So today’s New York Times has an article about the popularity of the vintage pinup aesthetic, “A Sly Wink to Pinups of the Past” by Ruth La Ferla.  Do take a look.

I know most of you are going to be, like, So what else is new?  But it’s always interesting to see how the mainstream press covers trends, especially a trend that, in sewing-blog land at least, has been around a long time, and probably longer elsewhere.

In this case, I’d say the Times is considerably behind the curve.  Behind the curve…pinup…get it?   Oh, I’m clever!

Pinup culture — the vintage cheesecake, va-va-voom sort — never really went away, though it moved outside the mainstream in the Nineteen-sixties and Seventies.  By then, magazines like Playboy and Penthouse were providing more explicit imagery than old-style pinups could deliver.  When hardcore pornography can be picked up at your local 7-Eleven, who needs a calendar girl in a bodystocking and toe shoes?

In the Seventies, performers like Bette Midler were sending up WWII-era pinup style.  The joke was that Bette was loud, coarse, and not beautiful, which was part of the reason she was so popular.  At the time it was considered a little transgressive.

Bette portrait by Annie Liebowitz

And then there was Farrah, whose pinups really weren’t that far away from Rita Hayworth’s when you think about it.  The difference is that you always saw Farrah in something sporty, never lacy lingerie, let alone a Jean Louis satin evening gown.  Farrah was active — a pinup for the Feminist era.

I wasn’t really aware of how popular vintage pinup style had become until I started sewing and reading blogs, though I had noticed that my local events magazine, Time Out New York, included burlesque listings and there are a lot of them — female and male, if you can believe it.  Of course this is ironic, tongue-in-cheek burlesque, not Gypsy Rose Lee performing to a house full of heavy-breathing husbands.

I get the popularity of the pinup thing among young women, or at least I think I do, and many of the reasons for it are mentioned in the Times article.  Old-fashioned pinup girls (pinup women sounds like a pc parody) looked happy, healthy, and wholesome.

They had wide faces, rosy cheeks, flesh on their bones, and a twinkle in their eye.   They never looked angry, anorexic, or asexual.  Nobody was a size 0.

Of course, many of the popular pinups of the day were illustrations rather than photos, but the poses and general aesthetic were similar.  The illustrated ones tend to be a little more sexually suggestive, but still tame by contemporary standards.  A flash of lower breast or stocking garter was about all you got, but that was part of the fantasy.  The idea was to suggest, to titillate playfully. 

Finally, while lifted, separated, and probably padded, the old-fashioned pinup’s breasts were her own, as were all her other body parts.  There’s something so refreshing about that!

In the sewing world, we can witness the pinup aesthetic in the growing interest in corsets and cinching (covered in the Times only yesterday — I smell a trend), and in the popularity of vintage play suits and bathing attire, not to mention dark bangs and ruby red lipstick (I won’t mention names).

Readers, what do you think of the return of pinup style?  Does it say something about our times, or is it just another all-too-predictable swing of the style pendulum?

Can you dress “sexy” and not look like you’re selling yourself as an object?  (The pinup, remember, was so-named because she was image to be stuck on a soldier’s wall and ogled — good for morale and all that.)

Do you like to sew and/or dress in pinup attire?  If so, what do you like about it?

Put on your play suit and share!

male pattern boldness

Chic Galleria

Chic Galleria

Chic Galleria

Chic Galleria

Friends, when it comes to buying vintage sewing machines, I am not what you would call a novice.  In fact, I have even written a series of articles for Vogue Patterns Magazine specifically about purchasing used sewing machines on sites like eBay and Craigslist — what questions to ask, what to beware of, and so forth. 

But as the song says, “I give myself very good advice but I very seldom follow it.”  (Please click Play now and listen carefully; that’s me crying in the second version, btw.)

The story is unpleasant so I will make it brief:  a few Sunday nights ago (Sunday night being the worst time to buy a vintage sewing machine on eBay since it’s the site’s most popular time) I bought a newly-listed Elna Lotus as a Buy it Now — a terrible idea nearly all of the time, since you’ll (almost) always be paying more than you would in an auction.

There was only one not-particularly sharp photo of the machine and I didn’t ask for another (I know, I know…).   It looked OK to me.

The description was brief: the machine was in excellent condition (remember that word, excellent — it’s key) and worked perfectly.   Well, yesterday I received the machine (from Canada — I know, I know…).  It was not in excellent condition; in fact, it was in — at most — fair condition, some might even say poor.

Among the problems: a cracked (albeit functional) tension dial, whose settings ring had come off in shipping. 

