Swing Fashionista : Vintage Photos

{ Category Archives } Vintage Photos

Olivier de Havilland

Remember this photo of Dita’s stunning hair that I posted a few days ago? Well I just stumbled across an image of Olivier de Havilland sporting a similar ‘do in the late 1940s, and had to share. If anyone knows how to create a look like this, please do let us know!

You probably know Olivier de Havilland as Melanie in Gone with the Wind. She was a fairly serious actress in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, and often played in period pieces. She also happens to be Joan Fontaine’s older sister. She is still alive today (she is 93 years old).

Categories: Celebrities, Hair, Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1930s, 1940s, Dita Von Teese, forties, gone with the wind, Hair, hairdo, olivier de havilland, style, thirties

10 Mar 2010 Posted by Sharon Comments (0)

The Lovely Lina Romay

Lina Romay was an actress and singer in the 1940s and 50s, with Columbia and MGM. Though she was born in New York, she was daughter to the Mexican Consul to New York City and was typically cast as a Latin American beauty. She sang with Xavier Cugat’s orchestra in the early 1940s. You may have seen her singing with the band in the Fred Astaire/Rita Hayworth flick You Were Never Lovelier (1942) or in Stage Door Canteen (1943). In the clip below, she could be singing about herself…

Categories: Celebrities, Vintage Photos, Vintage Videos
Tagged: 1940s, 1950s, actress, fifties, forties, latin, lina romay, mexican, MGM, silver screen, singer, starlet, Xavier Cugat

8 Mar 2010 Posted by Sharon Comments (1)

Three steps of the ‘Five-Step’

7th June 1924.

Here Santos Casani makes an appearance in Popular Music and Dancing Weekly magazine, demonstrating the first three steps of the ‘Five-Step’ - steps four and five were published the following week.

Trevira wrote a post about Mr Casani here. You might not realize it, but you’ve probably seen him before!

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1920s, dance, How To, magazine, music, Santos Casani

24 Feb 2010 Posted by Jo Comments (0)

Dorothy Parker: 1938

From Shorpy

August 4, 1938. Washington, D.C. “Miss Dorothy Parker has been selected as Miss Washington and will compete for the title of Miss America at the Atlantic City beauty pageant to be held during Labor Day week. 18 Years old, she weighs 112 pounds and is 5 feet, 4 inches in height. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. Albert Parker of Washington.” Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1930s, bathing suit, beach, Dorothy Parker, vintage photo

20 Feb 2010 Posted by Jo Comments (1)

Gotham Underground: 1904

From Shorpy

New York circa 1904. “City Hall subway station.” 8×10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1900s, Detroit Publishing Co, New York, picture, subway, train station, vintage

13 Feb 2010 Posted by Jo Comments (0)

How will you spend it?

How will you spend your Valentine’s Day?

Like this:

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Or this?

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Photo from here.

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1950s, holiday, photos, Valentine's Day

12 Feb 2010 Posted by Jo Comments (1)

1920s Valentine

It’s coming. Are you ready for an embrace?

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Photo from here.

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1920s, holiday, love, Valentine's Day

11 Feb 2010 Posted by Jo Comments (0)

Sharp Suits Through the Ages

Sharp suits never go out of style. Here are some leading men that make suits look GOOD!

The 1940s Suit
On either side of the Atlantic, under the wartime clothing restrictions, the turn-ups or cuffs would not have been allowed. Nor would the flaps on the pockets. Still, it’s a superb example of how good a Donegal tweed can look.
Photograph courtesy of Corbis/Bettman.

Sean Connery
Let’s hear it for Anthony Sinclair, the London tailor who created the Bond look in the early days. Sinclair was the tailor of Terence Young, who directed the first, second, and fourth James Bond movies (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Thunderball). Young decided that Sean Connery needed a bit of help to look cool.
Photograph courtesy of PhotoFest.

Three-Piece Checked Suits

Hector Powe was one of the smaller British “multiple tailors”—retailers with a national chain of shops—but it still offered stylish 3-piece suits in 1964. Personally I love the suit on the right.
Photograph courtesy of Woolmark Archive & London College of Fashion.

