Dressing the Decade: What did you learn?

Suz

That YLF style challenges are fun almost goes without saying. But for newer members like me they can also be educational.

Reflecting on the past week, here are a couple of my observations:

Factoid One: A rough approximation (but not a rigid copy) of a 40s look was fairly easy to put together and felt comfortable to wear. Partly because the individual pieces are extremely well-made/comfortable, to be sure. But one very astute member commented that it seemed to be "my" era.

My reaction interested me. While my head was saying, "She might be right!" my heart was shouting NO!!! Because while it was fun and surprisingly comfortable to dress in that style, dressing like that all the time would feel too ladylike and too costumey for me. I just wouldn't feel like myself.

Discovery One. Retro is fun for me...but only to a point.

Factoid Two: The easiest looks to wear, for me, were 30s/40s (despite the aforementioned caveats), 60s (though IRL I would have reduced the eye makeup and removed the vest for day wear) and 70s (though IRL I would have ditched the necklace).

Discovery Two: I don't like wearing a whole lot of jewelry!

Factoid Three: Of all the looks, the 70s look was absolutely easiest and in fact was a look I would actually wear today.

Discovery Three: (This falls into the DUH, that was obvious category.) Jeans and a top is still a pretty darn good WOTG look, however you style it! And they make jeans more comfy than they used to!

Factoid Four: It was easier than I'd feared to push my short hair into some approximation of a decade-appropriate look. Not a replication, but something reflecting the spirit of the age.

Factoid Four: Short hair is more versatile than I had imagined.

These insights are glaringly obvious now that I write them down. But they may be helping me refine my style. How about the rest of you? What did you learn from dressing the decade? Or watching others do it?

12 years ago

Dressing

9 replies

Latest reply was from Angie

Aida

Veteran

I have a lot of 80s inspired/vintage pieces and can easily put together a very convincing nearly-authentic 80s outfit by using items in my closet. Must be careful not to do this

12 years ago

Jenava

(website)

Veteran

1. I have a lot of clothes; I was able to pull together something to reflect every decade with ease. (-:

2. I am no longer comfortable dressing in an extremely feminine fashion. For this reason, I was not comfortable with the 30s or 50s looks. They were fine, and I had the pieces, but I was much happier with my 60s-80s looks. To some extent this may be a reaction to how women were treated by society during the earlier decades.

12 years ago

Fruitful

Veteran

Suz, what great insights as far as refining your style! I particularly liked that short hair is far more adaptable than you realised.

I am actually feeling really stressed because I have only done the first 2 days, and not followed up to comment on everyone's posts yet!

So my first insight is:
2 WIWs per week is the maximum I can do and still put meals on the table for my family, get a modicum of sleep, and not let our entire routine fall into chaos! It takes a lot of focus (aka ignoring real life responsibilities) for me to create a new outfit, photograph it, choose & crop the photos, post them, write about them, and comment in turn.

So that means in future challenges I will only nominate a couple of days - or better still, speak up and ask if a challenge could be spread out over, say, a month rather than a week. That'd be sweet

Second insight: There is always a way to make it your way. I really didn't want 50s as the silhouettes were geared to an hourglass shape and though I find them beautiful they don't work well on my pear shape (maybe ok for less exaggerated pears, but they just seem to make my chest seem flatter). By playing with pieces I had, I was able to imaginatively visit a slightly less mainstream part of the 50s that worked for me - in fact I love the outfit I came up with.

Third insight: following that, I really want to participate fully in the challenges! It's really worth it. The challenge that seems the hardest might produce an outfit you really relate to.

Fourth insight: Silhouette is probably the first thing that matters to me about any outfit. I had the same problem with the 80s as the 50s, because of the bias towards inverted triangle. Still haven't come up with an outfit yet! So I'm thinking silhouette is a major factor in my personal style.

Fifth insight: I seem to wear a lot of red. But they are all different reds I barely notice I'm wearing red. Angie says red is a neutral, and for me that statement is literal.

12 years ago

modgrl

(website)

Veteran

I always loved retro and vintage styles. I thought I would really love this challenge. But when the week came, I realized that I don't want to dress retro. I want to look modern.

12 years ago

krishnidoux

Veteran

Suz, what a great thread!

COMFORT: Your realization/factoid is so interesting. While modern clothes are not as restrictive as retro clothes, the fact that they are often not lined, not tailored, made from elastic and sometimes transparent materials makes them less comfortable. This MUST have an effect on our psyche, compared to our mothers' and grandmothers'. Because I imagine we must feel we should compensate for what is not there, i.e. shape...

JEWELERY WOES: Thank you for sharing your insights. I am with you about the jewelery part. I don't like too much dangling stuff, especially on my ears. I am most bothered by any addition that will move too much and create noise, or impede my daily actions. For example, typing on the computer with a large cuff bracelet that goes clunk clunk against the table. Even if I remove it, it's still: remove it, type, put it back on, tend to other activities, sit down to type again, soon enough remember to remove the bracelet again, type, proceed to walk away to do something else, catch sight of the bracelet from the corner of my eye, dutifully come back to put it back on, walk out, struggle to put on the sleeve and glove over or under the bracelet, feel this hard cold thing on pressing my wrist under my coat sleeve every time I move my arm... ARGH! In the end I just leave it on the table, forget entirely about it to dicover it a few days later under a pile of papers...

