My grandparents on their wedding day, circa 1937
As many of you know from my excessive whinging on Twitter, I was house & dog-sitting for relatives this week. The whinging was due to my firm belief that there is a ghost in the house. I talked a lot on this matter during one of my ghost shows (This one, I think). What I do enjoy about the house though is that we not only have all of my artist grandfather’s paintings proudly hanging all over the house, but photographs of our relatives. Old photographs are awesome, and are very inspiring to modern day style!
Take for example the photo above, my grandparents, Irv & Lucille, on their wedding day. Weddings were simple affairs in the 1930s as it was smack in the Great Depression and my grandparents were simple farm folk. Grandpa still looks like a Dapper Dan (he actually reminds me a lot of Fred Astaire and a clean-shaven young Jim Henson) and Grandma is stylish with her wearable bouquet.
Let’s go back further to her parents, most likely on their honeymoon here in this picture:
Got my looks and my hat fetish from Great-Grandma
Hats like Great-Grandma is wearing were all the rage – as seen here in this 1902 ad and Montgomery Ward advert from 1908:
Not that floral hats really do ever go out of style, honestly. Just ask the good people behind the 2009 spring-summer collection at the house of Chanel:
Great-Grandma probably didn’t know that she would ever be an inspiring source for style, but just look at that ruffled collar:
Ruffles never go out of style:
I don’t know about you, but I love historical fashion and my library is ever-growing on the subject. Books I recommend on this particular era of fashion: