1952 Spring Break Wardrobe: Vintage Jantzen Lastex-Powered Swim Suits

I work at a university, and this past week the talk among the students was all about - "So where are you heading for Spring Break?"

Whether the destination is Cancun, Key West or Montego Bay - here are the perfect swimsuits to take along to wow your friends...

Jantzen swim suits advertisement - Life magazine, June 9, 1952

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Love this vintage ad copy.  "Figure shaping genius...frankly alluring lines...Jantzen streamlining...the most exciting swim suits in all the world." 

Isn't the heart shaped bodice and the shirring on this brocade Delilah swim suit fabulous?  Her suit is laton-powered - his is lastex-powered...

In the 1980's Real Men Didn't Eat Quiche - and they probably didn't in the 1950's either.  But real men of the 1950's were apparently wearing skimpy Jantzen swim trunks like these.  

Jantzen has named these red trunks: "Daredevil."  An appropriate name considering a guy would have to be pretty daring to go out in public with this peek-a-boo criss-cross design on his hips - don't you think?

Love this Jantzen ad, but I was lucky enough to own some real live 1950's swim suits for a short time...

This past summer, I found a group of three vintage swimsuits - two Jantzen, one Catalina - tucked away in the zippered pocket of this suitcase.

The thing is - when I bought the suitcase at an estate sale for a couple of bucks, I hadn't bothered to investigate the inside of the suitcase thoroughly - and apparently neither had the estate sale pros.  What a nice surprise I had waiting for me when I came home and pulled a family's trio of swimsuits out of the pocket!

Here's Junior's suit - a pair of boy's size 12 black swim trunks with a colorful striped band, and a Jantzen label inside.

The Mrs. wore this buttery yellow 1950's swimsuit with a Jantzen label and "diving girl" emblem.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but it's a rather sexy swimsuit.  The cups have a pretty pleating, and have boning to help hold it up when the straps are removed!

This suit deserved a curvier bosom than mine - so I decided to put it up for bid on eBay last summer.  It was popular with the bidders ($92), but not nearly as hot as the men's swim trunks that Dad wore...

These vintage 1950's swim trunks have a Catalina label inside that says - "Styled for the Stars of Hollywood."  

I love the five bold brown and orange sharks swimming from back to front!

Apparently eBayers liked the sharks too:  these trunks sold for $142.  

Note the elastic around the legs.  Like the swim trunks in the 1952 Jantzen ad, these Catalina trunks show off a bit more leg, etc. than American men these days are generally comfortable with. 

But Spring Break is a good time to be a bit of a "Daredevil" and let it all hang out (figuratively speaking, of course).  So guys, toss a pair of trunks like these into your backpack before you head south. No question, you will impress the ladies when you step out onto that beach.

Better yet...

...make sure you bring along a pipe.  That will impress her for sure.  :-)

Lipstick on Your Collar...

All of you Mad Men fans out there are probably familiar with the Clorox ad that was created for the show’s second season DVD. The ad features a lipstick mark on the collar of a Draper-style white shirt. The headline says Clorox has been "getting ad guys out of hot water for generations."

Well, back in 1959 Connie Francis had a hit song about a guy who was in hot water because of a telltale lipstick stain...

Here's adorable Connie and "Lipstick on Your Collar." Sorry the sound quality is occasionally spotty - but I thought you'd get a kick out of seeing Connie singing live.

I haven't been running into very many men lately who have inspired me to leave my own lipstick mark. But a girl's gotta be prepared for that possibility down the road...

I adore the vintage lipstick case I currently own (a $1 find at an estate sale) - mainly because it's so practical. The enamel decoration has a texture that makes it easy to find in an overstuffed purse. But it's definitely seen better days.

I deserve something a bit more glamorous - don't you think?  So, I did a bit of shopping on Etsy and eBay, and discovered a wonderful world of vintage lipsticks, cases and vanity holders.   If money were no object, here are a few that I'd be drooling over.

Ornate Vintage 1950's Vanity Set, Lipstick Holder - Etsy: ShesFancy

Vintage Florenza Vanity Set - Lipstick Holder and Match Holder - Etsy: EyeCandyAntiques

Vintage Josef Original Young Lady Lipstick Holder - eBay: MauiGirl

2 Vintage Lipstick Cases, Red, Gold, Black Design (Made in Italy) - Etsy: LucillesAttic

SALE Vintage Rhinestone Lipstick Case with Beveled Mirror and Coty Lipstick - Etsy: SugarPopVintage

Vintage Nite Club Lipstick in Box, Tempting Red, J.R. Watkins - eBay: Suvee77 

Vintage Lipstick Tube Container Lot Revlon Coty Bishop - eBay: T-Time2005

Rare Purse Set by Ann Jackson Originals -1950s - Etsy: MomsVintageTreasures

Fabulous Vintage Ciner Compact and Lipstick Set Lots Of Rhinestones - Etsy: Compactastic

Princess Pat Vintage Lipstick Attached to Selling Card - eBay: Lonestar1845

Vintage Enesco Teen Girl on Phone Lipstick Holder Figurine - eBay: Vintage_Vanity

Lipstick Hanky with Kitty - Etsy: CarpeBellus

>Vintage Revlon Cosmetics Advertising Pin - Etsy: BunnyRabbitVintage

So...are you drooling yet?  Which one is your favorite?

