Pure joy: that’s the effect of seeing a Stephen Burrows anything on Pat Cleveland. But especially these patchwork pieces from 1971-73. Here she is in all her glory, and details of a related ensemble in the FIDM Museum collection. Burrows cofounded the O Boutique in NYC in 1968 which, despite the countercultural luminaries that frequented it, closed a year later. In 1970, the president of Henri Bendel gave Burrows a space in the workroom of Bendel’s Studio (their in-house manufacturing spot); studio manager Pat Tennant became an important mentor to Burrows. Stephen Burrows World opened in the summer of 1970 on Bendel’s third floor: disco music thumped as the audience watched a fashion show that indicated new directions for studded leather garments, midi-skirts, clingy sweaters, and Burrows’s now infamous Day-Glo bright jersey knits. That these pieces were shown on ethnically diverse male and female models impressed all of fashiondom…
Fluid, flirty, and flat-out sexy: that’s the stuff that landed Burrows a prestigious Coty award in 1973—oh, and he won more of those in 1974 and 1977. His most high-profile moment was when he knocked the literal socks off of French couturiers at the “Battle of Versailles” in 1973. Burrows was one of five American designers invited to challenge five French stalwarts, including peak-level YSL. Black models Bethann Hardison and Cleveland SLAYED…and BAM! American fashion ascendancy. This spectacle couldn’t have become as spectacular without the energy Burrows and his cadre served.
Written by Leigh Wishner @patternplayusa on Instagram, and Registrar/Museum Coordinator at FIDM Museum.
Gunne Sax
Fresh Vintage June 10th - June 16th
What’s new in vintage? The Vintage Fashion Guild’s Fresh Vintage of course! You can click on any of these to see the item for sale, and you can view all the fresh vintage HERE.
Fresh Vintage June 3rd - June 9th
May we get fresh with you? The Vintage Fashion Guild’s Fresh Vintage this week includes a Miss Hawaii Kamehameha sarong swimsuit, 1960s checkered cigarette pants, a smorgasbord of vintage Indian block-printed items and a bevy of lacy slips, among other things. You can click on any of these to see the item for sale, and you can view all the fresh vintage HERE.
A Rare Colin Wild Beefeater Tunic-Dress, 1960s
VFG member Kerry Taylor is presenting another auction of outstanding vintage and antique fashion on June 15, 2021. Entitled Vintage, Antique Textiles & Passion for Fashion, just window shopping the auction catalogue is a fashion history education and an almost overwhelming sight! Of the many items this writer bookmarked is a beefeater-style tunic from the Carnaby Street boutique-era with the rare Colin Wild label.
Many thanks to Kerry, who kindly granted us permission to add the label to our Label Resource, and to reprint the catalogue description of this item.
{…}Wild, Colin
Colin Wild was the epitome of cool during the Swinging Sixties and a well-known face on London’s trendy Carnaby St. During the 1960s ‘movers and shakers’ flocked to Carnaby St. for the coolest fashions.
In 1963 Colin Wild became the enigmatic business associate of boutique owner Danny Benjamin, who founded the Carnaby St. Cavern in the early sixties. Danny recalls meeting Colin for the first time:
One day in 1963 a tall, slim man came into the shop. He didn’t want to buy anything, but just called in for a chat. He was an amazing-looking man, with the brightest ginger hair, who looked like a character from a Victorian story book. His name was Colin Wild and he told me he was a window dresser for a large local store. I was still struggling to pay off the debts from my Colindale disaster, but I realised that Colin could well be the partner I so needed . . . A great salesman, a complete extrovert, and always the centre of attention, everyone loved him. Years later he became such a sensation while dancing on ‘Top Of The Pops’ that jealous DJs tried, and finally succeeded, in getting rid of him . . . I couldn’t afford to employ him, but neither could I just let him go’ (From: https://sixtiescity.net/Fashion/CC/cc1.htm).
In XS All Areas: The Status Quo Autobiography by Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt recalls Carnaby St. Cavern:
It was probably the most fashionable clothes store in the world at the time and all the bands went there. It was always the same guy you went to see, too. His name was Colin and he had this shock of red hair and wore even more way-out gear than his customers . . . He rigged everybody out in those days. However, there could be pros and cons to this. On the plus side you got to wear some of the newest, most fashionable threads in the world. On the downside, you’d go to a photo session and put on a bright yellow shirt you’d bought from Colin at the Cavern the day before, and the photographer would go, ‘No, you can’t wear that, Jimi Hendrix was in here last week wearing the same thing’. You’d sigh and put on another one and he’d go, ‘No, I did that with Andy Fairweather Low yesterday’.
