Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[ChrisB]

I have heard and read of this same thing occurring for all sorts of products. For tools, apparently the drill of brand X is a dramatically different drill if you buy it from Walmart versus Lowes. Apparently Walmart says, "we need to sell it for $40" and brand x re-engineers it to meet the budget.

Some of my husband's family are big discount food shoppers. They insist it's the same products of you buy Aldi Cheerios or brand-name Cheerios. Some products may be, but I've got to tell you, some certainly aren't because I have tastebuds.

But I am a very brand loyal shopper. I also admit to being somewhat of a food snob- I simply do not like bad tasting food. I would rather have less butter than have to eat margarine. If a store brand doesn't taste or perform as well, I'd rather deal with less of tge name brand than suffer.

As I understand it, this also goes for higher $ items (lawnmowers, etc.) when bought at Lowes or Home Depot, made to their specifications in order to meet their price requirements.

 

[Trenchfriend]

My best advice for this is----don't get old. Our taste buds deteriorate like our eyesight and all the rest. That's the reason for the old saying that brandy isn't for people under 40. When you're young your tastebuds are too sensitive for it. In middle age, you need the extra stimulation.

30 years from now, I will be 61, but will I really enjoy (single-malt) whisky and so on??

 

[sheeplady]

As I understand it, this also goes for higher $ items (lawnmowers, etc.) when bought at Lowes or Home Depot, made to their specifications in order to meet their price requirements.

Yes, I've heard that too. Makes me a bit suspicious of buying anything from a big box store unless I intend it to be disposable.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What's interesting is that this didn't always seem to be the case. During the late prewar era, very often the products rated highly by Consumers Union were those sold exclusively in discount-type chain stores. Woolworth products often rated substiantially higher than than those sold at Macy's, and often the "best buy" item in any given category was a completely generic product sold thru cooperatives.

 

[Fading Fast]

I realized we weren't in Kansas anymore when I read that clothing companies were making clothes specifically for their outlets - and the clothes were of lesser quality. Outlets used to be an opportunity to buy a company's clothes at a lower price because they were a season old or hadn't sold well and it was at some out of the way outlet store.

That seemed like a fair, honest tradeoff. But these made-for-the-outlet clothes were not advertised that way and, IMHO, were a deceitful way to get people to buy lower quality goods (albeit at a lesser price) while thinking they were getting the same goods sold in the store. If the stores would honestly market them as "outlet" clothes so that customers knew what they were getting, that be fine; it's the bait and switch that is disgusting.

 

[Bushman]

It's not disappeared yet, but it's definitely a dying art: the idea of a story driven action/adventure film. You look at todays action movies, and you begin to realise that every Summer, Hollywood seeks to find just how much world wide destruction they can great with CGI. Can't we go back to action movies on a bit more smaller, more intimate scale? What made movies like King Kong and The Lost World entertaining was that technology restricted them from flattening the entirety of New York City. They were forced to come up with a story in order to satisfy audiences, because unlike today, they couldn't use dazzling, flashy special effects to distract the masses from the lack of a real story line.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I find it astonishing, that the classic "Irish Spring"-bar soap is still in production by Colgate. In Germany, this soap is gone, anywhere in the 90's. Too much competitors.

Irish Spring still a best seller in Canada. The supermarket I shop at has it on sale, or Dial, an even older brand.

They don't have Lifebuoy. I heard it was taken off the market because it is poison or dangerous, but other stores have carbolic soap.

 

[Trenchfriend]

My upper garment-size N 48 (international "M") is more and more disappearing. Germany is too fat, now. We got "+size"/"big-fashion" available all around and parallel the small normal sizes start to disappear. Soon, 46 and 48 will be vintage things...

But luckily, I got enough jackets, coats, pullovers and shirts, so it could be last, until the rest of my life.

 

[Fastuni]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Smaller sizes are plentifully found.
Overall I have the impression that "skinny" sizes are the norm.
At least everything "Medium" among fashionable garments appears to be rather "Small".

 

[2jakes]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Smaller sizes are plentifully found.
Overall I have the impression that "skinny" sizes are the norm.
At least everything "Medium" among fashionable garments appears to be rather "Small".

The Abercrombie & Fitch Mens store in my area, the sizes are dominantly “Small"
or tend to be a very narrow fit. With regards to adult sizes.