My favorites: the Revlon Advertising Pin!  Also the lineup of Revlon, Coty and Bishop lipstick tubes.  Why? Because I can imagine an intriguing collection of vintage lipsticks displayed on a pretty shelf above my bedroom vanity - and at just $7.99 (opening bid) this would be a thrifty way to get started on the collection.   But I'm not planning to bid - so grab it for yourself if you'd like!

Enjoy your weekend!  And don't forget - Valentine's Day is just around the corner... 

Make sure those luscious lips of yours are ready for a little action. :-)

Trumpet Advance Lip Flexibilities - Etsy: AnotherWomansTreasur

One last vintage coat...then Winter gets the boot!

Early last month, when I was still starry-eyed over all the beautiful snow we'd been getting in Minnesota, I posted a few of my 9 vintage coats with a promise to share more of them soon. 

Well, even though Minnesota winters last forever, my excitement over the cold & snow and wool sweaters & coats faded very quickly.  We've had 52 inches of snow in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area so far this season, with another 25" or so expected to fall between now and April - and I've had more than enough of this white stuff for one year! 

But before I give Winter the boot...let me just show you one more fabulous vintage coat that I found...

I'm acting a little giddy modeling this coat partly because I'm seeing sunlight shining through my kitchen windows after a long streak of dreary, overcast days!

What intrigued me most about the coat were the unusual fur-trimmed bell sleeves, which gives it a bit of a Victorian look.

The fur on the sleeves and collar is so soft and cozy.  I believe that it's  mouton fur - which is "a high-grade lambskin that’s specially processed to mimic the density and radiance of sheared beaver or mink fur." Most commonly mouton fur was dyed to a chocolate brown, like my coat - but it was also dyed in other shades, including white.

One thing I don't like about the sleeves is that they are oddly about an inch too short, as you can see in my photos. I'm pretty sure that I don't have unusually long arms, so I don't get it.  

Was this look intentional? maybe to show off gloves? - or was this coat simply meant for a much shorter woman (I'm 5 ft. 5 in.)?  I know that the trend in the mid-to-late 50's was to push long coat sleeves up on the arm to three-quarter's length.  But that doesn't make much sense with this style.  Any thoughts?

Okay, enough about the flaws!  Back to why I adore this coat..   I love the double-button detail.  The buttons match the chocolate brown coat perfectly, and have pretty gold lucite centers.

        

I've mentioned this before - I think that vintage clothing labels are so beautiful!  And this coat has three lovely labels:  "Friess Original", "Forstmann 100% Virgin Wool", and "Brucewood - Maurice L Rothschild - Young-Quinlan Co."

There's a wonderful guide to clothing labels on the Vintage Fashion Guild site, which is a big help in dating vintage clothing. The guide includes quite an extensive A-Z list of label samples, and my "Forstmann 100% Virgin Wool" label was noted as being found on an early 1950's dress.

Do you think this coat looks early 1950's? Or possibly late 1940's?  

In paging through my Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs from the 40's through the 50's, I didn't find any coats with a similar sleeve design - and just one coat in a 1950-51 Ward's catalog with a mouton collar of the very same shape. Maybe this shouldn't be a surprise, though. The Young-Quinlan Department Store sold a lot of higher-end designer fashions, and these sleeves might have been too unusual for the average Sears and Ward's customer.

Back of card: Young Quinlan, 901 Nicollet Mall, combines the decor of old world elegance with the most famous names in apparel for both men and women. This Twin Cities landmark also offers a gourmet galley, exquisite home furnishings gift shop and the well-known Fountain Room restaurant.

Here is an early 1960s postcard of the Young-Quinlan building, erected in downtown Minneapolis in 1926.  (Postcard courtesy of  Remembering Great American Department Stores.)

The building is still there, but the Young Quinlan department store, where my coat was originally purchased in the 50's, sadly went out of business in 1985 after a 59-year run.  The store's founder Elizabeth Quinlan (1863-1947) had been in the retail fashion business since the 1890's. She was the first merchant to sell ready-to-wear clothing west of the Mississippi. A fascinating woman, The Saturday Evening Post did a four-page spread on her in 1927, and in the mid-1930's Fortune magazine named her one of the country's top businesswomen.

Here's a pert little Mabel Ellsworth brown hat, ca. 1940's, that would probably have gotten Miss Quinlan's approval.  Isn't it sweet?  This was another estate sale find this past summer.

Unfortunately, my mannequin looks much better in it than I do, so I'll probably be selling it next year after I've squeezed every last bit of enjoyment from it...

