Nifty Thrifty

The other week I stopped off at the thrift store, and was heartbroken to discover that some lady the day before (right at closing time!) had bought up all of the remaining vintage magazines! Basically, this particular thrift store had received a donation of about 20 vintage magazines (McCalls, Delineator, Pictorial Review, etc.) dating from the 1920s-1940s. At $5/magazine, they were a bit ambitiously priced for a thrift store. However, every time I stopped in, I snagged 1 or 2 copies - whichever had the best hat pictures in them! Well, I had finally decided to just bite the bullet and go ahead and purchase the remaining stack. Of course, this is when they all sold (story of my life). On the bright side, I managed to buy 10 copies, so I totally have some awesome pictures to drool over!

I think my two favorite magazines are the ones dated August 1929 (just before the Great Depression) and 1930 (post-stock market crash) - they really give you a good idea of how life started to change as a result! Fascinating!!

One of the reasons I adore vintage magazines oh so much is because I feel that they give a better idea of how people thought/felt/acted at a certain time than any history book could ever provide! It's like putting your finger on the pulse of a culture at a given moment in time.

Anywho, here are my favorite hats:

To console myself at the loss of the remaining vintage magazines, I scored this fabulous 1940s checkered dress for $5! Lately, the thrift stores (this one in particular) have been catching on to the vintage trend: holding back the good items, and pricing them astoundingly high. It's a source of irritation and upset for me, but every now and then something slips through the cracks (like this dress!). The dress label reads, "Mode O'Day," and on the bottom, ""Styled in California." The dress is composed of a swishy, synthetic fabric. It has a metal side zipper, padded shoulders, short sleeves, a button-front blouse with mock pockets, and velvet-covered buttons. VERY cute, and very much the WWII/post-WWII look!

During WWII, women's fashions became very masculine as a way of showing military support - thus (for example) the padded shoulders of dresses at the time.