{…}Fresh Vintage May 27th - June 2nd
Fresh Vintage is THE place to find VFG seller-members vintage new in their shops. You can click on any of these to see the item for sale, and you can view all the fresh vintage HERE.
Gabor
Gabor is a German company known for affordable, quality shoes. The company was founded in 1949 by Joachim and Bernhard Gabor as B. & J. Gabor Damenschuhfabrik in Barmstadt, near Hamburg. Their father had owned a shoe and leather goods shop that he had opened 1919 in Gross-Strehlitz Upper Silesia (current day Poland). He and his wife were killed during WWII after having evacuated their children to relatives, and the shop was lost.
The company first produced simple, every day shoes with whatever materials were available in times of shortage, sometimes selling them, sometimes bartering them for food. With the upturn of the German economy, the types of shoes they produced became less desirable and the company stood on the brink of closing. However, Bernhard had travelled to the United States and had seen the “California method” of producing fashionable and comfortable shoes without needing too much mechanized work. Meanwhile, Joachim had been studying the latest shoe fashions and had developed the right vision of what would sell. They started producing fashionable, affordable shoes using the new method and gradually built up the company and its distribution network. In 1952 they built their own factory, and in the next years, more factories in Germany and further in Europe followed. In 1966, the company moved to Rosenheim in Bavaria. The Gabor credo was “we make shoes for millions, not millionaires”.
The company is still in the family’s hands today and is one of Europe’s largest shoe manufacturers. Whilst headquarters are in Rosenheim, the shoes are produced in Slovakia and Portugal and exported worldwide. Besides shoes, they also produce handbags, socks, hosiery and shoe care products.
Written by Midge
The Fabric Junkie Explains Very Versatile Jacquard
Back with another installment of the “Fabric Junkie”! Instead of focusing on various fibers and weaves, we’re going to look just at jacquards. Remember, weave and fiber are two different properties of fabric, so when we talk about jacquard, we’re referring only to weave. Jacquard is a term that everybody has heard, but it doesn’t seem to be well understood. Simply put, a jacquard weave is one in which a raised pattern is woven into the fabric on the loom (as opposed to a fabric onto which a design is later stitched). In more technical terms, jacquards are woven on special looms (Jacquard looms, after their inventor, Joseph Marie Jacquard) that allow warp (lengthwise) threads to be individually and independently raised from the surface. The raised designs can be simple or pronounced, subtle or intricate.
While I’m not going into detail on the Jacquard loom and its history, anyone interested in fabrics may want to read up on it a bit. The Jacquard loom was invented in the early 1800s and utilized punched cards to separate and raise the warp threads, i.e., “program” the loom, much like early computers were programmed via punch cards. So, the Jacquard loom was a forerunner of our modern computer!
Some of the more well-known, easily recognizable jacquard weaves are brocade, which has a pronounced raised pattern, often in different colors and sometimes with metallic threads, on a contrasting background; damask, a subtle weave—generally tone-on-tone or a color on a coordinating shade—in which the differences in the luster of the threads delineate the pattern; and tapestry, a more complex weave in which weft threads are woven over the warp threads to create the design. Matelassé, popular but not seen as often, has a quilted effect. Dobby weaves are fashioned on specialized looms to produce repeating, small geometric patterns, such as the birds-eye weave.
Lamé brocade coat, 1920s, sold by Augusta Auctions
Ui-Maikai
The Vintage Fashion Guild welcomes any information about this label.
Fresh Vintage May 20th - May 26th
Fresh Vintage is the VFG’s round up of some of the vintage finery that has just been added to members’ shops. The picks this week range from the 1910s to 1990s couture, with multiple fabulous stops along the way. You can click on any of these to see the item for sale, and you can view all the fresh vintage HERE.
Haire, Bill
Bill Martin Haire, (1936-1995), a product of the Fashion Institute of Technology, was an American designer first of evening wear and then, clean line sportswear. He married fellow designer Hazel Keleher in 1955. Bill was an assistant designer at Sam Friedlander, Inc., then designed evening wear in chiffons, satins and loads of beading for Victoria Royal, Ltd., from 1959 – 1974. He joined Hazel in 1975, designing sportswear for Friedricks Sport. Hazel Haire had worked at a series of houses, including Anita Modes, B.H. Wragge, Anne Klein Studio, and Beenebag for Geoffrey Beene before she was brought in to design for Friedricks Sport in 1973. This was a new division of the coat house Harry Friedricks founded in the 1920s. The Haires were publicized as the ‘Designing Couple’, sharing the creative work first at their own label, Haire Design studio (started 1970), and then at Friedricks Sport. The couple separated in 1981 and Bill formed Bill Haire Ltd., a designer sportswear house that was quickly successful. He was nominated for a Coty Fashion Critics Award in 1983, but the label was short-lived and closed in 1985. Haire continued working with Hazel through the Haire Design Studio, freelance designing for a number of fashion companies, and teaching in Italy.
