All American Vintage: Era

Showing posts with label Era. Show all posts

Future Vintage

This thought provoking piece, aged to perfection, about how a couple of 21st centurty gadgets from two iconic US brands become 'vintaged'. Although we are used to the worn aesthetics of everything from natural dyes to plastics and how their colors fade and their surfaces erode - we have yet to appreaciate what might happen to current materials - in this case worn silver paint revealing black injection molded plastic.

American Rustic

There's a cool article with slideshow in the NYTimes about early 20th Century design that articulates well what is an aesthetic focal point right now for American Vintage.

a simpler, more rustic and American-inflected style that is more general store than taxidermy-appointed lodge, and that emphasizes objects that are well-made, durable and useful: wire storage baskets, machine-age metal tools, leather couches, canvas bags, colorful woolen blankets and interiors made of barn wood.

Impossible Soul

Sufjan Stevens current manifestation, blending late eighties/early nineties music and aesthetics is fascinating. Check out his new video for Too Much where he rocks a vintage eighties sleeveless Nike t shirt. A review of a recent concert used words like electro-folk hippie-intergalactic dance party to describe his performance of Impossible Soul. On a recent TV spot on Fallon it looks like Keith Haring did his wardrobe. It seems difficult to put a finger on what he's about- here's another description awe-inspiring, euphonious, spiritually rapturous indie-folk techno-pop dance party. He says, he's sick of being Mr. Strummy Strum.

Gathering Steam

For some reason this avalanche of push-pinned black-and-white photos—vintage portraits, cabinet cards, and casual snapshots rivetted me. Maybe because I spend a lot of time looking at, studying, sometimes buying paper epehemera just like it but the fascinating new information this image provides I think is the display style, chaotic and organic- organized into almost eerily beautiful tableaux. Its yet another dot in the increasing interest in Victorian/19th century aesthetics- like the tintype imagery in this NYTimes spread, Just in from the 1890's clustering around a trend concept that continues to gain momentum called steampunk ( here's the British take on it). These, for example are steampunk USB's.

If you look through the other images from the source article Still Life describing Jeffery Moss' home, you'll also see a fresh combination of this era's maximalist aesthetic with more minimalistic 20th century pieces- almost like the interior decoration version of pairing t shirt and jeans with victorian tailoring and facial hair.

Worked at Sea

My friend Edie has a great collection of textiles which are family heirlooms from Maine which I had the pleasure of taking a good look at and photographing for future reference. They included blankets and quilts, which are great references for color and some amazing sailor's embroidery like the ones pictured above which were presumably greeting cards.

Sunday Riders

I just discovered that youtube has some new features like customization so I redecorated my channel. I also discovered that playlists can be embedded so I have a couple of cool playlists to show - the first is the Bruce Brown documentary On Any Sunday , the other is Wheels, a selection of various short clips spanning various eras of bike riders. These are great resources for just taking in the aesthetics of the sport like the Rin Tanaka Books. I'll be adding more to Wheels as I find them on youtube.

Evolution of the College Dorm

Really interesting photo essay in Time Magazine showing images of college dorms like this bed in at Columbia protesting gender discrimnation. There's images from each decade that are interesting glimpses into the dress codes and lifestyles of each era.

High Hair

Ready to embrace the groomed updo? Straight out of the fifties, made in Memphis and rumored to have been used by the King himself, Black and White Pomade is the high hair product for you.This American product has been a key player over the pond in London , aiding and abetting Punk Mohicans in the seventies, the Buffalo Boys nod to the fifties back in the eighties and I wouldn't be surprised that it played a role in this recent Hedi Slimane shoot of London Teenagers packed with vintage American Teenage style.