Don Figueroa

This Spanish aristocrat, Don Jaime de Mesia Figueroa, was photographed in about 1967 by Patrick, Lord Lichfield, a cousin of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. It takes some style to carry off this eight-button double-breasted suit.
Photograph courtesy of Corbis/Patrick Lichfield/Conde Nast Archive.

Details

Full Spread

Categories: Clothing, Men's Fashion, Vintage Photos
Tagged: Don Figueroa, men, Sean Connery, suits

9 Feb 2010 Posted by Jo Comments (2)

1940s Men’s Fashion Snap Shots

From the Square America Snapshot Archive…

Categories: Men's Fashion, Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1940s, 40s, fashion, forties, men, suits, wartime, wwii

18 Jan 2010 Posted by Sharon Comments (3)

Scot Tissue ad, 1926

Scot Tissue ad, 1926, originally uploaded by Gatochy found on Flapper Girl.

Scanned from Taschen’s “All-American Ads of the 20s”.

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1920s, add, Gatochy, Scot Tissue

2 Jan 2010 Posted by Jo Comments (0)

Happy New Years!!

Hope you have a fabulous dress for the countdown!

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: happy new years

31 Dec 2009 Posted by Jo Comments (1)

Several ways to dance (according to each one’s profession)

Almanaque Bertrand, 1938 - Several ways to dance (according to each one’s profession)

Almanaque Bertrand, 1938 - 24, originally uploaded by Gatochy found on Art Deco.

Click image for 1911 x 1437 size.

From the Humorist: “How a doctor dances… a salesman… a dentist… a swimmer… a scello player… a phrenologist.”

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1930s, Almanaque Bertrand, art deco, Gatochy, profession

20 Dec 2009 Posted by Jo Comments (1)

Love Vintage: A Passion for Collecting Fashion

This looks like a fantastic book! Do any of you own this book? Have you flipped through it? What is your personal review?

Here is a great review from Super Kawaii Mama!

Information provided by seller:

Love Vintage takes the reader on a charming visual and literary journey through the annals of 20th-century fashion design.

With beautiful photography and an elegant text, It effortlessly reveals both the recurring themes of fashion whilst also identifying the distinct features and innovations of each era.

Vintage clothing is much valued, not least because if its graceful and fluid appearance, but also on account of the wearability and durability of the garments. Unlike the mass-manufactured clothing of today, where garments are more-often-than-not two-sided grabs of fabric hastily stitched together, much of the clothing of the past was designed to be refashioned and reworn as time went by. They were shaped garments, structured in three dimensions, and designed to impose form upon the wearer.

Love Vintage covers both the glamorous and everyday garments of the past and, despite the apparent complexity of some, shows how each was perfectly designed to suit the occasion for which it was worn. They were ultimately so much more functional, wearable and sustainable than the clothing of today.

The book also contains a wealth of information about fashion design, of high value to both the experienced and novice collector, together with an inspirational collection of photography that helps describe each piece to its full. Also included are valuable notes on dress construction, vintage designers, and fabrics.

This book is the culmination of almost 30 years of studying, collecting and repairing vintage clothes, fuelled by a passion for the art of design and a humble respect for the dressmaking skills of a bygone era that brought such creative visions into reality.

Nicole Jenkins is a costume designer, vintage clothing afficionado, and owner of the highly respected vintage clothing store, CIRCA, in the heart of Melbourne’s vintage district in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy.

Click here to buy!

Categories: Books, Vintage Photos
Tagged: Australia, book, fashion, Love Vintage: A Passion for Collecting Fashion, Melbourne, Nicole Jenkins, vintage, vintage clothing

16 Dec 2009 Posted by Jo Comments (0)

Almanaque Bertrand, 1938 - An invitation to dance

From The Punch: In the time of the Minuete… of the Quadrille… of the Waltz… and of the Fox-trot.

Almanaque Bertrand, 1938 - 15, originally uploaded by Gatochy and found on Art Deco.

Click image for 818 x 1124 size.

