Month: June 2019

When Your Skirt Is In Serious Need Of Ventilation

1939

Ladies, we’ve all had those moments when the air gets stale beneath our petticoats and we could go for a good “Seven Year Itch” subway grate moment. Get the air moving about a bit. But this is too much. Maybe model Lisa Fonssagrives was having a good braided hair day, a good make-up day, and wanted to get out and show her dress off. That, I get. Sometimes your hair is so on point that it demands social activity.

But hit the pubs, the restaurants, the gardens, perhaps the part of the Eiffel Tower that touches the ground. Maybe that was her intention. But then photographer Erwin Blumenfeld arrived on the scene.

And he said, “Just hear me out here, but I was thinking … What if you scaled the girders of the tower in your billowy Lucian Lelong dress–which is totally not a hazard in any way–sans harness, and just sort of hung on by one hand? Sound good?”

And she was all, “Why not?”

Badda-bing, badda-boom, the precursor to our current dangerous, extreme selfie culture.

Somehow, Lisa lived to the age of 80, not falling off a Parisian tower. She described herself as a “good clothes hanger.”

There’s A Heartbreak Beat, Playing All Night Long

Okay, y’all, there’s a lot to deal with here. First off, it says Motilde to me. That’s what my eyes see. But her name was Clotilde von Derp, an expressionist dancer who married another dancer but refused to take his name of Sakharoff. I would have taken that over Derp any day, but this was before derp was a thing.

If you ask anyone under 40 what a derp is, they’ll most likely think of this, which is a word for foolishness or stupidity.

But von Derp it was. And really, that’s just her pretend stage name. Her legit name was Clotilde Margarete Anna Edle von der Planitz. That’s a lot to embroider. Photographer Rudolph Duhrkoop took the pic in 1913.

Couldn’t you just fall into the heart patterns of her dress?

Here she is all pretzel with her man.

oldthing.ch

Not What You’d Call Handicapped Accessible

Pittsburgh, PA, Jan 1941, by Jack Delano per SHORPY

That looks like a nightmare in so many ways: the incline, the ice, the cartilage in my knees, the narrow passage, no room for strollers or wheelchairs, not to mention the industrial factory pollution in the air. Not the type of setting that demands a rousing rendition of “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning!”

Ugly Perms Of ’84

Vogue, April ’84

That’s how I feel about perms, too, Andie. Like Andie McDowell, I had curly hair in the 80s, so no perm was warranted. Frizz was in, and sleek was out. Even Paulina experimented with the volume of the perm. Clearly, she still felt sexy in her side-eye specs.

Perms were liberating, devil may care, and wild.

When mousse came on the scene, permed styles became wetter, evoking poolside images of Christie Brinkley in “Vacation” or Phoebe Cates in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

But some perms still looked touchably soft. Why bother with earrings at this point?

And let’s not forget moisturizing curls to keep them plump and full–and “sof” and free. Even the “t” in soft was too hard for these curls.

That arched eyebrow means she ain’t playing.

Some Vogue ads showed before and afters, pre- and post-perm.

It looks like they were going for a combination of Jennifer Beals “Flashdance” hair and Ola Ray from the “Thriller” video. What do you think? Is that smile cringey?

And God forbid you get a bad perm. You could never show your face in public. The solution to a damaging perm? Twigs and branches.

Sep ’84 Vogue

Hair Of Early ’86

Take a look around. People’s hair seems pretty tame these days. Yes, women from 12 to 55 are adding purple tint. That’s a bit odd. But basically, nothing in these 20-teens has anything on the 80s. Not the Oughties or the 90s.

Today we take a look at a tiny sliver of the 80s, January through April of 1986. All images are from Vogue.

Let’s start with this hair-raising vertical, erect pony. It certainly wouldn’t work for driving any form of car or truck. Perhaps she only traveled in the way way back of station wagons, prostrate. She seems the sort, no?

Gravity-defying was in, with temples swept up and away. With heavy earrings and fringe hanging down, hair needed to fly up, the opposite of the middle-parted hippie Cher hair from the decade prior.

Even the model in the fatty plus-sized section of the mag had her hair sprayed up to the heavens to make sure it never fell into her face. 

This six-year-old in a jubilant Esprit ad also had hair spiked and sprayed to the sky, accented with a bandana, a la Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” days.

When inevitably the hair collapsed, one wound up with a Shaggy Dog look. If only she could see her own appearance, she would have jetted to the Supercuts for a trim.

These bangs win the award for thickest bangs ever. I bet you could hide a shiv in there.

And for the free and easy, peace-loving, inclusive Benetton ads, hair was free form as well. All the way down to those split ends. Peace out.

Spare A Square

“He produced a handkerchief—crisply folded—and handed it to her. She took it with silent astonishment. She’d never before known anyone who carried a handkerchief.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones (2007)

A handkerchief. It does seem a romantic (however outdated) notion, as far being used for anything under than a natty pocket square. And should a damsel have the need for dabbing her tears, a clean handkerchief might come in hand.

However, the reality is less romantic.

“Nothing, however, bemused the Indians more than the European habit of blowing their noses into a fine handkerchief, folding it carefully, and placing it back in their pockets as if it were a treasured memento.”  ― Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Surely we can all agree on that. I believe that my grandfather carried a handkerchief on his person, but he was also known to sneeze 7 to 8 times in a row. As a child, that was one tradition we could always expect at Christmas: to count grandpa’s sneezes as he went along.

Today, as Cassandra Clare, pointed out, almost no one uses them for blow, but merely for show. We live in a disposable world full of affordable soft Kleenex; I have a box within reach right now, as well as in four other rooms in our home.

Growing up in Austin during Willie Nelson’s outlaw years, my first introduction to handkerchiefs was the classic red paisley one he wore as a bandana, and which you still often find gathered around a blue heeler’s neck in the country. But in their day, handkerchiefs were more than just a square for hygienic purposes. They also served as art.

So today, I share some images from “Handkerchiefs: Volume 2.” We start with one fit to hand a lass in need.

This one’s in French!

Some were geared toward hobbies.

Or motivation.

Animals of all kinds made the grade.

Even our amphibian friends!

The cotton served as canvas for all sorts of swinging scenes.

And some were downright detailed. This might have even served as a Father’s Day gift. Don’t forget: it’s this Sunday!

Hardy Horehound

Y’all, the horehound has not lessened up around here. In fact, the highways are flanked by even thicker and pinkier/purplier horehound than ever. It’s the horehoundiest season that Texas has ever seen, no doubt. The more I see them, the more they remind me of my Swiffer hand dusters, narrow enough to get to even the most trapped dust.