So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Trenchfriend]

Damn, I should be high-waist jeans dealer, these days. Billlllllllions of girls!!

 

[Edward]

What really grinds my gears today are the self-appointed 'fashion experts' on the web who spread blatant misinformation, often simply repeating it as gospel because theyread it in a fashion blog themselves somewhere.

Check out this one for a start:

https://oureverydaylife.com/what-did-men-wear-in-the-50s-12566502.html

The Teddy Boys were a subculture that originated on the streets of London, but the style soon permeated 1950s menswear with the influence of crooners such as Frank Sinatra. The dandified look included a fitted single-breasted jacket called a drape, which was made of wool but featured a velvet or satin lapel and cuffs. Often cut from bright-colored fabrics, the jackets were typically paired with a brocade vest and a starched white shirt. The final touch was suede shoes, which often matched the ensemble's color.

Where to even begin? I doubt Sinatra even knew what a teddy boy was, much less ever saw one in the raw. Description could be any blazer of the period with certain trim - not a drape (the key characteristic of which was the length). And they could also be DB - though, granted, that was rarer. "Bright coloured fabrics" were a Seventies Ted revivalist thing (it's amazing how many people still think the 70s Showaddywaddy rubbish wasn't any less true to the original look than those 70s suits with flared lapels and widely flared trousers were to thirties suits... ). All trotted out as "truth".

The number of times I read people talking about the scene in the Grease film "when Danny gives Sandy his letter jacket" which doesn't happen in the film, or about how greasers wore leather jackets to look like James Dean in Rebel without a Cause.... https://www.racked.com/2015/2/27/81...y-of-blue-jeans-from-miners-to-marilyn-monroe - I kid you not, "The leather jacket and the blue jeans that Dean wore in the film symbolized that he wanted nothing to do with suburbia."

and then there's this - https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2014/jul/25/how-to-dress-the-50s-jean-jess-cartner-morley Really? Those are authentic 50s jeans like Marilyn wore? What did they do - bury her in them and then dig them up years later, dosue them in bleach and drag them behind a car??

GAH! And all because I only wanted to known when black denim jeans were first put on the market. (Still don't...).

 

[GHT]

GAH! And all because I only wanted to known when black denim jeans were first put on the market. (Still don't...).

Well I can tell you for certain, because I was around at the time, black jeans became a fad in the late 50's when the popularity of denim 'blues' were at their zenith. Blue jeans were seen as subversive, rebellious and outside of the mainstream, banned in popular establishments. Black jeans, I remember, became the must have, as a way of circumventing the ban. However, the late 50's was not the birth of black jeans, my Dad told me that they were available before the war, but shunned because of their 'work' appearance. I hope that this helps.

 

[Edward]

Well I can tell you for certain, because I was around at the time, black jeans became a fad in the late 50's when the popularity of denim 'blues' were at their zenith. Blue jeans were seen as subversive, rebellious and outside of the mainstream, banned in popular establishments. Black jeans, I remember, became the must have, as a way of circumventing the ban. However, the late 50's was not the birth of black jeans, my Dad told me that they were available before the war, but shunned because of their 'work' appearance. I hope that this helps.

That is useful, yes - thank-you. I remember a 501s add for them being available in black had just that scenario - "Elvis-type convinces doorman to let him in because the sign says "no blue jeans"". (Soundtrack was Cochran (C'mon Ev'ryBody, if memory serves.) Always wondered if that was a made-up thing.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^

On another forum here is a discussion of Fiesta tableware, a line from Homer Laughlin that first appeared during the Depression, which is still in production, and which is still made in West Virginia.

I’m no expert, but I do know a little about this stuff, having read up on it some. So imagine my reaction to hearing on a show on the Bravo network that Fiesta was produced by Bauer Pottery of Los Angeles. Bauer made similarly colorful stuff (as did several other manufacturers during that era), and some of their dishes share a stylistic likeness to Fiesta, but I have found absolutely nothing to support that TV show’s contention that Bauer had anything whatsoever to do with Fiesta.

But, thanks to the lack of fact-checking on that cable network, many thousands of people will believe an untruth. It was on TV, right? So it must be true!