From The Punch: In the time of the Minuete… of the Quadrille… of the Waltz… and of the Fox-trot

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1930s, Almanaque Bertrand, Art Deco Blog, Fox Trot, Invitation to dance

15 Dec 2009 Posted by Jo Comments (1)

De L’Officiel de la Mode: Archives

This is unbelievably cool. De L’Officiel magazine (think French fashion mag) has recently published their archives and now you (yes, you!) can read through the past editions starting from 1920!!! If you read French this should be even more amazing, but even if you don’t, this is still wonderful. Here is a screen shot of the archives:

Click here to go to the gallery!

Here is a quick preview of what you can see if you head on over to the archives. This is from 1927, #66:

Go, go now! Click on the link above and peruse through the archives of L’Officiel de la Mode! What cover do you like best? What era do you most enjoy? Let us know!!!

Categories: In Magazines, Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, archives, beauty, fashion, French, L'Officiel de la Mode, magazine

11 Dec 2009 Posted by Jo Comments (0)

African American Vernacular Photography

Some gorgeous black women of the 1930s and 40s, on Omega418’s Flickr stream…

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1930s, 1940s, african american, antique, black, forties, photography, thirties, vintage, women

8 Dec 2009 Posted by Sharon Comments (4)

Sheer Beauty: Rita Hayworth

Here’s another glamorous lady, Rita Hayworth. You’ve probably (hopefully!) seen her in Cover Girl (dancing with Gene Kelly), and Gilda (the film that made her one of the most lasting sex symbols of the 1940s). She was named number 19 in The American Film Institutes 50 Greatest Screen Legends. Glamorous from birth, her parents were Eduardo Cansino, a Spanish flamenco dancer, and Volga Hayworth, a Ziegfeld girl. She was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, in Brooklyn, New York City. Amongst her five husbands were Orson Welles, Argentine actor/singer Dick Haymes and Prince Aly Khan (yes, Rita, not Grace Kelly, was the first movie star to become a princess).

Known for her luscious red locks (and damn did she have good hair!), she did go blonde for The Lady of Shanghai, although critics claimed that was why the film was a box office flop. I think she looks great!! Anyway, in the early 40s she was photographed pin-up style, including the infamous shot of her in a negligee perched on her bed in LIFE Magazine, so when the USA joined the war in 1941, she was admired by thousands of servicemen and became one of the top pin-up girls of the war (along with Betty Grable and that saucy peekaboo pose of hers). A few interesting Wiki facts:

Before she broke in to films, she danced in nightclubs in Tijuana, Mexico under her real name Margarita Cansino, and some say that the Margarita cocktail was named after her.
She weighed 55kg and was 5′6” (exactly the same as me!), making her “tall for women of her time”
In 1949 her lips were voted best in the world by the Artists League of America. She had a modeling contract with Max Factor to promote its Tru-Color lipsticks (one of the adverts is below).
Famous quote: “Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me.”
And another: “I think all women have a certain elegance about them which is destroyed when they take off their clothes.”
She died in 1987 at the age of 68, of Alzheimer’s disease. At her funeral, Ricardo Montalban, Glenn Ford, Don Ameche and Hermes Pan carried her coffin.

Click on the images below to see Rita in all her full-size glory…

Categories: Celebrities, On Catwalks, Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1940s, 1950s, Cover Girl, fifties, forties, Gilda, images, Margarita Cansino, photos, Rita Hayworth

5 Dec 2009 Posted by Sharon Comments (0)

Marcel of Paris Hair Salon in Washington DC, 1926

Via Shorpy.com; the caption reads “Washington, DC circa 1926. Marcel Beauty Shop, Connecticut Avenue.”

Click on the image to see a larger version, and all the glorious detail of those mannequins and their perfect Marcel waves.

Via

Categories: Vintage Photos
Tagged: 1920s, 20s, bob, curl, do, fingerwave, Hair, marcel, style, twenties, wave

1 Dec 2009 Posted by Sharon Comments (0)

Carlo Pieroni and his Pin-ups

Carlo Pieroni was born in Florence, Italy. His work is a combination of photography and digital manipulation where he “paints” each image to create a timeless vision of femininity, always on the borderline between reality and fantasy, where the woman is never an object but the driving subject of a highly calibrated seduction game.