Can you help me date this item??

[villa]

Hi susan. That is a very pretty dress. I read recently on the Vintage Fashion Guild site that from the 30's to the 70's hostess gowns were like beautiful casual wear for entertaining at home, but not as fancy
or formal as evening wear. They seemed to always be long, like floor length, but otherwise followed the fashions of the day. I can't really tell from the pic about this one. It must have been shortened at some point if this is a hostess gown, which it looks like. The colors and shoulders and neckline almost look 80's to me, but like I said, I can't really tell the details from the pic. I know old clothes feel very differently from 80's, so I can believe it is 30's/40's.
I don't know though, did ladies ever wear these out of the house?

 

[susan]

Thank you villa!
The fabric has some slight parts, for me it feels older than a fabric from the 80s. The hem was already resewed, I think it was floor length before, now it goes to my ankles...A part of hem that was stitched inside was used to repair small holes at the armpits.

 

[swinggal]

Looks like an early 1940s hostess gown to me. Lovely pieces but not something that was worn outside the home back in the day. Any vintage dress/romper that has a zip down the front is usually a hostess gown and should not be worn to a formal event...even though they look like formal gowns. Just a no-no in the vintage scene now and back in the day.

 

[susan]

Thank you swingal! I´ll keep the "zip down at the front" rule in my mind A clearly visible detail to identify a hostess gown!

 

[rotebander]

Well, I went on vacation and brought back a truckload of hats (for about six bucks each, if you can believe it)! Sorry for so many pictures-- do you mind if I break them up into individual posts?

First off, my Bavarian hat. I know Stassny is still around today, but I couldn't find anything about the label.

...whoa, big pictures!

 

[rotebander]

Here's my next hat, and I couldn't take a good picture of it for the life of me, but there's a tag about the size of my thumbnail that says "Adjustable head size."

 

[rotebander]

And finally (because you're probably getting sick of my ginormous hat pictures), my half-hat, which needs its netting replaced.

 

[Dinerman]

Hi I'm interning at a historic clothing museum this summer. We have quite a few racks of hats that are unknown dated. I wanted to see if this could be a helpful resource for putting a decade to some of these hats so they have a comfortable home in the museum. Thank You for your help and I hope I posted this in the right place...

Bowler looks '30s or early '40s.

 

[rotebander]

Yes, I would certainly say the bowler is squarely in the 30s, but I'm not an expert on men's hats.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I "found" this bit of a phone last night. Does anyone have an idea of when it's from? I found it in the basement of my building, which was built in 1926. I know this isn't as old as that, though. I'm guessing as late as the 60s (???) The marble is really heavy. Where would something like this have been?

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's part of an ornamental desk phone -- note the pen holder mounted beside the dial. The rest of the phone would have mounted to the marble slab thru the empty hole there at the edge. I'd guess there might be some sort of channel cut into the bottom of the slab for the wiring between the dial unit and the rest of the phone.

It was probably a very ornate-looking thing with lots of brasswork and a French-style handset. Touch-tone dial pads with the * and # buttons were introduced around 1966, and there was a lot of interest in what I can only describe as ornate "Paris Bordello" decor items around the end of the sixties, so that's the most likely date.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Awesome. thanks. There are loose wires dangling underneath, but no numbers or makes/models.

 

[crwritt]

I "found" this bit of a phone last night. Does anyone have an idea of when it's from? I found it in the basement of my building, which was built in 1926. I know this isn't as old as that, though. I'm guessing as late as the 60s (???) The marble is really heavy. Where would something like this have been?

It was part of a table telephone, like this

I'm thinking that someone reused the base of it as a table after the telephone stopped working. Maybe the handset is still in the basement somewhere?

This one is listed on ebay as a repilica.http://cgi.ebay.com/Replica-Antique-Telephone-Marble-Top-Stand-w-Pen-Holder-/160477938440

 

[Amy Jeanne]

That's it!!! Fabulous! Wow! I wonder if we were the first people to go in the basement since the 60s! lol I wonder whose phone this was and where it was? This is why I love vintage so much -- I'll probably never know.

Also, that heavy mismatch coil cord is lol!! Such a lovely thing and then THAT! I love it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing with "decorator" phones from that era is that the user only owned the housing -- Ma Bell owned the guts, and if you didn't pay your bill she'd send one of her boys over to repossess the working parts. So these types of phones do occasionally turn up in fragmentary form.

Between the brass and the marble, that must've weighed a ton in its original state.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Very, very interesting. Explains everything.

 

[sproily]

I thought you ladies might be able to help me pin down the age on this shirt. It's rayon. I believe it could be at latest late 40's. Ideas?

 

[Miss Sis]

Sproily, very pretty blouse. This looks to be late 1930s to mid 1940s by design, but it is a really classic style, so it is difficult to be sure. Folky type prints were part of the whole folk design popularity at the late 1930s into the early 1940s.

Is the back of the blouse plain or yoked? Does it have any tiny vertical tucks at the back of the neck?

 

[Miss Tuppence]

Very sweet- At First glance I would say the same as Miss Sis, though that neat collar and style was still being worn in the later forties too- I say it is earlier though- early to mid 40's.

 

[sproily]

My guess would have been late 30's and 40's, but not later than late 40's for sure. Thank you for your help!

It has a plain back, the sleeves have darts in the armholes, possibly giving a bit of puff. Haven't seen it worn, though, so I can't say for sure.