 

[tonyb]

^^^^
I took it upon myself to notify Homer Laughlin of this nonsense regarding their trade name and product history. I figured I would likelier get a response from their marketing director than anyone else there, so I called and left her a voicemail.
She got back and left me a voicemail, thanking me for bringing this matter to her attention, saying the company is “fiercely protective of our brand” and that she would forward the info to their intellectual rights attorneys.

 

[tonyb]

Well I can tell you for certain, because I was around at the time, black jeans became a fad in the late 50's when the popularity of denim 'blues' were at their zenith. Blue jeans were seen as subversive, rebellious and outside of the mainstream, banned in popular establishments. Black jeans, I remember, became the must have, as a way of circumventing the ban. However, the late 50's was not the birth of black jeans, my Dad told me that they were available before the war, but shunned because of their 'work' appearance. I hope that this helps.

I was too young then (the late 1950s) to now claim any reliable firsthand recollection of the times, but photographic evidence and the accounts of older people suggest that over here in the more westerly regions of the U.S., blue jeans weren’t regarded as anything much other than appropriate attire for blue-collar workers, boys high school age and younger, and weekend wear for folks of all ages and sexes.

Some schools’ dress codes didn’t allow blue jeans, but paging through my mother’s class of ’53 yearbook leaves the impression that jeans — rolled up at the cuffs — were certainly allowed in her school back then, but only for the boys.

Perhaps denim gained a whiff of subversiveness or something when Hollywood costume designers put it (and leather jackets) on their bad boy characters, such as the one portrayed by Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” But I doubt the popularity of blue jeans was diminished at all by imbuing the garments with a hint of defiance. If anything, it only added to their appeal, especially for those who wished to portray themselves as something other than farmers or factory workers. People who got dirty for a living didn’t stop wearing blue jeans just because outlaw bikers wore ’em, too.

 

[3fingers]

jeans — rolled up at the cuffs — were certainly allowed in her school back then, but only for the boys.

Skirts were required for girls in my home school district until around 1976.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Jeans were allowed only on gym days, and only for boys, until 1972 in my district.

 

[tonyb]

I recall girls first being allowed to wear pants to school, but I can’t recall just when that occurred. I’m fairly confident it was in my post-primary school years, though.

 

[GHT]

Skirts were required for girls in my home school district until around 1976.

Such a rule was de rigeur in UK schools. Although not a law as such, many places would ban women if they weren't wearing a skirt or dress. That changed almost overnight with the advent of the mini skirt.

 

[tonyb]

Such a rule was de rigeur in UK schools. Although not a law as such, many places would ban women if they weren't wearing a skirt or dress. That changed almost overnight with the advent of the mini skirt.

Over here there were rules regarding the length of the skirt or dress, usually as measured from its distance north of the knees.

 

[Edward]

Jeans were allowed only on gym days, and only for boys, until 1972 in my district.

I recall Christmas, 1989.... our soon-to-retire school headmaster, annonucing the annual 'non-uniform' day at the end of the Autumn Term invoked the 'no denim jeans' rule. Our planning defiance of this lasted all of twenty four hours; the following morning, the old man fessed up to having had a lapse of memory on this score: denim had been permitted on non-uniform days for some ten years or more by this point. I believe it dated to the opening of the school in 1962, a time at which the uniform regulations, still present when I attended, specificed "No Fashion Trousers." We never did quite figure that out, though likely it meant flares / bell bottoms, a style so ridiculously outre (and so ridiculed) by 1986-93 that there was no dnger of anyone ever wearing them anyhow.

I recall girls first being allowed to wear pants to school, but I can’t recall just when that occurred. I’m fairly confident it was in my post-primary school years, though.

First time I saw it was when I moved to London in 1999; an Islamic Girls' School, as I recall. It seems fairly normal nowadays for giels to have the option of wearing trosuerws as part of a school uniform, but in my day it was, of course, long skirts or nothing.

 

[BobHufford]

...but in my day it was, of course, long skirts or nothing.

Did many opt for "nothing"?

I remember being thrilled to be able to wear shorts to school on the last day of sixth-grade (1972).

