Less frou frou vintage please!!

 

Vintage is now a word that most accurately seems to mean distressed faux farmhouse furniture in white or pale blue. It means mimsy floral chintz, especially in waxed form, or miss matched china tea cups and saucers as long as they have designs including more blooms or polkadots. It is overblown cupcakes in any form, little bits and bobs of buttons and cheap mass produced knick knacks sewn on to everything. It is needlepoint cushions featuring union jacks and pugs, it is old jugs filled with expensive pink roses and green hydrangeas, it is reproduction biscuit tins and little wire things to hold eggs. It is sugary, it is cluttered, it is utterly girly and in great amounts it makes me want to throw up (over a cane chair reupholstered in Cath Kidston fabric with gingham ribbons tied on the the corners).

I can't imagine tucking into my kebab take away here...

Don’t get me wrong, I like porcelain teacups, polka dots and rickety old junk shop furniture, I like most of the stuff above in moderation: I just cannot bear the twee overwhelmingly fussed with sheer  tweeness of the whole idea.  It isn’t that I dislike excess, in the Victorian menagerie, baroque lunacy or Gothic Count gone made style I love it. Not a purist and I dislike minimalism yet there is something about all this vintage frillery frippery that grates, possibly it is boredom.  And make no mistake, to the media and mass culture as a whole that is what we are talking about when we use the word 'vintage'. 

Bloody little wooden signs everywhere, I know where I live thanks....

At Vintage at Southbank last weekend I picked up a free copy of BBC Homes and Antiques Vintage issue and it was full of this notting hilly yummy mummy stuff. I learned‘Vintage’ is ideally accessorised by two sweet little children,  Milly and Oscar, tricked out in dove egg blue corduroy and peter pan collars. Oh and a dog, probably a Shitzhu type thing with an old fashioned working class name like Bert or Sid. I can see the magazine does have its fantasy appeal and the ladies on their stall were very nice., nothing against the magazine per se, it is catering for an audience. They were wise enough to have the lovely and very knowledgeable Naomi of Vintage Secret advising and had an article on wonderful Stein jewellery.

Their introduction to what vintage was however a big fib, actually car enthusiasts and antiques buyers are right, if you call something less than 50 years old vintage you are big fat pants on fire liar.  Just because today's PR's and clueless fashion magazines and a load of 20 somethings have suddenly decided that they think 70's or 80's is vintage doesn't make it so, imagine if I tried that with anything else. I'd end up in court for misrepresentation.

Vintage 'style', if you say so, retro certainly but it ain't vintage under 50 years unless it is wine. Unless that is 'vintage' has become something else, in which case what term do we use? 40's clothes are not antiques a nd I'm unilaterally (well no one else listens to me!) reclaiming the word vintage for what it actually means genuinely old. Not something that anyone over the age of twelve has already worn before.

Here the union jack and flowers have been cleverly combined....

I suppose I am frustrated that an interest in past eras has congealed into this. I shouldn’t be surprised as I am getting serious de ja vu. It is the mid-seventies all over again. Then the country obsessed over Victoriana, Laura Ashley made a killing, the Timotei and flake girls ruled adland and the whole country went nuts for Diary of an Edwardian Lady. Everyone either had a lace petticoat sticking out from under their skirt, a folk art inspired dirndl or a Little House on the Prairie style triangle fabric tied around their head.s It was a look inflicted on me as a child. The 80’s were always better than the 70’s, they at least paraphrased the forties and pirates.  It is not that I dislike flowery things or girlishness I am, as I said, just bored of it.

Cupcakes are not the only cake.

I suppose what is irritating me is the sheer sticky vanillaish conservatism lying behind it all. Is it down to the recession? It is certainly recessive. It gives the feminist in me the heebeegeebees. I’m finding the overwhelming nostalgia irksome, I just like the look of things from the past and one reason is that the clothes often reflect, for me at least, fast changing, challenging worlds but it is not an aspirational thing. I like being in a fast moving, liberal, all sexual orientations all lifestyles modern kind of world. There is a sharp cold wind of conservatism out there and conservatism tends to be selfish and oppressive. The past got a lot of things right but I wouldn't want to live there!

Maybe I read too much into it but cozying up the 30’s and 40’s and 50’s and presenting them as a soft focus version of the past seems retrograde in the wrong way. I'm all for escapism but is there much difference between wrapping women up ‘vintage’ style and sticking us in short lycra mini skirts and painting us wag orange. It’s also yet again ageist, this style of vintage only suits the very young or the fecund, if you were middle aged you would be described as mutton dressed as lamb double quick.

I do like pastel colours, I do like flowers, blimey I even like little gloves and macaroons but with added sharp conversation, some gin, some sharp deco glass and a soupcon of sassiness. I admire Greta Garbo, Lauren Bacall, Chanel, Ida Lupino, Amelia Earheart and Lee Miller. I never remember seeing a picture of them in a pinny. 

I cannot think of a flowery dotty flowery cupcakey style icon as a comparison. If someone truly loves dressing like this I am not criticising them, I am worried by the motivations of the media in promoting just one entirely domestic, ultra-feminine housebound version of a passion with the past.  I think this is one of the reasons many assume that an interest in historic style equals right-wing conservatism, a rejection of modernism, reactionary beliefs and the evasion of real life through nostalgia.

