Comics + Fashion

[lunabee34]

I just finished rereading volume one of Saga and reading volume two for the first time. I know what I want for Christmas. :) I really like how funny and irreverent these comics are and how strongly they tug at my heartstrings. No spoilers for future volumes, please, but I'd love to talk about the first two volumes with those of you who have read (second volume ends with the family hiding in the basement of the writer's home).

I also finished reading a book executrix sent me called What We Wore: An Offbeat Social History of Women's Clothing, 1950-1980. It consists of four chapters--one each on the fifties, sixties, and seventies--followed by a very short chapter about the role of magazines like Mademoiselle in disseminating fashion. The book is very focused on what young people were wearing, mostly focusing on high school and college-aged women along with what young women would have been wearing as they started their careers. The longest and most comprehensive chapter is on the fifties, but each chapter contains lots of photographs and ends with snippets of interviews with women about what they wore during each era. Some of the women are celebrities whose names I recognize, but I think most of them are just regular people. I can see this book being an invaluable resource for people who want to write about young women in those decades. Anybody can google images of clothes from each era (and I suggest you read this book with google images handy because the author talks about a lot of styles and people that aren't pictured), but what What We Wore contextualizes the clothes: why were they worn that way, what inspired them, how did people who couldn't afford certain clothes go about imitating the style, what physical or other consequences wearing certain garments entailed, and the little quirks of dress that no series of google images could impart (like how many petticoats girls were wearing under their skirts in the fifties and how they cut up their legs or what wearing certain pins meant, etc). I think the book ended abruptly; I read the last sentence and then turned the page to find that it had ended. Other than that, I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in fashion from those time periods.

Comments

[cloudsinvenice]

That does sound like a good resource, especially with the "how people got the look without the money" stuff - so often, because of advertising, the brands are our surviving impression of a period, but of course there'll always have been people improvising less expensively...

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

It talks a lot about different kinds of fabric and how much they cost and how difficult certain patterns were to emulate. One of my favorite parts is when a woman comments that she only ironed the collar and cuffs of her shirt because they were all that showed under her sweater; underneath it was the comment of a woman who thought her college roommate who only ironed the visible parts of her shirt was gross for not ironing the whole thing. LOL It's a really cool book.

[executrix]

Side-by-side comparison of a fashion magazine and its contemporary Sears, Roebuck catalog is very instructive.
BTW I was in the gym today and I watched a daytime magazine show where there's a regular feature where audience members have to guess which item is designer and which is a knock-off; if they're right, they get the designer item, if they're wrong, they just get a t-shirt with the show logo.

[lunabee34]

Ha! I remember when I was a kid, the JC Penny's catalog was all the thing for looking at boobs. My brother and I would examine the pages of underwear and nightgowns looking for nipples. *dreamy sigh* LOL

I bet I would suck at spotting the designer clothes.

[executrix]

Long ago, the New York Times Magazine was known as the "Girdle Gazette" because of its plethora of lingerie ads.

They didn't let them touch the clothes (they were on mannequins)--I would have wanted to look inside to see how well the seams were finished and if they had good-quality buttons.

[lunabee34]

Girdles sound horrible. I mean, I've worn some tummy smashing pantyhose before, and I have a tank top or two that's supposed to be slimming in its constricting nature, but I have never worn a girdle. They sound like torture devices.

[executrix]

Indeed. A Lycra panty girdle on a hot day was indeed something special. Girdles were sort of multi-purpose, because even for reasonably slender women, at various times they either emphasized individual buttocks or created the required uni-buttock (cf. the early C20 mono-bosom), and held up stockings, but garter belts could be used if only the stocking-upholding function was required.

[lunabee34]

OMG, the book mentioned that: the mono butt. That sounds terribly unattractive.

I am so glad I never had to fool with garter belts. I definitely see the sex appeal but I couldn't imagine that being the way I dressed all the time as a matter of course.

[executrix]

The top of the stocking also tended to serve as a tourniquet.

Interestingly, the PaleoPantyhose had a sheer leg and a completely different panty area; it took awhile for the example of the already existing tights (where the leg and panty portions are the same) to be adopted, even though that makes the manufacture much simpler and cheaper.

[lunabee34]

Always handy in a lawn mower accident. LOL

[kore]

(omg your icon)

[executrix]

The same shot of the (actual) shepherd appears in this one!

[chelseagirl]

The book sounds fascinating; I'm more interested in styles of the 40s at the moment -- but will keep my eye out for this.

[lunabee34]

*nods*

I wish the book had gone back to the forties instead of ahead to the seventies; the seventies chapter was the leanest.

[elfin]

I love Saga! I need to do a quick refresh so I don't spoil anything - I'm not sure I remember what happened in which volume.

[lunabee34]

Volume one is the parents getting away and meeting the ghost girl. Volume two is them on the rocketship meeting Marko's parents and heading out to the novelist's home. We've also got Prince TV head who is a father to be, the bounty hunter who saves the six year old sex slave, and Marko's ex who teams up with him.

[kore]

I JUST got Saga v 1 in the used bookstore, despite my arachnophobia and that freaky albino? spider woman character. I'm hoping she doesn't have a huge role.

[lunabee34]

She is super freaky looking. *shudders*

[kore]

I might get my husband to go through the book for me and stick big Post-Its over her character. //is pathetic

[lunabee34]

Heeeeeee.

Do you want me to spoil you for her level of appearance in the series?

[kore]

YES PLZ

DOES SHE GET TURNED INTO A BUTTERFLY OR SOMETHING B/C SRSLY I WANT TO READ THE SERIES BUT OMG, MY ARACHNOPHOBIA

[lunabee34]

She dies in the first volume.

She was apparently The Will's former girlfriend, so he thinks about her once or twice in the second, but she's mostly gone after that first volume.

[kore]

.....AWESOME NOW I CAN BUY THE NEXT VOLUME Thank you so much, no lie, my agoraphobia is so bad I can't look at pictures of spiders. :-/

[lunabee34]

I think your idea of having your husband cover her up is a good one though.

I have no idea if The Will has an extended memory of her in future volumes or something.

[kore]

My friends were all raving, like at least a year ago, "You'll love this you must read it!" blahblah. So I open up Vol 1 cold RIGHT TO a page which featured her. I shrieked and dropped the book. (In the bookstore. /o\)

[lunabee34]

Awwwwwww.

*hugs*

also

*giggles*