On The Politics of Vintage, Starting With a Series of Thoughtful Epigraphs Before I Begin My Own Ruminations on The Topic
by Guest Contributor Mimi, originally published at Threadbared
The following paragraphs are excerpts, authored by others, which might offer us (a collective us) an initial entry point into weighing the politics of vintage. The first comes to us from Catherine and her blog Renegade Bean, from a post called “Surrogate Memories From A Time Long Ago:”
I recently discovered a couple shops here in Taipei that sell vintage found photos. This topic really deserves a longer blog entry (and hopefully I’ll have time to write one soon), but I find it very moving to see people who look like me doing normal things in time periods that I enjoy from a historical and aesthetic standpoint.
It’s a rare thing. For example, I only recall Asian Americans being featured three times on as many seasons of “Mad Men”: the “Oriental family” in Pete’s office when he returned from his honeymoon, the waitress in a tight qipao and the (off-screen) Chinese driver that made Sally giggle. The series is one of my favorite TV shows, but it also reminds me that Asian Americans were marginalized (or worse) during the era it depicts. And, of course, depictions of Asians and Asian Americans in actual vintage US films are also problematic, to say the least.
I often find myself feeling very conflicted about my interest in vintage style. How can I enjoy things from an era when Asian Americans were repressed, socially and legally (as with the Japanese internment camps and the Chinese Exclusion Act), and when many Asian countries suffered sociopolitical violence that traumatized millions of people, including members of my family? But secondhand and vintage items have had an emotional resonance for me since I was very young and, though it’s hard to explain, I can’t imagine my life without them. This is more than a hobby for me — it’s part of my identity.
I am a modern feminist gal who likes fashions from the fifties, a time period which [...] is not exactly known for being woman-friendly. How do I reconcile these contradictions?
Well, thinking this over brought up more questions than answers for me. For example:
- Is wearing a fashion from an oppressive time period indeed a symbol of that oppression?
- Is there such a thing as “reclaiming” these fashions so that they are symbols of power rather than domination?
- Should we only make patterns from the eras that were the least oppressive to women?
- If wiggle skirts and the like are offensive to those with feminist sensibilities, what is the alternative? I mean, what could we possibly wear that would establish us as feminists to those who view us?
- Are 50’s wiggle skirts really that different from modern pencil skirts?
- What about current fashions that are restrictive? Stilettos, Spanx, etc? Skinny jeans? Are these symbols of oppression towards women?
So, to try to answer these questions, I thought about my relationship with vintage patterns. First of all, I like to sew 50’s fashions so that I can make them wearable for me, in 2009. I shorten hemlines so they’re more practical and modern. I make the waists wider so that they don’t have to be worn with a girdle. I lower the bust darts so an unpadded bra can be worn. I mix current ready-to-wear blouses and shoes with vintage-style skirts. In other words, I don’t dress as though I’m wearing a happy housewife costume. I think to most people, I look like a woman who is inspired by vintage fashion, but does not feel the need to look like Dita Von Teese or Betty Draper every day.
But why do I like these looks? I hope it’s not some sort of self-loathing that makes me want to wear a symbol of women’s oppression. I simply prefer the silhouette of vintage fashions as opposed to the current styles offered by pattern companies. I think the design is better and the lines are more flattering. If you want to oppress me, try to make me wear a pair of skinny jeans!
I should also note that I like vintage patterns because I’m interested in the historical and archival aspect of it. I think that sewing my way through Vogue’s New Book for Better Sewing is connecting me to women of the past. Doing this project, and researching the evolution of home sewing (women’s work, no doubt), is a way for me to honor the lives of women past (however painful) rather than pretending they didn’t exist.
Footpath Zeitgeist is a rigorously critical fashion blog with a particular focus on hipsters and the phenomenon of what Mel calls stylism, “the belief that having a coherent and identifiable ‘personal style’ is the yardstick of chic.” Mel doesn’t hold back here as she deconstructs vintage as a practice of individuation and as a category of specialized consumption:
But within mainstream fashion systems, “vintage” styles are re-worked and brought back in a way that highlights their retro-styling and general ‘old-schoolness’; according to this logic, there’s no point wearing second-hand clothing if it could pass for something you bought new. (There are “designer recycle boutiques” that do specialise in second-hand clothing that looks new, but they tend to privilege ‘designer labels’ and ‘pristine condition’ rather than an overtly anachronistic look.) And ‘vintage’ transmutes the rituals and skills of personalisation that surround clothing in the second-hand fashion system into a hazier idea of “personal creativity.” This happens both in the retail environment and in fashion journalism.
We all know that “vintage” is a much-abused term because it enables shops to ask large amounts of money for garments that are simply pre-worn – or even merely retro-styled. Owners of “vintage stores” openly buy up bulk clothing from flea markets, op-shops, garage sales and estate sales, carefully curating them and then marking the prices up vastly. These are the people who rock up at your Camberwell Market stall at 7am and go through your car boot with a torch before you’ve even unpacked. You’ll also see them at Savers with shopping trolleys piled high.
This is starting to happen in high-street retailers too as they realise the market for ‘vintage’. For instance, Sportsgirl is currently selling second-hand cowboy boots for something like $150, but rather than the motley collection of items you fossick through at a second-hand store, they’ve been carefully picked to look similar. What’s more, they’re displayed alongside a rack of dresses that are marked “vintage” but, similarly, have a look of extreme curatorship in order to make them ‘match’ both each other and the new goods elsewhere in the store.
It’s easy to scorn people as dumb bunnies for buying their clothes this way, but while it’s definitely a move away from the skill set that’s required to fossick through heaps of old clothes and choose the right garments (the vintage clothing dealer has done all the hard sifting for you), there is still a certain feeling of pride and creativity that comes from saying, “It’s vintage” when someone asks you where you got something. Here, “vintage” means, “I’m too individual to settle for mass-produced new clothes”, even though the ‘vintage’ garment was almost certainly worn on a mass scale whenever it was new. More subtly, it also means, “I’m sophisticated enough to redeploy the styles of the past, not just wear whatever’s new” and of course, “No, you cannot buy this item yourself, it’s all mine.”
I guess for me the question right now is: “How do we make clothing our own?”
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
MoonCat wrote:
great article, you’ve given me a lot to think about, especially in regards to fashion and feminism. as a feminist who loves to play dress up, i do think about it a lot but i’ve never thought about the vintage aspect.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 9:54 am ¶
n wrote:
I have zero problems wearing “vintage” clothing. When I wear a dress with WW2 era styling it doesn’t feel to me as if I am replaying the past and participating in oppression. I’m wearing what my grandmother wore and it is, in a sense, a tribute to her and her style.
I like the more structured clothing of that era, always have. And Im sure in part it is because I grew up seeing photos of my grandparents and parents and THEY are what I am nostalgic for and THEY are whom I am remembering or emulating.
I don’t find clothing of past eras significantly worse than the typical modern tiny strappy dress with tiny strappy stilettos. Whats so great about an outfit that doesn’t protect you from the elements, allow you to move freely without being over exposed and doesn’t allow you to walk or run? Hair that requires constant styling and adjusting to look right? I feel like a lot of things we women wear now are very restrictive.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 10:57 am ¶
Umm....wut wrote:
A symbol of oppression is only such when it’s implementation still poses a danger. At one time, the cross was a symbol of anti-Christian oppression, now it is the symbol of the faith because no one gets crucified anymore. I’ll bet that if Christians were being killed by crucifiction with regularity, it wouldn’t be such a pervasive symbol.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 11:17 am ¶
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:
I don’t see the big deal about wearing vintage clothes from an era where women (and minority groups) faced discrimination and even oppression. In fact, I would argue that maybe clothes was a way of individualism and artistic expression for THEM, to set themselves apart from other people and to stand out in a crowd.
maybe for many women and minority POC, fashion was an escapade for them. at least no one could tell them how to wear their hair or how to wear their clothes.
just my feelings, though.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 11:52 am ¶
Lola wrote:
I love 50s era design (cars, furniture, home decor) and see no conflict with my quest for vintage furniture and my quest for equality.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 12:00 pm ¶
MoonCat wrote:
@ n~ that’s a lovely way to think of it, you worded it perfectly. i wear my grandma’s things because i love her and i want to emulate her.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 12:29 pm ¶
n wrote:
Additionally, my grandparents and greatgrandparents and greatgreatgrandparents lived in the US. I can’t even CONCEIVE of considering “vintage” as something not belonging to me as a WOC. There is NO QUESTION. To ask if there is, IMO, is insulting. WE WERE HERE. THIS IS MY HISTORY TOO. White ppl didnt OWN it all.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 1:03 pm ¶
Erika wrote:
I wear vintage clothes without really thinking about the era — I too, have some of my late grandma’s clothes, and a lot of it she made herself. Despite being on the poorer side, she always looked fab in old photos, and her dresses are crafted very well.
