Retro-extremists? What are we called?

[missjo]

You don't have to dress vintage to be old fashioned but it helps
The thing is that for many the love for vintage comes before their love of the lifestyle and manners.
So many dress vintage before they start to act vintage.
Just like with many other cultural identities a certain appearance often comes with it automatically.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's a legitimate question. In my case, I make my own clothes -- because I believe modern clothes to be poorly made and wasteful. I was raised to believe that wastefulness was a sin -- I know "sin" is an unpopular word today, but nonetheless, that's how I look at it, a sin against the very foundations of society: to use more than your share of any commodity takes away from someone else, in one way or another, and that's one of the worst sins a person can commit. Or so I was raised to believe. You're right that this is a belief that pre-dates the Era -- it's a foundation belief of 18th century Methodism, which is the root of the culture that I come out of -- but it was expressed in Depression/Wartime terms by my grandparents and my mother when I was a child, so that's my main frame of reference. It's also a belief that increasingly fell out of the mainstream in the postwar era, especially after the Sixties, hence for most Americans it tends to be seen as a pre-Boomer viewpoint.

As far as style goes, I make my own clothes in a 1940s style because that's the way people dressed in my family when I was learning to sew, those are the styles of patterns I was taught to sew from -- and that's the aesthetic I was raised with. To me, it's what "clothes" are supposed to look like. I could dress up in modern clothes -- but that's just it, I'd be "dressing up" as something I'm not. So I don't.

 

[Tommy]

One way or another, EVERYONE reveals an aesthetic sensibility that ranges from thoughtless to well defined. I think Fedora loungers would tend towards the thoughtful, well defined side of the scale. Because loungers tap meme's, styles, and aesthetics that predate them just means they've identified agreeable sensibilities. Why should one confine their aesthetic foundation to today's culture? That's a cop out. Style and cultural selection is the penultimate in aesthetic self determination. We are non-conformists.

Those who live in the mindset of today's product culture are the penultimate conformists, seeking to be at one with the cultural world swirling about them. That is very satisfying to some, and frustrating to most who cannot keep up with the changes. I think most people who comment about Fedora Loungers do so because their aesthetic sensibilities are challenged.

 

[Undertow]

...I was right, though, in my claim that the main idea of this thread had to do with cultural identity, rather than fashion, for I have been attempting to delineate the two. One of my points has to do with this question: what does older cultural values or traditions have to do with what you wear? You can act like a man from the 40s (whatever that may be, I still have my doubts) and dress like someone today, and vice versa.

Let me counter your question with another question: isn't it possible that certain clothing or items from the 30's and 40's possess an intrinsic utility which might satisfy the modern person's needs? And if that be the case, couldn't a modern person have both the mentality of their 30's/40's counterpart, while also utilizing the culture?

Or in other words, if Bob was raised by relatively modern parents with relatively modern values during the 1980's but found maximum utility in style and function of 30's/40's items, clothes, etc., then what could possibly separate Bob from someone who grew up in the Golden Era besides Time?

Are you suggesting then that Bob would be more or less pretending because he was not strictly raised in an anachronistic culture (not directed at you LM!)? If so, that's fine, but I want to see if that's the direction your taking.

 

[Undertow]

...EVERYONE reveals an aesthetic sensibility that ranges from thoughtless to well defined. I think Fedora loungers would tend towards the thoughtful, well defined side of the scale. Because loungers tap meme's, styles, and aesthetics that predate them just means they've identified agreeable sensibilities...

I agree with this. When some of us post the compliments we receive (or when we lock them away in our diaries ), we often find that folks are impressed with our sense of classic style. Much of what Loungers tap for reference encompasses more than just the Golden Era, and is also, I would argue, just out of the boundaries of pop culture in those eras e.g. dinner wear, rolled brims, particular hat liners, etc. These things may be vaguely represented in film, television and radio, but one might also say these things have a certain universal appeal and would require at least some research.

In any case, even this strays from what Jack and Lizzie were discussing as they are referring to an entire mindset, which happens to include certain era-specific items.

 

[rue]

The thing is that for many the love for vintage comes before their love of the lifestyle and manners.

I was opposite in a way, because I have always lived with a vintage mentality and manners and was surrounded by antiques (that's how I was raised). So although I have always loved the clothing and hair etc., it came last.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There are, of course, many degrees to this -- but I think the common thread is people feeling to a greater or lesser extent "out of tune with the times" for one reason or another, but more often than not due to upbringing. There are a lot of people around here who *don't* feel that way -- and they can't imagine why anyone *would* feel this way. But that doesn't make the sense of being out of synchronization with modern times any less genuine for those who do experience it, however they happen to deal with it.

