Everyday Fellows of the Golden Era?

Fading Fast said:

There is a kernel of wild in humans. When society has tight rules on dress, that spirit will pop up in small ways such as the wild-patterned socks you pointed out or the GTH colors of prep attire. Where things get really interesting is when the rules have been off for a long time - such as now - and the easy wild has been done: 1960s rock and roll attire, 1970s disco clothes [ugh], late 1970s / early 1980s punk, 1990s grunge et al. - were all in their own way a look-at-how-wild-we-are way to dress. Now, dressing wild requires half-court shots and sartorial nuclear launches. To wit, even tattoos have gone mainstream. There's not much crazy left to do / not much left that can shock. Could it be that the revival in "heritage" dress reflects an exhaustion in clothes-as-rebellion ideas? Is dressing well the only shocking thing left to do?

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Meat dresses.

My Grandfather in the late 1930s.

My grandparents about 1955 or so. Granddad was a teamster/farmer/oil driller all his life. Grandma moved in with us when granddad died in 1960 and she helped raise me. Grandma always taught me to dress as well as I could afford.

My grandmother's uncle T. Lloyd Garrett, April 1953.

He's always been an inspiration to me, though I never knew him personally. By all accounts he was a wise and well hatted man.

My grandmother's mother's cousin Herman Smith, April 1951.


My grandmother's parents, Willie and Forrest Fickling, Agfa-Ansco postcard, mid to late 1930s.


I don't know who this is or when it was taken, but there were several pictures of him in the same box as the others, looks to be 1930s to me.

These are not relatives of mine.... I don't have a scanner my dears..... these are just everyday normal human beings of the 1930s

HadleyH said:

These are not relatives of mine.... I don't have a scanner my dears..... these are just everyday normal human beings of the 1930s

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It's nice to see some personality - a genuine smile in the case of the top photo - in the faces of people photographed in this era as it seems the convention was to look serious. Also, while the wind is doing funny things to the trousers in the lower photo, the gentleman on the left is rockin' the turtleneck - suit look.

Not to "bust" this Thread, but every time I wear my boater with one of my seersucker suits like I did today , I always get
comments always good , but the best one I ever got was the day I was up in Boston with my wife at a hat store and when
we left and took a stroll down the ave. a guy came up to me and said " man you look like you just stepped out of the 1920's , you know like the Great Gatsby " .
I told him "thank you I take that as a complement".



All the Best ,Fashion Frank

To be frank, Frank, the tie could have been a lot better for that ensemble.

Broccoli said:

To be frank, Frank, the tie could have been a lot better for that ensemble.

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And pray tell what would you have suggested ?

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

Hard to say, but dark blue or some kind of green would definatley be better. It is just that the tone of red sticks out too much, a darker tone might work better.
But I really like the suit, is it new? The only thing more I'd change is that I'd shorten the trosers some.

/Broccoli

CONELRAD said:

My grandmother's parents, Willie and Forrest Fickling, Agfa-Ansco postcard, mid to late 1930s.

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Let me make a quick correction here, his name was Willie, but he went by his middle name Allison, and Forest should only have one "R". I'm sure no one here really cares, but I can't disgrace the family name with misinformation.

Stray Cat said:

Frank,
First off all: we don't mind you being here.. gents are invited.
Next: your observation is global. Since I live quite far from where you are, and yet women are exactly the same. As I prefer saying it "The women have let themselves go". And they can not expect to be called "ladies" when they do not treat themselves in that way. The clothes they wear, the style (should I say: the lack of it!) of their hairs, and their overall appearance are under no circumstances what I'd call "pretty" or "feminine". There is nothing Ladylike in a girl wearing sneaks and sweatshirt (I'd know, I wear them - when I exercise!). No matter how much financial benefits do the Companies that manufacture sportswear get - they can never turn "gym-wear" into "Lady-wear"
Just like yourself - I strongly dislike leaving the house "undone".
..Oh, and: a scrunchy is wearable only in the garden, kitchen or the gym. On other occasions - jamais!


Well said, sir. :thumb:

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Hello Stray Cat and thanks for being so inviting here in the Powder Room !

The other gentleman as well as yourself pretty much have your finger on the pulse of what I was trying to say ,namely the difference between a "lady" as opposed to a "woman" .

I notice that whenever I am out and dressed the way I normally do ,I always get kodo's on my appearance ,hat or whatever and I always get better service.

Just to give you an idea ,this is what I wore out today.










Thanks for the comments, and insight.

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

fashion frank said:

Hello Stray Cat and thanks for being so inviting here in the Powder Room !

The other gentleman as well as yourself pretty much have your finger on the pulse of what I was trying to say ,namely the difference between a "lady" as opposed to a "woman" .

I notice that whenever I am out and dressed the way I normally do ,I always get kodo's on my appearance ,hat or whatever and I always get better service.

Just to give you an idea ,this is what I woreu out today




Thanks for the comments, and insight.

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

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FRANK,
The useful information is always welcoming in the Powder room.. and it is good to have a fella here sometime, just to jazz it up a bit.
I always have the battle in explaining that just because you’re born female, you are not instantly a Lady.

