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When you buy something new, wrapped in plastic, foam and cardboard, you seldom think about that object’s history. The history, that is, of the natural elements found in the ground, the oil and gas that becomes plastic, or the people who probably worked for as much as I pay for a packet of gum to make it. One of the things people like about ‘new stuff’ is the fact that it doesn’t have a history. There’s something exciting about opening a new appliance or wearing a new top and knowing that you are the first one to use it. New possessions give us a kind of status. But increasingly, old things seem to be doing the same thing.
As far as I can see, until fairly recently there were people who were into antiques, and there were people who bought everything new; those for whom the 1950′s world of brand-spanking new white goods and “everything that opens and shuts” still hasn’t worn off. But I wasn’t aware until maybe five years ago of a large crop of people, particularly of my age and socio-economic group, that lived and breathed for the iconic second-hand. I love going to markets, scouring op-shops and decorating my place with oddments from other decades. But so do a good half of Melbourne’s population. And that collective group seems to describe their love of old things as a passion for ‘vintage’.
What exactly makes something ‘vintage’? Going for the good old dictionary definition, there are three main uses of the word. The first is in winemaking. Vintage specifically means ‘what year/season’ the wine was made. Secondly, it’s used in relation to something that is representative of either the best or most typical of a product, or to describe something of influence and importance in an era ie. something ‘classic’. Lastly, it simply means old-fashioned or ‘dated’.
Most people I know seem to use the word vintage in its third sense. Unless we happen to be vintage clothing connoisseurs, we won’t know the name of that specific shirt cut, or where it originated and what exact year and by whom it was made popular. It seems that if anything is more than twenty years old, it’s ‘vintage’. And vintage has become unbearably trendy. Using the very word in relation to yourself, if you’re between fifteen and thirty at least, seems to identify you as a specific ‘type’ of person. Describing your dress sense as ‘vintage’ says: “I’m arty, not mainstream”, “I have good taste” or “I’m not just a generation Y with no concept of history. Look at me, I’m wearing it.”
Vintage has also become both ‘arty’ and ‘enviro-friendly’. And since enviro-friendly and arty are now the coolest things to be, recycling fashions rather than buying into new ones must be the hallmark of ‘cool’, right? Eek. This is all starting to sound a little pretentious. And nobody wants that. But if this is true then I, unfortunately, have fallen prey to pocketing the identity that goes along with being a vintage-lover. Arty-enviro-friendly-wanker. It’s attached to my 1950′s high-waist dresses, my little sixties neckties and scarves, the old brooches and handbags. It is manifest every time I enter an op-shop or manage to wake early for the goodies at Camberwell Market. Oh dear.
But is there another reason that I like vintage stuff? I hope so. I mean, I like old things aesthetically. But I hope I don’t just acquire dated paraphernalia because it’s cool, or even pretty. What’s more important than the objects themselves, to me, is the history that lies dormant within them. What crazy party did this shirt attend back in the eighties? Did the person wearing it get lucky that night? What mother sat brushing her little girl’s hair with this mirror and comb set? Who sat frantically writing a last minute assignment at this desk before me? What woman in the 1940′s took this handbag around the streets of another city, another country even, guarding her precious ration card while soldiers marched the streets?
One of the first things I remember doing in a creative writing class was writing about an object, using it as inspiration. “Objects tell stories.” It seems to be one of the central tenets of writing. People have written entire novels based around objects. Metaphorical objects, objects with special powers or with monetary or other value, but also just ordinary objects, ones that we buy and use and that outlive their use or season, only to be picked up again later under a new light. Aside from liking vintage things for their aesthetic value, there is something powerful and mysterious about holding in your hand, or wearing on your body, the things that coloured the life of another person. It’s like a hand-me-down with a history you get to create yourself. My possessions become not just things to give me status, but things to remind me of a life before me, of other places and other times, of people here and gone.
So when your second-hand accoutrements foster creativity and imagination and you throw in the eco-friendly factor, maybe the obsession isn’t so pretentious after all. Well at least I’d like to think so, since I’ll be at Camberwell Market rain or shine next Sunday.
Well, I’ve passed nearly seven weeks weeks of study-less winter, with a meagre income and sporadic employment. I have to say, it’s been an interesting time of self-reflection. I found that if I have a competent ability to commit to a task and complete it, and that I can go crazy within 48 hours of being house-bound.
I’m going to take a moment to revel in my “J-ness”, and since I set out a list of things I planned to accomplish at the beginning of my break, I’ll now share with the internet world the fruits of my labour.
The first two weeks of break were spent with early grey tea, a blanket and a weekly cheap-tuesday trip to Video Ezy. Some of the films that I ticked off my list included (in alphabetical order and with my out of five star rating)
American Beauty * * *
All about Eve * * *
Being John Malcovitch * *
The Breakfast Club * * * *
The Birds * * * * *
Children of men * * *
Crash * * *
Edward Scissorhands * * *
Fight Club * * * * *
Lost in Translation * * *
Notes on a scandal * * * *
Terminator * * *
Terminator II * * * *
After reaching saturation point, I turned to books as my source of entertainment, and completed:
A Passage To India by E.M Forster, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, On Beauty by Zadie Smith, and am currently halfway through Monkey Grip by Helen Garner. I’ve also invested in Goodreads, which I highly recommend since it gave me hours of boredom-free pleasure: adding books, writing reviews and perusing other people’s bookshelves.