What do you think? Do you agree or am I just a crankly old cow! xxx

Vintage dating

Vintage romance at the click of a mouse?

I am always initially surprised when I meet someone alternative who has a partner who is conventional in appearance. I say ‘appearance’ because they can turn out to be as mad as a bag of cats once you get to know them. Appearance is, of course not everything, shared interests, attitudes and downright magnetic attraction play a part. But, at the end of the day, is it better to end up with a man or woman from the same ‘scene’?

This begs the question of whether there are disadvantages to leaving the fold and ending up with someone who does not share your interests? The cynical might answer that simply by being male they have all kinds of bizarre alien tendencies. And men seem to think we all pick on ‘em, despite being the gentle creatures we really are. The answer seems to come down to whether they get ‘it’ rather than style. A fifties style Betty with a skate dude may work because they are both involved in a subculture. Vintage forums however often detail the travails of being with someone who doesn’t get it. This seems to be particularly confusing not to mention worrying in the case of a man who pursues a vintage minx and then claims not to like her ‘old-fashioned’ hair. Surely he noticed you reminded him of his ‘nan’ when he first met you? Even worse is the man who insists on saying he likes the ‘natural’ look and winces at red lips and foundation. It is nice that a person likes you scrubbed and bare but that they should not like you without the slap? Understandable in the case of a tangoed Jordan wannabee but not in relation to a woman who loves old-fashioned glamour. The bleating request for ladies to look fresh and the comments in magazines about girlfriends looking sexiest when wearing their partner’s old shirts makes me squirm. Of course the irony is that these so called natural girls are often higher maintenance than us, just look at Jennifer Aniston.

Psychologists claim that men like make up less women because they look more ‘girlish, younger and fertile’. Hmm, the feminist in me adds, ‘vulnerable, controllable and docile’. Vintage ladies adore being in control of their image and to be honest none of the retro-centric women I know are doormats. Perhaps, because vintage, and indeed all sub-cultural people stand out, men in particular feel vulnerable to embarrassment and comment as they are particularly prone to peer pressure and how the lads view their romantic partners. I can understand this just a little if their utterly conventional miss morphs into a Dita von Teese in front of their eyes. If they were sensible they’d be delighted but change is difficult. Many couples split up for example when one of them loses weight.

I personally find there are real advantages to sharing life with someone who at least to some degree shares your vintage tastes. My partner and I do not like exactly the same things (cricket?..yawn!) but we can rely on often wanting to go to the same places and events. Moreover when you meet a vintage partner’s friends you are more likely to get on with them and should it get to a ‘meet the parents’ stage you are also unlikely to horrify them. Once living together the idea of buying a wooden-globe cocktail cabinet will not cause major rifts. There will be no arguments over what music to play as neither person would darken their Itunes play list with rap or grime. Conflicts when they arise are amusingly vintage: the washing of delicate silks, the boyfriend’s flat is infested with moths or when drunk she covers his clothes with Mac’s Ruby Woo. Then there is the time he couldn’t walk for a week after spearing his foot with a heated roller clip and whether that cocktail should really contain egg white or not. Also, vitally, a vintage chap will never ever shame you by rolling up in front of your friends in a pair of Nikes, cargo pants and t-shirt with a picture of a monkey on it. This arguable narrowness of artistic taste is reflected by a wideness and liberality of attitude. I very rarely meet a homophobic, racist, sexist, fascist vintage type; all qualities that are relationship deal breakers for me.

The problem is that it is difficult enough to find a romantic partner anywhere, let alone a vintage romantic partner, especially if you don’t live in a big city. There are events but you can end up being a gooseberry, or perhaps you’d rather just have fun with friends. This post was prompted by the announcement of a new, UK based website for finding vintage/retro orientated dates and friends called FromHere2 Eternity. This could be a good solution for some. I know the people behind it are reputable and it is currently free whilst being beta tested. This kind of thing depends on the people who take it up but the site makes it completely clear in both text and visual design exactly who it is aimed at. It's strap line reads:

'Welcome to the worlds' first vintage dating site. Specially designed for lovers of rockabilly, swing dance, re-enactment, burlesque, tattoos, vintage lifestyles and anything with a vintage flavour.'

On-line dating and internet formed relationships once had a tarnished feel but no more, I know of several people including my self who would not have met their other halves without strolling along the interwebular boulevard. Also as the vintage world can be tight knit I think any iffy individuals would soon be discovered. I’m not single but I am horribly, horribly curious about how you would word a vintage lonely heart? Heres my effort:

‘flame haired forty-something female non-smoker and good time gal seeks hat wearing gentleman with gsoh and a moustache for nights on the town. Must love dogs. Interests include 20’s, 30’s and 40’s art and design. Enjoys swing music and cocktail shaking. Could you be the one to make my pin-curls curl and my victory rolls roll? No cat owners, vegetarians, Tories or trainer wearers. Time wasters welcome!’.

How would you describe yourself on a vintage dating site? Comments are as ever welcome especially if you decide to give this site a whirl!