Your style today is absolutely dashing! :thumb:

Stray Cat said:

FRANK,
The useful information is always welcoming in the Powder room.. and it is good to have a fella here sometime, just to jazz it up a bit.
I always have the battle in explaining that just because you’re born female, you are not instantly a Lady.

Your style today is absolutely dashing! :thumb:

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Thank you Stray Cat for the kodo's and yes I agree that just being born a female does not automatically make you a lady.

That also leads me to another puzzling question that always gnaws at me and
perhaps you can enlighten me on this matter as well.

When and how did women in general "lose" ( for lack of a better word) that sense of wanting to be and or look "feminine" as in hair, make up ,dress and most of all manners and that "oozing of femininity from every pore" attitude that I can so
well remember in my mom and sisters?

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

Looks like this thread hasn't been updated in a while! Well, I think we could always use a few more photos of handsome gents, so here's my contribution.



This photo of my grandfather (left) and his brothers was taken in early spring of 1945. I'm reasonably certain that it was on my grandparents' wedding day.

My grandfather. He worked in the coal mines from the age of 14 and smoked filterless Camels. Around WWII he worked going around Pennsylvania measuring the level of the big oil tanks which is when this picture is from.

Great shot - iconic looking man. Coal miner and unfiltered camels - I knew of few of those retired guys when I was growing up in NJ in the 70s. Coughing was part of breathing for them - some where fine though, others suffered. Hopefully, your grandfather was one of the lucky ones whose body / lungs could take it all and still grow old and stay relatively healthy.

This shot is of my husband's grandfather Fred Jr. (a second generation American) and his Uncle Jack. Jack passed away this time last year at the age of 91. He was a tough guy that survived being shot in WWII, 2 bypass surgeries and 3 bouts of cancer. My husband Fred III was very close to him. Our middle son got his middle name from him and he looks a lot like him.

fashion frank said:

Thank you Stray Cat for the kodo's and yes I agree that just being born a female does not automatically make you a lady.

That also leads me to another puzzling question that always gnaws at me and
perhaps you can enlighten me on this matter as well.

When and how did women in general "lose" ( for lack of a better word) that sense of wanting to be and or look "feminine" as in hair, make up ,dress and most of all manners and that "oozing of femininity from every pore" attitude that I can so
well remember in my mom and sisters?

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

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When they stopped wearing hats in the 1960s and the 1970s; when men and the rest of society began to crumble.

The "Revolution" that went down in that period (those involved were, let's not forget, the generation that considered hats, dresses, gloves, suits, and the rest "old-fashioned") was indeed a reaction to new suburban (ESPECIALLY the droll suburban) life of doing nothing, or driving your car to the store that satisfied your everyday needs (and not much has changed; suburbanites STILL have countless problems), and it didn't help that Baby Boomers were soiled (to me, "spoiled" means exposure to good food, to foreign locations, etc.) with more and more things that their parents didn't have. They became very bored and were, quite frankly, teenagers; one thing led to another, and they all became hippies. The riots that went down in cities were a violent approach to racial equality; however, a good majority of the rioters were wealthier young bored city dwellers, all of whom are now "old" (to me, you've got to be in your 90s to be "old"; most late 80s and older folks that I've meet are MUCH more full of life than these 70 and 80-year-olds acting older than they really are) and hide from the problems that they and their ancestors created in the surrounding suburbs (My folks came to this country when living in an American city was still a clean and safe dream, before graffiti, before excessive litter, before fences were installed on every city house; then they remember that everything changed for the worse, beginning with the riots).

In terms of fashion, the history of men and women's clothing has shown decline; from the long coats of the 18th Century to the shorter coats of the Victorian period to the disposal of the vest and starched collar in the 1930s-1950s to the disposal of the suit as "nice clothes" in the 1980s and the 1990s (from male clothing history). But the "Revolutionaries" started the excessive decline; The majority of Baby-Boomers and those born in the early 1940s purchased whatever was fashionable without thinking (they are the first ones who called anything with lapels a "blazer", and "hats were for your dad, just like his AMC Rambler", but cars are another story); then garbage became the fashion and eventually the norm in the 1960s beginning with T-shirts and jeans (not to mention that basic stores the Average Joe would buy from like Sears and Penney's began to sell many cheap synthetics), mostly in part to "break away" from their parents' "uptight" norms. Eventually, as economics goes, basic quality became too expensive for people to buy, and the younger crowds continued to buy the now-common trash in the 1970s and 1980s, with the parents of the time (Baby Boomers to Hypocritical Hippies-turned-Yuppie come the 1980s), continuing to buy the fashionable garbage for them.

This was not, of course, everyone of that era (some men and women still wore normal clothing up until the 1980s, but they are forgotten and few), nor is this post the entire story; they say that all of those things in the 1960s and the 1970s were changes for the better; there may have been genuinely good intentions by some people, but boy, it really was an example of a "Good Idea-Bad Execution", with horrendous results.

-Quetzal

I love these photos. It's easy to see what was worn and how it was worn. Also a fascinating glimpse into the daily lives of people back then.