Retro=Frumpy?

[chicanoir]

IMHO, novelty prints can push one over that fine line of tasteful to comical. BEWARE THE NOVELTY PRINTS...i usually reserve those for home or lite get togethers or bowling. novelty prints especially on "mature" women are ripe for ridicule...

 

[Lillemor]

Sometimes it's really the ill fit of some of the vintage hand-me-overs that cause the dreaded frumpy look for me. I try with belts, colorful thighs, and those splashes of individual updated elements I've already mentioned. I just feel I can't afford to be too critical at this point but at times I feel like Jan of Grease, I think she was the one with the plaid skirts, oversized tops and pigtails. I always make sure my tops are fitted when I wear skirts that are too big and/or long. Actually the shoes look like my everyday shoes and I'm likely to wear them with short, white socks. I haven't tried wearing my hair in pigtails!

I'm on a laptop that isn't mine but some where on the net someone has a blog or site about film costumes: (clothes/fashion/costumes on film?!) and there's an interesting section about the Pink ladies, their costumes and character personalities. On some fashion forum: (the fashion spot?!) someone's uploaded 23 pages of mainly everyday people from the 1950s and that was a real confidence boost to see those pictures because there are certainly plenty of (by my personal standards) frumpy looking every day people there! Wrinkled cottons, ill fitted tops abound (perhaps just to my modern eyes?), and ditto unflattering ladies pants and skirts that are anything but feminine on the wearer. Makes me feel classy! Plenty of flats, so I feel good about my footwear. Now I only feel insecure about my glasses which are too modern and my hair. I've reallly got to get my act together on my hair! Sick of hairband, ponytail routine and trying to tell myself my hair has beatnik factor.

 

[Lillemor]

IMHO, novelty prints can push one over that fine line of tasteful to comical. BEWARE THE NOVELTY PRINTS...i usually reserve those for home or lite get togethers or bowling. novelty prints especially on "mature" women are ripe for ridicule...

I like comical! Just like I have a weakness for creature costume jewelry. I particularly like loud and bright clothes with matching nails, thighs, etc. Ie. I used to wear a grass green fleece top with green nails, green eyeshadow, and if wearing a skirt or dress, green or hot pink pantyhose...often off-set with hot pink jewelry and lips. For a really OTT look I like Bollywood dimensioned jewelry with everyday sweet 50s girl clothes. I've thrown most of my indian costume jewelry out some time during my 20s though where I really tried to grow up and dress classier. I guess classy just doesn't come natural to me.

I think I've figured it out. I read alot of sewing blogs, not all of them are retro. The modern sewing blogs tend to be written by fashionistas. They're into to sewing to knock off designer clothing that they can't afford. Those women tend to wear the best of modern fashion, ie well tailored suits and sheath dresses. These women have style that my grandmother, who wore Chanel suits everyday of her life, would have approved of

Not exactly the same but my paternal grandmother would walk in to the high end department store or when she lived a year in Baltimore in the 1930s would take a good look at what wealthy ladies would wear and go home and copy the outfits. She was just an office girl but she looked a million! Sadly, she only showed me one photo in a very classy looking coat but no one seems to be able to tell me where those photos from Baltimore of grandma have gone!

 

[bunnyb.gal]

The following is a quote from The Complete Book of Sewing, published in 1943:

"A good posture is always the first step toward making you and your clothes look twice as well, regardless of figure, style, and price. Hold your stomach in until it becomes a habit and you no longer have to think about it. Keep your head and chin up - it takes years off your age. Keep your shoulders straight. No matter how tired you are, resist the desire to stoop - it will ruin your most becoming outfit. Regardless of your actual height - walk, sit, and feel tall at all times. If you follow these few simple rules, you will be off to a flying start on the road to being well dressed. Bad posture causes so many figure defects that it is an important consideration in selecting clothes."

This was on the second page of the first chapter, so the authour, Ms Talbot must have considered it important indeed.

Point being, for me anyway, ain't whatcha do, it's the way that you do it, to echo GoddessMama! To my mind, frumpy has more to do with how you carry yourself and feel about yourself, and less about the actual clothes you're wearing. You can be frumpy in Chanel, or fantabulous in a potato sack, as Marilyn shows.

As for me, I pretty much live in buttoned up Peter Pan collared blouses and A-line skirts; I wear them proudly as I say to myself, sod anyone who doesn't like it!

 

[Louise Anne]

I've been thinking alot about this issue lately (retro=frumpy) and how to combat the frump.

I just had a very very quick look through you WP blog and there is not a single photo which I think comes any where near "frumpy"

I did not realize you made so many of your own clothes, and if your having comments made about your styles by other ladies it could be more to do with your skill with dress making which once every lady could do but today it becoming a lost skill.
if you cannot find something in the shop you like then I sure you can make something and that not a thing that many ladies can do today and have to put up with what they can find so the little green eyed man will come out.
Your style looks great to me.

 

[Deleted member 12480]

i think i get what you mean,
even i put things on and go 'oh dear i look too matronly'
i think its just because most of the world see how we dress as old-fashioned. well, it is, but some thing wow you look so old fashioned and others think eugh, why aren't you aspiring to look like posh beckham?

 

[Edward]

In my case, it's not "rebel group", but the other moms at my children's school or my husband's co-workers' wives at the company parties.

If I may....

(Mods, please delete my posting if this is inappropriate - I caught sight of this on the Lounge homepage, and it's related to an issue of which I have become aware in relation to how many perceive how I dress, according to experience this past year...).