When I wear clothes from the 50’s, 60’s, or 70’s, I don’t think about oppression, or even history; I’m simply wearing what looks good on me. I particularly like sheath dresses because they make my body look good.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 4:00 pm ¶
scout wrote:
As a huge fan of vintage and fashion in general, these issues have been on my mind for a while now. While I don’t think that wearing clothes from an oppressive time period represents oppression, I have always found the fetishization of the past to be extremely problematic, and I think that adhering to a slavishly “vintage” style (as opposed to mixing vintage pieces into a more modern look), that directly quotes another era encourages this. The period-perfect vintage looks, mod or pinup girl or whatever, take the best of the past, the pretty pretty clothes, and somehow that becomes a huge part of what an era means to us, such that the 60s can be as instantly referenced by a miniskirt as by the women’s rights movement. The danger of remembering the clothes, or any other cultural product of an era, without the context is the same: it’s a historical whitewash.
Whenever some street style site features a photo of some retro-style cutie, you never have to scroll through the comments very far before you see the inevitable “Gorgeous. I would live in the 40s / 60s / whatever” right now if I could. And I’m always like… really? Then you’ve probably never been an oppressed minority, or had an unwanted pregnancy, have you? For as much as is still wrong with this world, as a woman and a biracial person, I excercise rights and priveleges every single day that would not have been available to me even 30 or 40 years ago, and I am nothing but grateful to the people who came before me and had to fight for it all.
Paul Mooney has this amazing bit on one of his records about howthe love of all things retro is essentially a white phenomena (another topic that fascinates me!), and he says, “white folks looove that retro shit, don’t they? Always trying to lure us n******* back into the past. Well fuck you, I’m staying right here in 1993, where I can tell you to kiss my black ass!”
(but then I have a Paul Mooney quote for every occasion…
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 5:33 pm ¶
Ay-leen wrote:
I find this article and people’s reactions interesting because this same sort of discussion goes on in the steampunk community as well–of course, our clothes tend to be inspired by those older than “vintage era” (the Victorian/nineteenth century wear for those unfamiliar). Discussions for us go along the lines of: “If I dress like I’m on an African safari, does this mean I send pro-imperialist messages?” And people have said, “Gawds yes, those images only promote past oppression against x, y, and z,” or reply with the same reactions here: “It looks good, feels comfortable, and I have fun wearing it. So what’s the big deal?”
So, a question to throw out: how do you think people’s associations with fashion and the time period the fashion existed in change over time? Reactions here have said, “I remember my grandmother wearing it, so it brings back good memories.” Would it be different if we didn’t have that living memory with us? Would we have different reactions toward period clothing from an earlier era when we can only associate a general history to it and not personal connection?
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 6:11 pm ¶
G.K. wrote:
Tell it,N! White folks have hogged damn near everything from history to damn everything else they could get their hands on! Us POCs need to always reclaim out places in history–our own histories n this country–and in the present!
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 6:40 pm ¶
Colin B wrote:
It’s the history. To me, it’s like celebrating your past, although and even because of the oppression faced at the time. It doesn’t stain it with a symbolism of domination necessarily. It may be a symbol, in fact, of resistance or at the least of self-esteem and pride.
The devil, as they say, is in the details.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 6:46 pm ¶
MoonCat wrote:
Ay-leen, you bring up a good point. i’m not sure how different it would be if we didn’t have the memory with us. i’m not sure how often the average vintager/victorian dressed/steampunk think about the messages that could possibly sent with a particular style of clothing. it’s possible that i’m naive, but it seems that many could possibly just like the “look” of it and find it comfortable.
Posted 19 Dec 2009 at 2:44 am ¶
merisunshine36 wrote:
I don’t link vintage clothing with female repression–in my mind, I like the big skirts and the tailored cuts because they work well with my figure. Same thing with skinny jeans, which have the added benefit of keeping out of the way of my bike gears! For me, it is less about wanting to romanticize the 50s’–my great grandmother was the maid for a white doctor, so I have no illusions there–and more about appreciating the aesthetic of the clothing while also connecting myself to my past.
I like the points Footpath Zeitgeist brought up vis a vis the vintage look making the statement of, “I am too hip for mass produced clothes” –for me, this extends to “I am too hip for clothes produced by underpaid workers in developing countries”. I will admit to not knowing much about the treatment of people employed by clothing manufacturers in the 40s-60s; but when I buy something vintage I feel that I get a 3 for 1 deal. Something that looks good on me, is high quality, and that also doesn’t contribute to ongoing labor exploitation.
Posted 19 Dec 2009 at 1:13 pm ¶
Umm....wut wrote:
Also, I’m pretty sure a lot of those fashions were derived from POC and that a lot of those clothes were made by us as well. Heck, I listen to a lot of music from the 50s, 60s, and 70s with no compunction for the oppression of the past. There’s oppression today too, but it doesn’t stop me from enjoying things available to me today.