As for writing, I feel happy with the fact that I spent several days writing without being under duress. I also sent a couple of things to competitions and publishers which was a big psychological leap.
But it was other creative endeavours that turned out to be my saviour from insanity. Jumping up in the deacoupaging league, I collaged a coffee table!
I also got even more crafty with Orsh and on an unexpected spotlight trip bought the materials to make this little baby!
As promised, gardening, sewing and cooking were also undertaken. I took up two hems, cleared our courtyard (two days of raking) and Stu planted some corriander in pots, which will hopefully be the beginning of a flourishing herb garden (or at least… a semi-productive herb garden).
During the much awaited Sibling holiday, which was every bit as fun as anticipated, I also had some amazing op-shop buys which I have to share! I believe this notched up my vintageness by about 25 percent. Even better, it’s given me an idea on an article I plan to write about Vintage fashion, Nostalgia in Postmodern theory (yes, it sounds uber-wanky, but I figure at the very least my obsession with the retro must have some explanation waiting to be uncovered).
Tomorrow I leave for four days to the nation’s capital, where I’ll be attending a Deep Sea themed party (costume yet to be configured) and going skiing at Threadbo, my first ever trip to the slopes. Following that, Uni commences bright and early 1pm Monday afternoon, with a Film Noir introductory lecture. Joy!
Ah, holidays!
Now that assessment is over and I can breathe again, I plan to get a bit better at blogging regularly (or for the next six weeks, at least)….
To start off, these are some collages I made out of the 1950s film star albums I got ages ago. This one didn’t work because of the wrong type of glue which made the paper bubble (boo) but with a bit of photoshopping, I thought it was worth posting anyway.
The next one isn’t quite as pretty (perhaps it is the absence of Grace Kelly?) but so far I haven’t destroyed it with poor lacquering attempts.
My glorious holiday plans include:
* Making more collages
* Attempting to alter numerous market/op-shop items on the sewing machine (hems, darts, pleats… I can totally do it!)
* Learning how to operate my lovely new Nikon SLR Camera (ditto)
* Getting a significant way through the epic movie list I have compiled with the help of Stuart, Jonathan, IMDB and various other recommendations. The list includes all of the films of Alfred Hitchcock and most of the films of David Lynch, plus a significant contribution from the action genre which I seem to have missed out on… much fun to be had!
* Reading Lolita and The Sound and the Fury (I just finished A passage to India today, which I won’t comment on now because it deserves a whole post to itself…)
* The upcoming sibling holiday, which will include numerous games of Balderdash and probably much reminiscing, plus a trip to Canberra to see boyfriends friends (maybe my friends? hopefully).
* A whole new level of domestic enquiry… (just wait and see!)
“Glamour, that old scotch word, is a very important word in the vocabulary of any woman. But it has to be more than a word to the girl who hopes to make a name for herself in the film world. It is vital to keep one’s glamorous side on parade.” says Mari Blanchard.
>> Two brilliant finds in the second-hand bookshop near my house: The New Film Show Annual and The Film Star Album from the 1950′s. Neither have publishing dates but one has a handwritten name and date (Diane Lyons, Ballarat, 1958.) I am using the pictures to make some form of decopage collage, but the quotes and tag lines beneath the pictures are gold! If only we still described our Hollywood stars in such generous terms as the following:
“A brilliant cascade of fiery auburn hair, delicate and chiselled features, exquisite hands and shoulders: Rhonda Fleming, of course.”
“Pert and petite is attractive Barbara Ruick. She’s the sort of girl who’s as good as a ray of sunshine any day!”
“Newly Wed Mitzi Gaynor is all set for a tour of Europe. Glad to have you over here any day, Mitzi!”
“Mary Murphy has a zest for living which shows in the sparkle and gaiety for her pretty-as-a-picture face. An enlivening companion, Mary is the sort of girl it’s good to have around.”
“Another Parisienne, Corinne Calvet has all the glamour associated with the gay capital.” (tehehe)
“Although tagged ‘the most beautiful girl in the world’ Yvonne De Carlo likes to mooch around in jeans and a sweater.” (who’d a thunkit?)
“Debbie Reynolds never puts on the glamour act, but she succeeds because charm takes over where glamour never began.” (Gee, Deb, I’m not sure how I’d take that one)
“Yes, it really is that suave sophisticate Rex Harrison all dressed up for his part in King Richard and The Crusaders. But Rex is back to normal in the marriage tangle comedy The Constant Husband.”
“Richard Allen, handsome six-footer is a sure bet for stardom. Singer, dancer actor, he’s crammed full of talent!”