Where it has no effect on anyone other than onesself, it's very easy to say "stuff what they think" and be done with it. At least, assuming suitable level of self confidence (paradoxically, for me it's the very act of being different from them that gives me the necessary confidence to do just that; that and I have no doubt that my own dandyist tendency is in large part an external distraction from what I habitually believe is the content that lacks..... but that's a whole other ballgame I'm currently unpicking with a shrink). When there is the concern that it will reflect ill on others around us, then there comes the difficulty. So I know from whence you come.

That said.... in all honesty, I've never seen a lady in a well fitting, well put together vintage outfit that flatters her particular physicality be regarded as anything other than the very opposite of frumpy by those who are not rendered jealous and insecure due to the fact that, in their own eyes, they do not measure up.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Frumpy = clothing TOO BIG!!

I'm a "rebel" cuz I have tattoos and that's my definition. Oh -- and bad hair *cringe*

 

[kamikat]

Thanks for you input, everyone! Sometimes, coming up to a birthday makes me a little crazy.

 

[Inky]

as I am on a speeding train to the big five-oh (may 23, 2010), I completely understand feeling the frump - even though I am a clown red haired/tattooed/pierced person.

To me it has more to do with how you feel and confidence in your appearance. I take a lot of pictures of my clothes to document my look but I never look at them before I go otherwise I'd never leave the house - we are our own worse critics. If I feel down about this or that feature of my body/face or how this or that fits or how it could be better or different, it can make it very difficult to feel confident - we shouldn't listen to the voices in our head or those outside our heads either for that matter!

But as usual, I can't put it any better than Lizzie did:

"Frumpy" to me means schlepping around with no concern at all for what you look like -- an outfit that's well-composed and flattering to the wearer is not frumpy, no matter how high the collar is buttoned.

As long as you are clean, well put together and proud of your appearance, vintage or not, own it, kamikat - you are a beautiful, interesting, smart woman. don't let anyone get to you!

 

[kamikat]

Actually, doing the daily photos for the "Me Made May" project are helping me. I spent some time this morning looking through all my projects to figure out my best looks and which patterns to make again. It's also been interesting to me to look at how much of a difference it makes to set my hair. On the days when I haven't set my hair, my posture is slouched, my face is frowny. I really need to do my hair every day.

 

[Inky]

Actually, doing the daily photos for the "Me Made May" project are helping me. I spent some time this morning looking through all my projects to figure out my best looks and which patterns to make again. It's also been interesting to me to look at how much of a difference it makes to set my hair. On the days when I haven't set my hair, my posture is slouched, my face is frowny. I really need to do my hair every day.

Oh no they do help - i just don't look at them until AFTER i've gone out in a particular outfit - just in case i feel better than I look, which is obviously half the battle.

Definitely doing our hair really adds to the overall polished look and right back to that feeling good/confident attitude.

p.s. you seriously need to make more overalls - they are absolutely darling on you.

 

[Paisley]

With every person, certain cuts and colors work better than others.

Sometimes we move to a different stage of life, and the styles we've been wearing no longer represent us.

It might be time to ignore what others say, or it might be time to redo your look.

 

[ShoreRoadLady]

Kamikat, judging by all the photos I've seen of you here, you do *not* dress frumpy! Actually, I've been impressed by your well-fitted clothes. To me, frumpy means ill-fitting and unflattering, neither of which apply to you. Now, I'm sure you may have one or two outfits that aren't 100% flattering (not that I've seen them, but I know we all have a couple!), but even then I don't see how people could make comments like that about your clothes.

Personally, I find that I tend to look conservative regardless of what I wear, so I just avoid things like buttoned-up shirts with Peter Pan collars. I like the comment from the poster who said that some of us just have tweed souls. lol

 

[kamikat]

I like the comment from the poster who said that some of us just have tweed souls. lol

I think that's my problem. I have a cold, black soul that reaches the depths of hell (ie I was goth for so long that any time I wear anything other than black, I feel frumpy).

 

[Lady Day]

Then wear black. Problem solved
I Think you might be trying styles/colors because they look cute, but they are not *you*.

I find my selection of stuff I like that works for me to be very limiting, but Im okay with that. I actually like limits, a lot. Its then that I know how to exploit them.

LD

 

[Puzzicato]

I had a thoughtfully-considered retro outfit planned for today, featuring a new top. When I went to get dressed this morning, the new top didn't fit me at all, so I just had to grab garments that were to hand. So I am feeling fat AND frumpy and I am wearing contemporary clothes. I have come to the conclusion that it is mostly in my head.

 

[kamikat]

Then wear black. Problem solved
I Think you might be trying styles/colors because they look cute, but they are not *you*.

LD

OMG! You are sooo right! Every couple of years I try to break out of my limited color palette and I'm never happy with it. The problem started in beauty school with the mantra "black makes you look old".

 

[Mirinda]

OMG! You are sooo right! Every couple of years I try to break out of my limited color palette and I'm never happy with it. The problem started in beauty school with the mantra "black makes you look old".

Hi girls!

I always thought black = elegance/chic!

I know I don't "know" you, kamikat, but if that's the color you like, I wouldn't try to change it I also have a handful of favourite colors and when I try to wear something in a different shade I feel like I'm not myself and get very self-conscious

 

[SugarKitten]

As the one who quoted the awesome Stephen Frye (who gets all the tweed-comment love), and the one who is wearing her dad's Harris Tweed sports coat as a jacket in the insane New England weather...

Nothing makes a person look/feel/act older than when they are as wearing something they aren't happy with!