Ta Da!  So that's it - we're done with Winter now...

From this point on, even if it's 10 degrees below zero outside, in this blog it's going to start feeling like Spring...

...beginning with a song from the 1945 film musical, State Fair:  Rodgers & Hammerstein's "It Might As Well Be Spring."  The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year.

Shirley Jones in Oklahoma - photo by J. R. Eyerman

In this 1950's video clip from The Danny Thomas Show, it's sung by the lovely and talented Shirley Jones.

I grew up knowing Shirley Jones as Keith, Laurie and Danny Partridge's mom in the early 1970's Partridge Family television show.  But before that, she had an amazing career as singer and actress, starring in the wonderful film musicals Oklahoma (1955), Carousel (1956) and The Music Man (1962).

Happy (it might as well be) Spring!  Enjoy...

It Might As Well Be Spring

Lyrics by: Oscar Hammerstein II
Music by: Richard Rodgers
From the Film: State Fair 1945

I'm as restless as a willow in a windstorm, I'm as jumpy as a puppet on a string
I'd say that I had spring fever, but I know it isn't spring
I am starry eyed and vaguely discontented, like a nightingale without a song to sing
O why should I have spring fever, when it isn't even spring

I keep wishing I were somewhere else, walking down a strange new street
Hearing words that I've never heard from a man I've yet to meet
I'm as busy as spider spinning daydreams, spinning spinning daydreams
I'm as giddy as a baby on a swing

I haven't seen a crocus or a rosebud, or a robin on the wing
But I feel so gay in a melancholy way, that it might as well be spring.
It might as well be spring.

How many vintage coats does it take to make it through a long Minnesota winter?

I'm a pretty sensible and practical woman most of the time, but when it comes to vintage winter coats, my head goes foggy and my heart takes over.   If I see a pretty coat at an estate sale for a reasonable price, I just can't seem to pass it up!

The crazy thing about it is that I already have [walking over to my closet to count right now] NINE vintage winter coats - and most of them I've never worn yet.   Nine coats!   That's a little overboard, don't you think?   I promise you that I'm not like this with other types of clothes - generally, I'm Ms. Frugal - but there's something about coats...
 
Here are two that I bought at a sale this past July.  I remember it was bleepin' hot out that day and the estate sale was crowded with hot, sweaty shoppers - and there I was in the middle of the chaos trying on these wonderful vintage coats, attempting to catch a glimpse of myself in a little mirror. I got lots of smiles (who is this crazy woman?) but nobody seemed to want to bother with lugging around a heavy winter coat on a hot day.  Nobody except me.  And so I got some great deals!
 
This black coat has a "Stuart's - Milwaukee" label and the sweetest ball-shaped fabric buttons.

I think that my favorite feature on this first coat - the thing that convinced me that I had to buy it - is the embroidered "arrows" detailing on the back and front.  I'm also a sucker for curly lamb trim.  (Thanks Kitty and Kim Bombshell for reminding me that "curly lamb" is more often called Astrakhan or Persian lamb.)

This next vintage coat (mid 1950's?) is a much longer style, in a navy blue - and the label is: "Made expressly for Bloomingdale's."

 

This one's perfect for keeping warm during a cold Minnesota winter.  It's long and heavy - and has the softest brown fur in the world on the collar and cuffs.  I love the look from the back, with the gentle folds...

What do you think - is it a keeper?

But wait until you see the sweetheart of a coat, in chocolate brown, that I bought a few weeks ago!  It's got a lovely "Brucewood - Maurice L. Rothschild - Young Quinlan Co" label.

(I have a thing for vintage clothing labels - anyone else with me on that obsession?) 

As for the rest of the coat...I'll share some photos soon.  Then maybe you would be willing to help me figure out which coat should be The Coat that will carry me through this winter?  And I can eventually sell the others. 

OR...I suppose I could keep all nine - one for each day of the week, plus a couple just for evenings - but that seems a bit on the greedy side, doesn't it?  And I don't want to give the impression that I am a Greedy Grinch. 

I'd like to think that my heart, like the Grinch's on Christmas Day, expands to three times its size at this time of year....

Narrator: "And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day. And then - the true meaning of Christmas came through, and the Grinch found the strength of *ten* Grinches, plus two!"

Narrator: "Welcome, Christmas, bring your cheer. Cheer to all Whos far and near. Christmas Day is in our grasp so long as we have hands to clasp. Christmas Day will always be just as long as we have we. Welcome Christmas while we stand, heart to heart and hand in hand."



This song sends shivers up my spine, and puts tears in my eyes.   It's so joyful and uplifting! - one of my favorite Christmas songs of all time...

Silly me. I have no idea how I managed to turn the discussion from vintage coats to this 1966 Dr. Seuss Christmas television classic.  I guess it means that I must be starting to get into the Christmas spirit.  Hope you are too!

Warm holiday wishes, 

Susan