 

[jamespowers]

There are, of course, many degrees to this -- but I think the common thread is people feeling to a greater or lesser extent "out of tune with the times" for one reason or another, but more often than not due to upbringing. There are a lot of people around here who *don't* feel that way -- and they can't imagine why anyone *would* feel this way. But that doesn't make the sense of being out of synchronization with modern times any less genuine for those who do experience it, however they happen to deal with it.

:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap

 

[Mae Croft]

I was opposite in a way, because I have always lived with a vintage mentality and manners and was surrounded by antiques (that's how I was raised). So although I have always loved the clothing and hair etc., it came last.

It's very much the same for me. My mother was, for lack of a better and more polite term, absent for much of my childhood and my sister and I were more or less raised by our grandparents. We were raised with simple, sane concepts (like make do and mend, table manners, hard work, etc.) and then some somewhat out there, though I think still smart ideas (always be prepared for war and shortages). My grandparents were determined that my sister and I grow up to be 'ladies', which I think end up not happening. lol

 

[rue]

There are, of course, many degrees to this -- but I think the common thread is people feeling to a greater or lesser extent "out of tune with the times" for one reason or another, but more often than not due to upbringing.

That's exactly how it is for me.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

This is what happened for me, too. Frankly, I started dressing vintage as soon as I could buy my own clothes, around age 12 or 13. I was pretty much raised as my parents were raised with a 50's/ 60's mentality. Until my early teens, when we moved to town, the only time I left the farm was to go to school or with my family to go to town, or as a youngster, I picked up a bit of work milking at neighboring farms. My whole world was the mentality of my parents and my neighbors, all pre-war/WWII era-families. It was a very old community.

I was opposite in a way, because I have always lived with a vintage mentality and manners and was surrounded by antiques (that's how I was raised). So although I have always loved the clothing and hair etc., it came last.

 

[jamespowers]

This is what happened for me, too. Frankly, I started dressing vintage as soon as I could buy my own clothes, around age 12 or 13. I was pretty much raised as my parents were raised with a 50's/ 60's mentality. Until my early teens, when we moved to town, the only time I left the farm was to go to school or with my family to go to town, or as a youngster, I picked up a bit of work milking at neighboring farms. My whole world was the mentality of my parents and my neighbors, all pre-war/WWII era-families. It was a very old community.

Even in the suburbs, if you are an only child in a family of older people then you are exposed to a previous time more often than not. You toe the line in regard to manners, morals etc because there is no other confounding influence. Probably a reason why I hate hippies too.

 

[JohnnyLoco]

Undertow: The world around them, that's what's different. There are no private cultures. I'm not sure whether or not there truly are "anachronistic cultures," as cultures are not isolated and static, but rather are always changing and a part of a genealogical continuum. From the perspective of fashion, though, I would think that the main difference between a modern person and a person of the 40s is the modern person is conscious of the ultimate practicality and stylistic superiority of certain items from a retrospective or objective/trans-cultural perspective brought about by critical and aesthetic awareness. Modern people seem to have too many choices--choices in fashion, clothing, food, drinks, perspectives, etc.-- at their disposal than people of the 30s and 40s; even the elite were bound by rigid customs and rules of etiquette in regards to their choices in style.

Also, I wouldn't say that vintage purists, or people who find a level of utility and aesthetic appeal in older (vintage, antique) items, are pretending if their decisions are purely related to consumer or stylistic preference. I think, though, that those who believe that by wearing or using older items and act differently from the masses in any sort of way constitutes adopting a different culture or creating or recreating a culture are pretending because such seems to not be possible. A prerequisite for pretending is imagination; those who claim that they are a part of another culture are only living according to the cultural worlds created by their own subjective perceptions and apprehensions (imaginations).

Choosing to adopt a personal ethic, though, which is in line with ethical principles and systems which differ from the ethics of the masses is entirely possible, as we must differentiate between culture and ethics.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think, though, that those who believe that by wearing or using older items and act differently from the masses in any sort of way constitutes adopting a different culture or creating or recreating a culture are pretending because such seems to not be possible. A prerequisite for pretending is imagination; those who claim that they are a part of another culture are only living according to the cultural worlds created by their own subjective perceptions and apprehensions (imaginations).

Choosing to adopt a personal ethic, though, which is in line with ethical principles and systems which differ from the ethics of the masses is entirely possible, as we must differentiate between culture and ethics.