Posted 19 Dec 2009 at 1:51 pm ¶
wendy wrote:
Funny that you should write about this today, since I just happened to stumble upon: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roxysreal/sets/72157612934832373/detail/
It’s a critical mass bike type of event, but with everyone wearing 1930s-1950s attire and role-playing that era. As a lover of bicycles and vintage, it’s obviously something I’d love to partake in, but as a Chinese woman, I couldn’t help but feel strange about it (should I wear tweed like a fellow Englishwoman? silly. So should I throw in some Orientalism? even worse!), and your article hit the nail on the head…before slowly prying it back out with some intriguing rationale.
Maybe it is just time for us to get over it, and reclaim the vintage image? We’ll create our own historical contingencies.
Posted 19 Dec 2009 at 6:07 pm ¶
jlp wrote:
I’m a history buff, and my interests focus on the history of rebellion. I’m a fan of Lucy Parsons and Zapatistas.
I’m also very interested in material culture, and clothes are part of that. I’ve ready plenty about how young, female factory workers used clothing as a way to express their agency.
I also argue for the preservation of historic buildings for the same reason. I live in Milwaukee. The mill in Bay View, the site of the Bay View massacre (part of the whole labor rights/ Harmarket chain of events that gave us the 8-hour work day) is no longer there. Even though the mill was a site of horrible oppression and suffering, I believe that the physical building would be a profound reminder of the struggles of the past.
We have museums for this same purpose. Artifacts tell the story of the past; it is up to us to interpret them.
Posted 19 Dec 2009 at 7:22 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
In regards to the 40’s-50’s style of vintage clothing, many women are embracing it so openly and lovingly today because let’s face it: though there were certainly styles that wouldn’t fly now, many of those pieces were made to flatter and celebrate the true shape of a woman. In an era where literally strips or fabric are “bathing suits, ” the high cut style of yore is a welcome breather. I appreciate styles that play up my bust and hips, rather than shame them into submission. When I see women of color wearing vintage, it’s almost like reclaiming history in that yes, we were there too- and we probably wore it better at that!
Posted 20 Dec 2009 at 1:16 am ¶
jen wrote:
Thank you thank you for this post! This is my area of study, Material culture- exactly!
As a women and gender studies graduate, I have my own vintage shop that my sister took over while I’m at grad school studying nostalgia, vintage, thrifting, and fashion in Cultural Studies.
Sentiment that vintage is for hyperindividualist cultural connoisseurs might have a good conversation with Pierre Bordieu. Cultural elitism is a marker of subcultures, so to say that collecting anything vintage is just as bad as buying new because its still individualist consumption is a sentiment that completely misses the point. Revival and recollection of historical moments is a different form of consumption, that is not the same hyper modern need to competitively accumulate shiny NEW status symbols faster and faster. (I’m also hesitant to place dress silhouettes as locations for oppression- feels eerily similar to second wave feminism.)
Angela McRobbie in particular has actually written a great deal on the global second hand business and entrepreneur economies- go out to yer flea mkts and thrifts and I’m sure you will be reminded that all all stages and levels nostalgia is a global phenomenon and economy.
Posted 21 Dec 2009 at 12:29 am ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
I don’t wear vintage clothes, but I do have an intentionally anachronistic style, and no accompanying delusions about how fab the 50s and 60s (my era of choice) were for my forbears or would be for me. I will take the clothes, the cars and the music and hold everything else… OTOH, I realize that those things didn’t develop in a vacuum. I personally believe that removing the clothing from its original context serves as inherently subversive… using something that signifies traditional values/conformity and using it to stand out and be strange.
“Something that looks good on me, is high quality, and that also doesn’t contribute to ongoing labor exploitation.”
Vintage shopping could also be seen as a “greener” choice.
Posted 21 Dec 2009 at 5:44 am ¶
Bagelsan wrote:
If we don’t want to wear clothes from an era that is oppressive to women and POC we’re gonna have to go naked, yeah? It’s just a matter of degree, decade to decade.
Posted 22 Dec 2009 at 2:50 am ¶
Mrs. R. wrote:
Maybe it’s the sci fi, fanfic nerd in me, but I see myself wearing vintage as a Black woman as kind of putting myself in an AU (Alternative Universe) where folks basically knew how to behave, i.e. treated all peoples with respect and dignity and not based on how much they assimilated into the pre-dominant, Euro-based culture. In that universe, my kinky hair would not “clash” with pre-70s styles (I don’t want to look like I just stepped out of a Dolemite movie all the time. I like the feminine styles of the 30s and 50s as well). That’s how I reconcile it.
Posted 22 Dec 2009 at 6:19 am ¶