Written by Hollis Jenkins-Evans
My visit to the Théâtre de la Mode
I’ve never been to France, but I’ve had the feeling of traveling through both time and space to the Paris of 1944-46. The occasion was a visit to the permanent exhibition of the Théâtre de la Mode at the Maryhill Museum of Art near the town of Goldendale, Washington.
The museum stands quite alone, a grand chateau situated on a precipice overlooking the Columbia River Gorge.
It is home to an eclectic collection of art, including the Théâtre.
Created in Paris starting in 1944, the Théâtre de la Mode is a work of haute couture, theater and art, with stage sets and dolls designed and created by artists, and fashions by over 55 design houses. They came together for the survival of haute couture.
Some of the clothing designers who dressed these artful dolls in miniature versions of their best and most current fashions include Balmain, Balenciaga, Fath, Hermès, Lanvin, Paquin, Schiaparelli and Ricci.
{…}Fresh Vintage May 13 - 19
Here’s a sampling of the latest from our members’ shops. Click the photos to view the items for sale, then see lots more HERE in our forums.
Lorrie Deb
Bio coming soon…
Fresh Vintage May 6th ~ May 12th
What’s the freshest fashion of the week? No, it’s not made new. Made last year? You’re getting warmer — It’s vintage fashion new in the shops of VFG members. Click on the images here to go to the item for sale and see all the Fresh Vintage finds HERE.
Akris
From Apron Factory to Paris Runways
Few fashion houses that have made their way to Paris runways have started as humbly as Akris. It’s the extraordinary story of a farmer’s daughter who started with one sewing machine and the wish to earn her own money.
Alice Schoch was born into a farmer’s family in 1896. Her aunt had an apron and blouse factory, which is where Alice learned to sew. Later on she also attended a young women’s school where she gained more theoretical knowledge. When her aunt died, she would have liked to take the factory over, but her brother, who had been fostered by the aunt, inherited it. So Alice saved money for a year to buy a sewing machine and then started to make aprons herself.
In 1921, at the age of 25, Alice married Albert Kriemler. When he was traveling across the country as a shoe cream salesman, he took his wife’s apron collection with him to sell. They proved to be a success, and soon Alice needed help to fill the orders. She established a small production space for eight seamstresses and two cutters on the ground floor of her house in St. Gallen. Albert would take orders on his travels and his wife and her seamstresses would sew the aprons the following week. In 1922, a few months after the birth of her first son, the company A. Kriemler-Schoch (Akris in short) was registered as a single ownership company. Production continued to grow and aprons of every kind were made, whether they were for housewives, factory workers or waitress’s white aprons trimmed with fine St. Gallen lace.
{…}Fresh Vintage ~ April 29 - May 5
Ready for a refresh? Members of the Vintage Fashion Guild share their most recent listings in Fresh Vintage each week. Click on the images here to go to the item for sale and see all the fresh finds HERE..
G. Girvin Seattle
Gretchen Girvin Clancy is a Seattle based fiber artist who produced wearable art clothing in the 1970s and 1980s as G. Girvin Seattle. Her signature jackets, dresses and vests involved beautifully worked appliqué patterns in rich color blocks using textured cottons.
In 1984, she began a collaboration with fellow Northwest textile artist Rebecca Edwards in a line of clothing named Beppa for children and women, using appliqué, hand painting and hand dyeing. All work was done in Seattle. Beppa is on hiatus since the retirement of Clancy and Edwards in 2019.
Written by Hollis Jenkins-Evans
The Fabric Junkie Explains Fiber Basics: Woven vs. Knitted
The “Fabric Junkie” has mentioned that she would at some point address how raw materials are turned into fabric. Which is a basic that every seller and buyer of vintage apparel should know. So, here we go:
The two main ways that fibers—synthetic or natural—are turned into fabric are by weaving or by knitting.
Woven fabrics are made by interweaving two sets of threads or yarns at right angles to each other. Think of when you made potholders when you were a kid—you used a square “loom,” and wove the fabric loops in a repeating under and over pattern. This is what a weaving machine does—on a much larger scale, of course! The lengthwise yarn or thread strands are called “warp,” the crosswise ones are the “weft.” The yarn or threads can be in single strands or more, and the fabric can be woven into different textures and patterns. The three basic weaves are plain, twill, and satin. Other types of weaves are variations of these. One of these is the jacquard weave, which is made on special looms to produce damasks, brocades, tapestries, and matelasse. Additionally, once a fabric comes off the loom, it can be finished or treated to achieve different effects.
Woven wool:
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