I think it's important to draw a distinction between "creating" a culture and "perpetuating" or "continuing" a culture. Otherwise your argument would conclude that anyone who holds onto and lives by the Traditional Ways Of Their People, is "pretending," which I think is a completely untenable (and rather insulting) argument. What I'm holding onto, and what I've always lived, is basically the same early 20th century-oriented working-class New England culture I was born into. It's a dying culture now, killed off by both gentrification and technology, which is one reason why I hold so stubbornly onto it -- someone has to preserve what's left of pre-"upscale", pre-Boomer, pre-rock, pre-Sixties culture (and all of those things have influenced modern culture in ways far deeper than just pop-culture effluvia and fashion.) Someone has to be The Last Survivor of the culture that came before.

As an aside, I think AtomicEraTom's experiences illustrate the same phenomenon I'm talking about -- with the difference that he's about twenty-five years younger than I am and the era that influenced him is about twenty-five years after the one which influenced me. That's a pretty good illustration of how "generational lag" works, I think.

 

[rue]

Nicely said Lizzie

 

[JohnnyLoco]

Lizzie, yes perpetuating or continuing a culture is definitely something different than creating or renewing a culture. I guess the basic premise of my argument, and I think most sociological research on this topic supports this premise, is that culture is as much spacio-temporal and relative to particular geographical, environmental, political, technological, and educational contexts as it is just mere beliefs and behaviors--traditions, customs, etc..

To hold on to the cultural values and traditions of "your people" is, as I said in an earlier post, definitely not pretending and just the continuation of the natural genesis of the strains of cultural beliefs and behaviors in history.

Now if you were to step outside of the culture in which you were raised, or the culture of the people around you, and decided that you were to adopt a culture of the "past," lets say the culture of a small town in Ireland in the 19th century, through research and investigation you could go a long way to being able to mimic some of the behaviors and activities of those people--language, eating and drinking habits, religious duties, trades, etc.--using period appropriate tools and clothing, but you would still not have or experience other essential qualities of being a part of that culture, namely, social interaction with members of the same culture, and most importantly, the same geographical, political, technological, educational, etc., contexts which shaped the entire worldview and paradigms of the actual people who lived in 19th century Ireland, a cultural world or horizon that could never be duplicated or experienced again.

This is not meant to be offensive, but it seems clear to me to even attempt to embark on the quest previously mentioned amounts not only to grave oversimplifications of the beliefs, lifestyles, and routines of the members of a respective culture from the past, but also an elaborate game of pretending, i.e. physically representing something that is not true-- impersonation.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think what you're describing are "reenactors," rather than "atavists." They do have their own culture -- tell one of them they're looking a little "farby," and see what it gets you -- but I don't think any of them claim to be recreating the culture they portray in the way you're describing. They're engaging in an educational work, both for their own benefit and the benefit of those who attend their events, and I don't think "pretending" is a dignified way to describe that type of work. They *know* they aren't really facing live ammo, or enduring the Blitz, and so do the people they're teaching -- which is why they talk in terms of doing "impressions" rather than injecting themselves into the actual culture of the period they portray.

An atavist, on the other hand, isn't particularly interested in meticulous details of historical accuracy, because they aren't trying to "portray" anything. They're simply going about their existence the only way they know how.

 

[JohnnyLoco]

Well no, I wasn't referring to reenactors. Reenactors are only concerned with the superficial lifestyle-- clothing and dress, tools, food and drink, routines, etc.-- for short periods of time .They know that they are pretending. Atavists, on the other hand, don't; they mistakenly believe that the superficial lifestyle, coupled with some similar beliefs as those from an older time, not to mention on a 24/7 basis, actually gets them beyond what the reenactors attain, culturally speaking.

Reenactors also understand that their brief respite and experience of simplicity only enriches their lives, as a moment for contemplating the meaning and importance of the objects and social customs around them. Atavists may also be enriched personally, spiritually, etc., but they still hold on to, I believe, a sense of social/cultural separationism, attempting, in a way, to separate themselves from their own culture and time period, a culture and time period from which they can never truly escape.

 

[Feraud]

Now if you were to step outside of the culture in which you were raised, or the culture of the people around you, and decided that you were to adopt a culture of the "past,"

But that is not the group of people this thread is about. It is about the people who are immersed in this culture.

Why use so much text arguing against those who "are not" when the question is specifically about those "who are"?

 

[JohnnyLoco]

Well, technically, I wouldn't say that I am arguing, but rather maybe a discussion of fashion and culture has generated some minor contentions. I really began trying to offer some thoughts regarding the original question of this thread--what do you call retro-extremists--and the label of this group has a lot to do with what they are and are not, and my attempt at labeling this group might have opened myself to being pulled into several innocent arguments that I have learned from, have thoroughly enjoyed, and, I believe, have contributed to the overall understanding of this much misunderstood subject.