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Getting sick. The worst part isn't just that you're feeling lousy but that everyone else treats you like you're Typhoid Mary. And then if someone else should catch the same cold you never see the end of the finger pointing because you shouldn't have gotten sick in the first place!

 

[GHT]

Getting sick. The worst part isn't just that you're feeling lousy but that everyone else treats you like you're Typhoid Mary. And then if someone else should catch the same cold you never see the end of the finger pointing because you shouldn't have gotten sick in the first place!

Being sick is often never believed. Taking time off work and claiming that you're too ill to attend is known in our country as: "Throwing a sickie." So when you are really ill, you're not believed, so you go to work and spread your bug among the workforce, then you're blamed for that. You just can't win.

 

[Edward]

There's little worse than the martyrs who make a show of turning up when they;'re crazy ill. Not that I can talk: I only ever seem to catch a bad cold when I'm far too busy to have the time to be ill.

 

[Benny Holiday]

So there seems to be this new 'thing' happening here in Sydney, new as in it's become a plague over the past few months, whereby drivers, and I use the term loosely, seem to take half a $%$#@^ hour to turn the corner of any given street or into a driveway.

The traffic here is now ludicrous as the consortium of developers/banks/big business and government pour as many people as they can into the place; the population of Sydney was 4 million in 2000, and is now over 5 million. My local area had a population of 160,000 in 1991; it's now 242,000. To drive less than a kilometre from one side of Liverpool city to the other between the hours of 3pm and 6pm on a weekday can take more than 30 minutes, so it's extremely frustrating to be waiting to make a turn and give way to a driver coming in the opposite direction who dawdles around the corner. While he's doing 20 km/h on hid approach the traffic coming up behind him is doing 90 (in a 70 zone mind you) and so you're stuck waiting for all those cars to pass and then, of course, another clown plods along to turn the corner and you're left stranded again!

 

[tonyb]

There's little worse than the martyrs who make a show of turning up when they;'re crazy ill. Not that I can talk: I only ever seem to catch a bad cold when I'm far too busy to have the time to be ill.

I’ve had jobs that just wouldn’t have gotten done if I didn’t do them. If a person couldn’t make the deadline, well, you had to get somebody who could. The business was reliant on that. Sickly sorts just wouldn’t do.

It could get brutal. Burnout rates were high. Many (myself among them) subsisted on cigarettes and coffee from first thing in the morning until well into the night, and on cigarettes and liquor for the remainder. Very unhealthy.

 

[tonyb]

So there seems to be this new 'thing' happening here in Sydney, new as in it's become a plague over the past few months, whereby drivers, and I use the term loosely, seem to take half a $%$#@^ hour to turn the corner of any given street or into a driveway.

The traffic here is now ludicrous as the consortium of developers/banks/big business and government pour as many people as they can into the place; the population of Sydney was 4 million in 2000, and is now over 5 million. My local area had a population of 160,000 in 1991; it's now 242,000. To drive less than a kilometre from one side of Liverpool city to the other between the hours of 3pm and 6pm on a weekday can take more than 30 minutes, so it's extremely frustrating to be waiting to make a turn and give way to a driver coming in the opposite direction who dawdles around the corner. While he's doing 20 km/h on hid approach the traffic coming up behind him is doing 90 (in a 70 zone mind you) and so you're stuck waiting for all those cars to pass and then, of course, another clown plods along to turn the corner and you're left stranded again!

Traffic fatalities had been on a more or less steady decline around here for the past several decades. It’s been a major success, attributable to safer roads, safer cars, less tolerance for drunken and reckless driving, etc. One fatality is one too many, but the likelihood of dying as a result of injuries sustained in a traffic collision is much lower than it was 50 years ago.

But over the past couple years there’s been a slight uptick. I gotta believe it’s got more than a little to do with drivers noodling around on their smartphones. I see it all the time.

I no longer wonder why the driver ahead of me is taking his or her sweet effing time about moving away when the light turns green or ignoring that big opening in the oncoming traffic allowing him or her to turn left. It’s almost always because the eyes are in the glowing screen and not on the road.

The self-driving car can’t get here fast enough.