What’s in a Lady’s Name?

I like old books. Sometimes I buy them just for their looks. Yeah, I totally judge them by their covers. If they bear quirky titles and quaint designs; if they’re beaten up and shabby, and looked well used, then I will reach for them.

All these books bear lady’s names, and two of them have been made into films. Patricia Brent, Spinster opens with this:

“She never has anyone to take her out, and goes nowhere, and yet she can’t be more than twenty-seven, and really she’s not bad-looking.”

And to think she is only twenty-four after all! Poor Patricia. She goes on to be quite indiscreet, and declares that she is dining with her fiancé the next day – and then she has to make good on her word or face the humiliation of being found out. I think I must actually read this book!

Here’s some more oldies but goldies.

Didn’t We Have A Lovely Day?

Illustration from Le Sourire, by Alberto Fabio LorenziIt was such a lovely, sunshiney morning today walking through the Botanic Gardens to work that a terribly catchy tune from my childhood popped into my head. It’s been playing on loop for hours.

So here it is, if you know the tune join in with me in the chorus:

Didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor
A beautiful day, we had lunch on the way and all for under a pound you know
But on the way back I cuddled with Jack and we opened a bottle of cider
Singing a few of our favourite songs as the wheels went around …

If you want the whole song, click here.

The gorgeous 1920s beach fashion comes from Katie Louise-Ford.

Travelling Trophies

In keeping with my All Abroad! story in the Journal, here is a lovely collection of luggage labels from David Craig’s book Luggage Labels – Mementoes from the Golden Age of Travel (Chronicle Books, 1988).

They are such quaint pieces of graphic design that have vanished from daily appearance in our lives, and with them disappeared the romance of foreign travel. Although I wonder – were travellers actually annoyed to have these bits of paper plastering their matching sets of luggage? Or were they trophies of all the wonderful places they’ve been?

Although I wonder – were travellers actually annoyed to have these bits of paper plastering their matching sets of luggage?

Many years ago I was lucky enough to find a couple of vintage travelling hatboxes that featured two or three labels on the side. I even used them as overnight cases occasionally. I was utterly distraught when I discovered they had become damp and mouldy from storage in the garage one winter – I had to throw them out. In fact, some of my books had also been stored in the garage with them, including this Luggage Labels book, and it is now somewhat warped from the damp – perhaps that is rather apt. (Fortunately it escaped the mould.)

The red suitcase I have now is also vintage, purchased a couple of years ago from an enormous vintage bazaar on the Mornington Peninsula. I store all my props in it.

The wonderfully evocative Canadian Pacific poster is from another book on graphic design of the Art Deco period: British Modern – Graphic Design Between the Wars, by Steven Heller and Louise Fili.

Click through to the Vintage Luggage Labels gallery to view twenty more labels.

A Regency Touch

Ball Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s RepositoryI am really obsessed with vintage fashion plates at the moment. No surprise about the vintage fashion bit, but it’s really the look of the antique colour-tinted illustrations from Regency fashion periodicals that I fancy.

The pages are yellow and foxed, which lends an appealing nostalgia, but it is the overall delicacy of each drawing that is so charming. Perhaps the pages are merely faded, but the linework seems to be rendered in a subtle grey rather than harsh black – or maybe that was just the quality of the ink?

Ball Dress, 1809, from Ackermann’s RepositoryColour is applied with a light touch, in the pastel shades so in favour during the Regency years: rose, pistachio, butter yellow, celestial blue, but white predominates, for this was the most appropriate hue for débutantes.

There is such exquisite detail in each of these drawings too, in the lace trimmings, the feather plumes nodding atop bonnets and the becoming pink flushing in these young ladies’ cheeks.

I’m being inspired to try my hand at a modern version, perhaps a series on those few vintage clothes I gave away long ago and subsequently infinitely regretted. An aptly nostalgic style for long-lost garments.

If you’d like to see more – lots more – the website of EK Duncan features several wonderful galleries.

Evening Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s RepositoryEvening Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s RepositoryEvening Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s RepositoryWalking Dress (just look at those darling lace-up slippers!), 1815, from Ackermann’s RepositoryWalking Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s RepositoryParisien dress, late 18th century Adorable jackets, a Roxburgh (left) and spencer (right), 1807, worn on top of walking dresses. Click through to read about the amazing Quinn, a modern-day Regency-loving chick who goes to great lengths to reproduce vintage garments.

A Quaint Collectable

Isn’t it funny that a ‘filthy habit’ – an oft-used term in literature describing cigarette smoking – should be the means that brought us such a quaint and delightful illustrated product as the cigarette card? But we would not have one without the other.

In the mid 1880s America, cigarette packaging was made from flimsy paper, and so cards known as stiffeners were inserted for the reinforcement necessary to protect the precious contents. Some believe it was a journalist who first had the brilliant idea to use these blank cards for advertising, and WD & HO Wills were soon taking advantage. Eventually the cards were also used to convey information on items of general interest: but not until 1893, with the UK’s John Player & Sons producing one of the first sets, on ‘Castles and Abbeys’.

John Players & Sons

Allen & GintersMany of these cards were printed using chromolithography: each colour was applied singly with the use of stone plates. In fine (art) printing it was not unusual for 20–25 stones to be used on a single image, but cigarette cards would not have qualified for that attention. In fact it is the very crudeness and tiny colour palette which gives them the quaint look that I love. I just need to find a way to emulate it in Photoshop, an enjoyable irony.

Dukes, late 19th century