Ordinarily, most mens dept. clothing stores, I buy X-large shirts.
The A&F on the other hand, the adult x-large shirts are very small
by comparison. So I buy the xxx-large size shirts.

I like A&F because the material is mostly cotton & well made.
Luckily my sizes don’t sell as much & they are reduced drastically.
I go to the back of the store where the “sale” racks are located.

If you’ve never been to an Abercrombie store,
bring a flashlight & earmuffs.

 

[Zombie_61]

The Abercrombie & Fitch Mens store in my area, the sizes are dominantly “Small"
or tend to be a very narrow fit. With regards to adult sizes...

That's because they're made and marketed for "young consumers", i.e. skinny kids. The same goes for stores like Old Navy and Gap, which is why I generally don't shop there...well, it's one of the reasons, anyway.

 

[2jakes]

That's because they're made and marketed for "young consumers", i.e. skinny kids. The same goes for stores like Old Navy and Gap, which is why I generally don't shop there...well, it's one of the reasons, anyway.

I’m 6’3” on the slim side which does help.
I’ve had great luck in finding jackets, sweaters, &
cargo pants/shorts.
Navy & Gap would be on the bottom list to visit.
I miss the original Banana Republic shop.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If I didn't make my own clothes, I'd be "plus-X size," or some such nonsense. Modern women's clothes are designed for underweight sixteen year olds and refusing to be held in bondage to that system is the best thing that any woman can do.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^

If modern women’s clothes are designed for "underweight sixteen year olds”,
where do women who are not 16 or underweight & who do not make their
own clothes, get theirs?

 

[LizzieMaine]

They wear expanded versions of those designs. Which is why you see sixty-year-old women wandering the streets in zebra-skin yoga pants, the female version of the dopey-looking middle-aged man in Charlie Brown shorts.

 

[2jakes]

They wear expanded versions of those designs. Which is why you see sixty-year-old women wandering the streets in zebra-skin yoga pants, the female version of the dopey-looking middle-aged man in Charlie Brown shorts.

Good Grief Charlie Brown!
I remember the 60s paperbacks which are still somewhere in my book closet.
& this comic from earlier times.

.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Smaller sizes are plentifully found.

That's right. But since last year, in Germany, new jackets/coats are more and more coming out, starting on size 50 (L). No 46 (S) and 48 (M).

I think about buying some new jeans, before 32"/32" ist finally disappearing.

 

[Fading Fast]

What I've noticed is that men's sizing has stayed pretty consistent over my life. I'm 6'1", 150lbs and have been since thirty years ago when I was in college. My "sizes" have been 32 waist, 33 length, 15 neck, 34 sleeve, medium fit shirt, 40L suit or sport coat. A particular brand or style might cause me to buy a 31 or 33 waist, but 90%+ of the time I'm a 32. But the "cut" of those items have fluctuated as, for example, in the 1990s, the "big" trend was in and a medium shirt would have the right neck size and sleeve length for me but the arm holes were cut low and there was a general "loose" fit to the garment with a lot of extra material. Now, I buy a medium and the neck size and sleeve length are just like in the '90s and fit me fine, but the shirt has high arm holes and very little extra fabric.

During that time period though, my girlfriend who is also very consistent in her body size at 5'11" and about 135lbs, but she has gone from being an 6-8 and sometimes a 10 in almost everything, to a 4-8 today as "vanity" sizing kicked in. Apparently, "vanity" sizing is when the manufacturers label the larger sizes smaller to make the wearer feel better about buying it. This is why craziness like size "0" exists because as they "reduced the 10s to 8s and 8s to 6s, etc., the smaller sizes had to go down so, "0" came into being as a size. All this drives my girlfriend nuts as she likes to buy her clothes on-line and all this gamesmanship with sizing makes her have to either guess or order two sizes and return one - very silly.

 

[Stormy]

Are there any restaurants that serve "real" food left, the kind of food that's not tampered with in one way or another? I reckon such vintage establishments as those are a thing of the past. I don't even smell food cooking in restaurants anymore.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Sorry, I forgot. Of course, we got four basic-types of sizes, here in Germany.

Normal = N-sizes
Long people (slim) = S-sizes
Short people (chunky) = U-sizes
Belly-people = "N-between sizes", 51/53/55 and so on.

Further "big-fashion", means "broadened N-sizes".

But, he looked sooo great, wasn't he??

min. 19:49