Wearing Old Clothes: Part 2

More combos

This is the second half of a post that I sent out on Tuesday. It got a bit too long and I got a bit too hot so I cut it in half. Please go see the first half if you haven’t already because it explains my objective in doing these photos.

And now I will pick up from where I left off, which was still with a late-19th century cotton fishtail petticoat skirt. It’s all about shapes!

I started off pairing that skirt with a sleeveless silk 1930’s blouse, and then with a voluminous and incredibly beautiful 1950’s army greatcoat cloak combo over the top. The shape of a long skirt with a sleeveless blouse, or a long skirt with a very shaped and large overcoat, is such a classic pairing. And now with the mariners jacket I mentioned in the last post - the one that has been tailored at the shoulders to fit me and then dyed with indigo:

Slightly more casual. I like the next picture because my eyebrows blurred and I look like something extraterrestrial!

I then ditched both the jacket and the silk blouse and added an early 20th century blouse in very fine cotton with cutwork cuffs and collar and front and some fine pleats at the front. This is also, like the skirt, a piece that is for sale.

This blouse once belonged to someone quite well-off. There would have been no doubt quite a bit of starch employed in the preparation of the collar and cuffs to make them stand up a bit; without it they are floppy, but I like floppy and much prefer it to stiff.

And then same blouse but with a pair of 1950’s work trousers, again from my wardrobe. These trousers have again the most fabulous shape, wide legs, high waist, a cinch belt at the back. They are incredibly comfortable to wear, in fact everything here is incredibly comfortable to wear because it is cut to accommodate the body, and not to make the body conform to the clothing. And all these pieces are natural fabrics, not an ounce of synthetic anything between them, even the buttons on the jackets and the pants and blouses are metal, glass, or mother-of-pearl.

I am sorry but I still find it very confronting to stare directly at the camera lens and I usually only manage it by accident!

And here are those same trousers but with the first blouse:

You can see here that really all that is happening is moving around different shapes, and I hope this first pair of newsletters shows how truly beautiful the shapes of genuine vintage and antique clothing are. And how the small details, the back cinch belt on the pants, the fishtail on the skirt, the way the silk blouse has been cut to fall against the body - and that magnificent cloak coat from the last newsletter with its incredible standup collar - it’s these details that make these clothes exceptional. These are precisely the sort of details we rarely see on modern clothing. The quality of the cloth compared to modern garments is a given - it is something that I have discussed at great length in many of my newsletters and posts.

Whenever I have to pack to travel, I work out what to take based firstly on shapes. I aim to have two bottoms, several different tops, and a coat, depending on weather and length of time away, and always go for things that can work with more than one other piece I am taking. I think this works well for an entire wardrobe as well. In fact making this post made me start doing something I hadn’t done for a very long time, which is to go through my wardrobe with a critical eye, and start really pairing things together and seeing what works and what doesn’t. Up until fairly recently, I have worked pretty much non-stop in order to be able to afford our house, but I am beginning to have days off and go out with friends, and it was a good exercise to start looking at combinations instead of just reaching for my usual uniform of jeans and some old tshirt. I would thoroughly recommend this as an exercise to do with your own wardrobe before you buy anything else to add to it, or if you are trying to rationalise it. Aja Barber has spoken a lot about this in her Patreon - many of us have far too many clothes because instead of trying out new combinations of what we own (this is essentially all styling is, pairing things so they look good together) we go and buy new things that we will add to all the other stuff we don’t wear. It’s highly likely you already have a bunch of new looks in your existing wardrobe, you just need to take the time to play around with your clothes. Remember also that the most sustainable clothes are always the ones you already own, regardless of provenance or fibre content.

The other thing that many of us do, and I have certainly been very guilty of this, is not being honest about our body type. These shapes shown here are ones that work well with my body shape, short, very busty, curvy. I have to face that this is what I have to work with, and dress accordingly. I can’t, for example, wear coats that are long and elegant and fitted, I just ruin their line; I don’t work in any top or dress that has a high or fitted bodice, high fitted necklines make me look like a top-heavy brussel sprout, most trousers that fit me at the hips are too large around the waist, highwaisted tight jeans on me just look like a sausage casing (in fact most jeans don’t work on me at all, I am still searching for a pair like the Lees I had 12 years ago) whereas most smock dresses hang off my boobs, obscuring my waist and making me look heavily pregnant. I love those really elegant dresses with high fitted necks, I love voluminous poet sleeves with fitted wrists, I love backless silk dresses, I love the look of simple smocks, and I can’t make any of these things work on my shape although god knows I’ve tried and failed (and wasted a lot of money and made myself feel bad about myself).

So a large part of making clothing work for you is knowing the shapes that work on your body. Having a good tailor is a super investment, but nothing beats being honest about your own shape. The times when I really have felt myself uncomfortable and known that I don’t look good are those when I have dressed in clothes that haven’t suited my shape at all, wishing to look like someone I have seen in a picture or like one of my taller, slimmer friends.

Also a reminder that decades now of Western designers prioritising very tall extremely thin models and designing their clothing around those models has led to an ingrained belief that only similar bodyshapes are beautiful or is deserving of beautiful well-cut clothing. Many plus-size modern clothes that I see are either badly up-sized versions of what is on the runway, or smock-like smothering things which emphasise all of the wrong parts on larger bodies. Vintage and antique clothing reminds us that there was a time before this obsession with looking like an adolescent boy but with tits, there was a time when clothes were cut to fit bodies much more (yes, I know, corsets and shapewear have existed for a long time but still, I find that many older pieces are actually cut for shapes - the silk blouse in these two posts is a great example). I just want to add that the most luxurious hoard of finest silk lingerie I ever came across was all from one wardrobe, that of a champagne heiress in the early 30’s, all the pieces were handmade by Charvet who used to also do a sideline in women’s clothing, and all of them were made to fit a body which may have been a modern size 16-18. At a time when many people were much smaller than they are now (due, I might add, largely to decades of malnourishment - not from any inherent secret French diet knowledge*), the owner of those lingerie pieces clearly had an extremely voluptuous form and was not at all adverse to showing it - many of the pieces are made from silk so fine it is translucent and would hve revealed not just curves but individual hairs, should there have been any….

It will be the clothes I find that dictate how I do this again. If you like this post please tell me. I think it gives a much better idea of these pieces of clothing to see them on a human form, although I am hoping that in the future that form not always be me. For the time being tho I’ll have to work with what’s available!

xxHanna

*Whilst we are on the subject of thin chic French women I am sorry to report that my experience here is that many women achieve this shape by replacing food with cigarettes, still, and that many older women show the advanced signs of osteoporosis that comes from severe dieting and not holding enough weight. Things are changing, but many of the women I personally know and hang out with regularly in France smoke heavily and eat like birds. Sure, they look chic but at what price? Don’t believe the myths!