#makeuphistory

Some vintage yellow aesthetics <3

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This is Simone D'Aillencourt, a French model. From what I can find this is from 1959, which makes sense. She’s got the matchy-matchy of the 50’s going on, but her eyeshadow is green while her eyes are brown. While that style of makeup did exist in the 50s, I think Dovima is the best example of this, it was a lot more popular in the 60s. I think the pattern of the dress is also very late 50s, early 60s as well. This is a really great example of late 50s makeup, though, so if you need a reference this is an awesome option.

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Speaking of the 60s… this is Twiggy! I have no idea what this photoshoot was for, but I loooove it. You can see a lot of the styles we still use today, such as the t-shirt and shorts, as well as her shoes. I don’t know for sure because I don’t have the source for the image, but they look like Chuck Taylors, a popular type of Converse, meaning this could even be an ad for the shoes. While this look is closer to modern style than most, there are still touches of vintage charm, like her knee-high stockings and the amazing matching of her whole look.

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A little different this time, here is Colleen Corby! This photo is from 1967, and it looks reaaaaally 70s, and again I see the inspiration for a lot of modern styles. While her tights and hat might be very vintage looking, if her dress was a little more form fitting then it would look like a dress that probably half of the girls at my school have. Mustard yellow was big in the early 70s, and it’s coming back, as well as the super retro knit fabric and stripes.

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5 tips to style modern clothes in vintage ways!

It can be challenging when you’re starting out wearing vintage to build your collection while still finding quality pieces you love and not breaking the bank. An alternative to this is wearing modern items to make vintage outfits, and here are 5 tips and tricks to do just that!

Find where modern style borrows from vintage

Almost all of fashion is recycled, far more than I ever knew when I first got into fashion history. While some trends have definitely died, we use a lot of vintage styles today, and being able to recognize vintage inspiration is really helpful. High waisted skater skirts, peasant tops, acid washed jeans, corduroy mini skirts, all of these come from past trends and are available in almost every modern shop. Put these items together and you’ve got the modern version of a vintage look! My personal favorite is using a dress with peasant sleeves, pinning it so that the hem is above my knees, and then wearing a skater skirt over that. Not only does the hemmed dress give an extra layer of poof, but it ends up looking really cute.

Include staples of vintage style (bows, hats, and high waist)

There are certain things that you can use to instantly make something look more vintage. You can use a sun hat, a brooch, a bow, the right pair of glasses, and really any vintage jewelry to make something look more vintage. These things will emphasize the vintage inspiration. Most second-hand shops will have great deals on accessories that can spice up your look so they can be a great alternative to actual vintage clothes.

Add vintage hair and makeup

Back when I first cut my hair, my pin curls turned out looking more like 1930s finger waves. Combine that with some 30s makeup and button down shirt/high waisted jeans outfit, and you look like a badass 1930s power woman. Pin curls and winged eyeliner can turn any dress into a 50s red carpet look, and a Gibson girl updo and natural makeup turns you into a 1900s hottie!

Follow vintage patterns and color palettes

Knowing what colors and patterns were big in what eras is super helpful. If you do enough research, it becomes easy to spot vintage patterns when you’re shopping so you don’t have to inspect the fit of every single item. It’s not always what you expect, the 80s wasn’t all neon, and the 50s wasn’t all pink poodle skirts. It helps to know the technology of clothing manufacturing and the culture of each era. Handsewn embroidery and patriotic colors are very 50s because at the time clothes were often made by hand, and during a time of world war, patriotism was huge.

Know your eras and know your brands

So many brands have existed relatively unchanged for decades, such as converse, and the modern version can give a subtle nod to its vintage predecessor. It is also very helpful to know what was popular within eras so that you can mimic specific syles rather than blindly throwing together anything that looks vintage.

Evelyn Nesbit, America’s First Sex Icon

If you would like to know more about Evelyn’s life, see my last few posts for her biography!

So, the story of Evelyn Nesbit is really interesting to me, not just because of the role she played in fashion history, but also just because of everything she went through. She was honestly a complete victim of her circumstances, and she still managed to use her situation to her advantage. She went through so much, from the death of her father to the loss of her innocence, and she continued to work to support herself. In a world where nothing was made for her, she was relentless. Evelyn Nesbit was a survivor, not only of rape, but of abuse, addiction, humiliation, and poverty. I wish the media around her focused more on that part of her life, because she deserves the recognition for that.

Evelyn as a picture of early glamour kind of gets ruined after you know her story. Everything about her is just so sad, you can’t really celebrate much about her life, but despite her pain, she was a huge influence on beauty. Evelyn’s famous beauty pioneered the way for later beauty icons. Makeup was very slowly entering the popular culture, and while it was not nearly as prevalent as it would become in the next few decades, Evelyn was the face of many cosmetic products. When you look at her you get a little glimpse at the beauty standards just before America transitioned into the 20th century. Her hair is still long, she has youthful plumpness about her, her features are soft and symmetrical. She really just looks so young and natural, it’s hard to imagine the sex scandals surrounding her.