“Women have been a decided influence in Robert Wagner’s life, with mother taking top place!” (LOL)
For the first time since George Miller’s Happy Feet came out in 2006, I walked out of a children’s movie deep in thought about the big issues; you know, the environment, economy, the state of the world, that kind of thing. Disney / Pixar’s 3D animation’s Wall-e is thought provoking in a way its medium rarely achieves, not just for its topical warning on environmental ruin, but for the way it imagines the future consumeristic fate of mankind. Wall-e projects the audience forward a few hundred years, to a time when industrial development and pollution have completely destroyed the Earth, causing its remaining inhabitants to take to space to survive and leave robots to take care of the mess. Thankfully, technology has advanced to the point that life outside of earth is fully sustainable inside a giant space ship that not only allows its passengers five star accommodation, but is in fact a giant consumer paradise, entirely owned by one giant corporation ‘Buy n Large’. In the 22ndcentury, humans no longer need to walk anywhere; instead, they zoom around on what appear to be over-sized massage chairs, embedded with all the electronic devices one could ever need. As a result, nobody has retained any bone density, and are reduced to helple
ss obese blobs, eating nothing but fast food and doing nothing but staring at personalised hologram-like screens that conjure up the illusion of anything they could wish for. Humorous, yes, but I couldn’t help thinking about the implications of this not-so-impossible vision of the future.
In his childhood memoir ‘The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid’, Bill Bryson recalls the economic and industrial boom in North America in the 1950′s. Relatively unscathed by the destruction of WWII, the US saw an un-precedented period of prosperity that determined the standard of living expected in first-world countries for the rest of the century. Suddenly, modern appliances were available to the masses, the people ‘were able to have everything they had never dreamed of having… almost ninety percent of American families had refrigerators, and nearly three quarters had washing machines, telephones, vacuum cleaners and gas or electric stoves – things most of the rest of the world could only fantasize about.’ Bryson describes the boundless optimism people had in the ability of modern industry; ‘soon, according to every magazine, we were going to have underwater cities off every coast, space colonies inside giant spheres of glass, atomic trains and airliners, personal jetpacks, a gyrocoptor in every driveway, cars that turned into boats or even submarines, moving sidewalks to whisk us effortlessly to schools and offices.’ A new era had arrived – the future. With coming of mass production came its appropriate counterpart; mass media. Mass media meant the saturation of American popular culture began to permeate the rest of the world. The influx of consumer based American advertising imagery coming into the economically unstable environment of Europe after the war gave way to the idea of an ‘aesthetic of plenty’*; belief that such affluence should be available to all. American advertisements promoted the idea of consumer diversity, multiplicity of style and choice, productivity and endless, un-precedented wealth and technological advancement. Those on the receiving end of such a proliferation of new advertising in Europe were enticed into a state of desire. And who could blame them? After one world war, a great depression and the ravaging effects WWII had brought upon almost every country in Europe, it could be said that every one on earth at this time knew what it was to go through some form economic hardship. In first world countries like France, Italy and the UK, food was scarce and bread, milk and meat were rationed for a number of years after the second world war. Homelessness and unemployment were rife and major European cities had been all but completely destroyed. For people living in such poverty, the affluence of America was something to hope for. Luckily for Australia, also relatively unharmed by the war, it was imminently possible. We became one of the first nations with an economic climate suitable to adopting the consumer culture relatively soon after America.
More than fifty years on, the US has for the most part managed to remain the perpetual leader in setting the standard of wealth, success and luxury that make up a first-world lifestyle. And Australia? Well…we’ve spent the last 58 years trying to keep up with the Jones’s. Obviously, other nations have had major input in the world economy and indeed Asia has become a leader in technological developments. But for the Lucky Country, our goal seems to have been to emulate the affluence of the American Dream, which in some respects perpetually remains just out of reach. But that hasn’t stopped us from trying. Despite the continuance of abject poverty in the third world, the last fifty years has seen a continuance in the thriving of consumer culture; we continue to live under the prevailing belief in the aesthetic of plenty. The revolution of the mass media and advertising that began at the end of WWII has become the backbone of our day to day lives. It continues as a strong force that forms much of the pattern of urban life, constantly bombarding us and shaping the way in which we perceive the world. Sure, we may not be under the illusions of any underwater cities popping up and may no longer be enticed by washing machines and vacuum cleaners, but endless forms of advertising continue to lure us into a state of desire for the latest modern commodities. Those of us lucky enough to be born in a first world country in the last three decades have, in all likelihood, known nothing of what it is like to really go without. The consumer culture continues to feed the myth that anything we want, we can have; all we need is a credit card and a trip to our closest consumeristic paradise - the urban shopping mall. The fact it tries to ignore; that the aesthetic of plenty is part-and-parcel with a lifestyle of rapid consumption and obsolescence, generating excessive waste by its dependence on fast turnover, change of model and belief in indefinite expendability. An expendability that Wall-e warns may not be quite so indefinite, if we want to stay on this earth, that is. 
* The term ‘aesthetic of plenty’ was coined by Lawrence Alloway, founding member of a group of artists and philosphers known as The Independent Group.
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