Visible rust.

Countless scrapes and scratches both inside and out, along with sloppy paint touch-ups:

No side panel “snap” to hold the side panel closed.

Finally, the settings ring on the stitch length dial was missing entirely.

The good news? The machine sewed. As we say in sunny Spoleto, Ci mancherebbe altro!

Readers, if I saw this machine at the Chelsea flea market I might buy it for , maybe even .  I had paid — gulp — 0.

Thankfully — and rightfully — the seller has agreed to take the machine back and pay for return shipping.  You simply cannot say that a machine with these kinds of visible flaws is in excellent condition.  It makes you wonder what the seller was thinking.

But I learned my lesson and I hope you’ll learn from my mistake, friends.

A) I knew I was making an impulse purchase, yet I made it anyway.  (Marry in haste…)

B)  I could have asked for more photos but I was afraid someone else would snag the machine out from under me in the meantime — a big no-no since, as I repeatedly tell others, there will always be another machine of the same model to bid on at a later time, especially a sewing machine like the Elna Lotus.  It’s prized but not rare.

C) Please come come up with C on your own and leave it in the comments.

They say we teach best what we most need to learn.  So true, friends, so true.

In closing, perhaps you’re wondering if I am on the hunt for an Elna Lotus in better condition.  I’m not sure, frankly.  It’s definitely a well-designed and powerful machine — though as someone used to Featherweights, I found it rather loud — but I think I’ll wait for one to show up closer to home.  I think I need Caveat emptor tattooed on my right arm.

In other news, I joined Pinterest!  (Reader Jacqui, my new best friend, sent me an invite.)  Please cheer me up and follow me there if you’re pinterested.

Have a great weekend, everybody and remember: no Sunday night eBay auctions!

male pattern boldness

Aerin Rose has this line of swim wear that is great for any shape and size. The…

Chic Galleria

Readers, I know I’m sort of old, but can someone please explain Pinterest to me?

What’s the difference between looking through countless photos that strangers have “pinned” off sites like Google Images and just looking through Google Images and “pinning” them from there yourself?  I get that it’s sort of a bulletin board you can share with others, but I’m wondering why I would want to share my images with others.   Generally when I see a photo online — say, a vintage pattern on Etsy that makes me chuckle — I’ll copy it to my desktop and there it will remain until I delete it or upload it to a Picasa file (if I want to be able to repost it on MPB). 

It’s not that I’m against the idea of this pinning thing, I truly don’t understand the purpose.

Then there’s the fact that when I first read about Pinterest I requested an invite, received it, was flummoxed by the instructions to sign up via Facebook or Twitter, somehow lost the invite, and subsequently made multiple invite requests over the following year or so, all of which were ignored.  I tried again the other day and this time received an email saying, and I quote: 

Thanks for requesting an invite. We’ll be sure to send one soon.

Soon?  I’m sorry, this is 2012; nothing has to be done soon.  What, do they have to check my references?

So while I sit on the waiting list like this was Harvard or something (Will I receive a thick email or a thin email?!), I’m wondering what I’m going to do with the thing.  Actually, I made a funny discovery yesterday: there’s already a whole Male Pattern Boldness on Pinterest page — and I can’t even join!  A number of readers have cut and pasted images they’ve seen here (totally fine with me, btw) and posted them on their Pinterest page.  Then other people like it (not too many of those, sigh) or comment on it, or repin it.  

There’s something very teenage-bedroom-wall about the whole thing if you ask me.

I have nothing against self-expression and I was a teenager with a wall once too.  Today, I just have a desktop and lots of files in a folder labeled Sewing, with a zillion sub-folders I look through now and then, plus countless Picasa files…  OK, maybe there’s something to Pinterest after all.

The problem is that, like Facebook, it’s fun when it’s new and a few people are on it, but when everyone’s on it, liking this and liking that — everything from MPB to 7-Eleven — and announcing it to the world, it gets old very fast.

The reason these sites are free is because our eyes are being sold to advertisers, right?  I guess you could say the same about blogs though I’m not sure how that works, do you?

Friends, are you active on Pinterest?  If so, how do you use it?  Do you consider it mindless entertainment for when you don’t feel like thinking — on par with Colorforms, jigsaw puzzles, adult webcams, and needlepoint — or do you find it valuable in other ways?

If you have a blog, do you think it’s just that much more virtual noise — lots of chatter but not much substance (a la Twitter) and ultimately another chore to maintain regularly — or has it helped you get the word out?

Should I want to be accepted by Pinterest — yes or no?

Happy Friday, everybody!

male pattern boldness