I wish there was a way to ask Evelyn what her life was like, and for her to answer candidly without fear. There are so many things we don’t know about her, because all of the attention she got was from her beauty, and no one really cared what she had to say. One positive from this story is that with the me too movement and more awareness about rape culture and sexual harassment, Evelyn's experience is less likely to be repeated.

The trail of the century and the fall of Evelyn Nesbit

(see my previous post for parts 1 and 2 about her early life)

After her abusive husband Harry Thaw shot and killed her former nonconsentual lover, Stanford White, Evelyn was pretty much ruined. Thaw was given the press’ sympathy, but even the kind portrayals of Evelyn slut-shamed her. Thaw’s actions were made to seem like he was simply defending his young bride from the male attention she just had to garner with her beauty. Evelyn, left with nothing without the support of Thaw, testified in his defense in exchange for financial security from his family. In court she had to relive her experiences with White, even describing every detail of the rape that took her virginity at the age of 15.

The court found Thaw not guilty by reason of insanity and was sent to an insane asylum. 7 years later he would be once again declared sane, but his relationship with Evelyn was over. She gave birth to a son she claimed to be Thaw’s child, conceived during his stay in the hospital, but Thaw denied this and she brought up the boy with the help of her mother. She was still financially supported by the Thaws because of her help in his trail, but they were not on good terms, and at one point she donated a generous sum to the anarchist Emma Goldman out of spite. Even though she still had money, however, her sex appeal was gone, and Evelyn would never again reach her former status as an icon.

Evelyn did remarry, but the relationship did not last, and she ended up working as a burlesque dancer in the 1930s, and she found herself suffering from a drug and alcohol addiction. She and Thaw got back together after he heard of a suicide attempt a few years earlier in the mid-20s, but this also was not successful. They never remarried, though they kept in touch and he left her a considerable amount of money when he died in the late 40s.

Evelyn herself passed away in a Florida nursing home. She was 82 years old and had lived for over a decade in obscurity, with her last hurrah has been her role as an adviser on the fictionalized account of her life, the 1955 film The Girl on the Red Velvet Swing.

I learned about Evelyn from the musical Ragtime, which is one of my favorites. The show does a pretty good job of portraying complex characters and talking about racial tensions and the hardships of being a woman, but I’m honestly disappointed at the way the portray Evelyn. She’s painted as a ditzy airhead obsessed with getting famous, and every number she appears in she is either playing up her sexuality in a tiny costume with a posse of young girls, or she’s being rude and narcissistic. I was pretty horrified when I found out what her life was really like, because despite her fame, pretty much every single part of her life was horrible.

The early life of Evelyn Nesbit, America’s First Sex Icon

(trigger warning- mention of sexual assault)

If you’ve heard the musical Ragtime, you know who Evelyn Nesbit is, but there is far more to her story than a flashy court case and fun times on a velvet swing. Evelyn’s real story is actually pretty tragic, but it’s also interesting and says a lot about American culture at the start of the 20th century. So what happened to her that was so bad?

We don’t know Evelyn’s real age because her mother lied about her birth date to avoid child labor laws, but she was probably born in the mid-1880s in America, and as a pre-teen, she began acting as an artists model. She had that Gibson girl look, and pretty soon the modeling was going so well that her mother moved Evelyn and her brother out to New York City so they could pursue it further, as they were in a tough financial spot at home in Pennsylvania. Evelyn’s father died when she was young, and her mother found it hard to support the kids. Evelyn’s mother was not fully on board with her daughter's new career, but it brought in enough money that she could ignore her concerns, and soon Evelyn was posing for artist after artist. Soon Evelyn’s face was on the cover of magazines and being used to advertise products to young women who were desperate for even a little of her beauty.

Now a teenager, Evelyn moved on to acting. It’s said to be her own idea, but the truth is, we really don’t know how much say she got in her life. Her mother was relying on her to support the family at this point, and with Evelyn having already taken on so many responsibilities at a young age, it’s also a possibility that she chose to expand her career as a business move rather than out of boredom. Either way, she started acting in plays, but her beauty always came before her talent. It was at this point that she met the architect Stanford White, a man with a fabulous mustache and a less fabulous personality.

Evelyn’s early life is really interesting to me because she never really got to be a kid. Her mother was not the most attentive and clearly had a lot of trouble holding down the family after being widowed. I don’t put any blame on Ms. Nesbit, it’s hard enough to be a mom, even worse if you’re a single mother in the 1890s, but in most articles you read, she’s portrayed as either neglectful or like she’s taking advantage of Evelyn. I don’t know if either of those is the case, in fact, I think everyone in her family was probably a victim of circumstance. They just didn’t know what would happen when they pursued Evelyln’s career, but I’m sure it seemed like an easy out to their horrible situation. In my next post I’ll talk about the horrors of Evelyn’s teenage years which were definitely the most formative in her life, but I really wanted to take a look at her life before she was famous, as she’s often portrayed as a bit of a ditz, even though in reality she was the main breadwinner of her family.