues as patronizing. Point taken. Still others, like one of our favorite rockers, Pink, are trying to take back the color as a symbol of female power.

 

Now, back to your regularly scheduled vintage fashion. Here's a selection of favorites from DaisyFairbanks:

1. 60s Silk Chiffon Gown
2. 70s Metallic Boho Dress
3. 70s Silk Tunic Dress
4. 50s Pink Roses Dress

 

1. 50s Ski Sweater
2. 60s Darlene Mohair Sweater
3. 80s Mohair Sweater
4. 80s Silk Skirt

1. 60s Pink Fanfare Shoes
2. 80s Fucshia Bruno Magli Pumps
3. 80s Leather Purse

Want more? Our friend Maggie at Denisebrain has blogged pink as well. check it out!

We also found this video confession on 12seconds.tv:

If you're anything like her, you'll have plenty of choices.