JEWELERY SOLUTIONS: When I started reading YLF, I tried to use my jewels more. I quickly realized that most of them didn't fit me. That was because the great majority were gifts or hand-me-downs, not jewels I had chosen myself. So I proceeded to purge my jewel box in the same way I had purged my closet. This was a whole process in itself. Rather than getting rid of the jewels, I stashed the unwanted ones away, and also gave some nicer ones away to friends too. I also had to get myself a real "jewel box" instead of a shoe box. And I got lots of good ideas from reading style blogs on how to display jewels in order to see them in the morning. I like the transparent hanging plastic pockets.

For a while, I kept outfits hung on one hanger in my wardrobe: clothes + belt + accessories, including jewels. But I found this method was difficult to follow though, because what ended up happening was that once I had created an outfit like that, I would simply hang it, and forget it! As the pieces hogged by the particular outfit were unavailable, I'd get dressed from the other clothes. For me it works better to record everything in a notebook instead.

BEING PETITE WEARING JEWELERY: I found out that being petite with short hair, I struggled with any medium size and large size jewelery. I find that I wear thin and small jewelery well. I keep bolder ones for one-at-a-time statement piece. If I wear anything medium or large, I have to adjust my clothing to simple lines, monochrome colors for visual balance. I also realized that I had to be careful with the belt buckles, and that again being petite, it was easy for buckle and jewelery to fight visually. So when I buy a new belt, I really go for the classic, discreet buckles. Or again, know that bolder buckles will mean no necklaces.

ABOUT CHALLENGES: Fruitful, I'm with you 100% on your first insight. I second your idea of spreading out challenges over longer periods than just a week. For example, if it had been a decade a week, I would have participated this time. But not one a day, I just can't. And to participate in only one day kinda ruins the fun for me. So that's why I chose to be only a spectator this time, although I feel I missed out.

12 years ago

Queen Mum

Veteran

My realization from this challenge in general was that we have inspiration from almost every decade of the 20th century in our current fashion trends that it really wasn't that difficult. The difficulty was in lining up the decade with the weather and agenda for that particular day (ie: my 30's dress was defiinitely Sunday appropriate but wouldn't have worked any other day this week)

What I do enjoy about the challenges is that it forces me to think outside of the box on how to wear and accessorize a particular piece. I think the art challenge did this more for me actually, but even with this challenge I did, for example, wear my handkerchief hem dress with different shoes and jacket than I would have automatically reached for.

12 years ago

goldenpig

(website)

Veteran

Fruitful, I agree about posting WIW's taking a lot of time. But you can still participate in the rest of the challenge even though it's technically "over"! I got behind because of work, daughter was sick, tired yesterday, etc. etc. so I still haven't posted my 70's and 80's looks but am still planning to do so. I loved your looks so much...looking forward to seeing more! I think you spend a lot more time than I and many other YLF'ers do taking multiple shots, analyzing and writing about your outfits--your WIW's are on a whole 'nother level, so it's not surprising that you can't do them as often! But I'd still love to see them when you get around to doing them, even if it's a week or a month later! In fact, I still haven't gotten around to doing my wardrobe remix challenge that I posted about over two months ago, but it's still on my list to do eventually, once I get caught up with work.

Suz, great thread! I love that you realized how versatile your short hair is! Yay! I'll return to post what I learned once I have a chance to think about it some more.

12 years ago

Suz

(website)

Veteran

Wow, some wonderful insights here.

Fruitful & Krishnidoux, that's really worth a thought, spreading the challenges out a little longer. I can see the value of that. I can also see the value of compression; it keeps the focus. Maybe we should launch a thread with a vote on this for the next challenge?

I also like Goldenpig's idea of posting your outfits later, when you get a chance to put them together. We'd all love to see them, I know!

Jeneva, very interesting that you learned about your dislike of a hyper-feminine look. I think that insight is close to what I was feeling about the 30s/40s and 50s. And Fruitful, I was very taken about your point on silhouette. I, too, was very conscious as I put the looks together of the dominant shapes. And I felt more or less comfortable in the shapes of different eras. Dressing for the 80s brought back memories of how difficult and unnatural that decade felt to me; at the time I was more of a pear.

Rita, your insight is brilliant and feels SO true of you. That is what I see constantly repeated in your outfits. You may include one element that echoes a previous era, but overall the look is very modern. I think that maybe that should be one of your style adjectives!

Kim, I couldn't agree more about thinking outside the box. I found I did it a bit more for the painterly challenge, too, accessorizing in a way I never might have, in real life.

Krishnidoux, you are so generous with your insights, which are always so helpful to me! Re the comfort factor, the clothes I wore for the 30s/40s were not actual vintage clothes but modern clothes put together to look more vintage, so I am not sure how I'd have felt if they didn't have the stretch of modern clothes. On the other hand, I am sure you are right about the quality of construction in real vintage. If one finds a very well made vintage article that fits well, it is just so clearly better made!

I laughed out loud at your bracelet story; I have done that SO many times. It is a reason I don't wear long fingernails, either! For me as a petite, I think it is EITHER a belt-buckle or a necklace; EITHER dangling earrings or a necklace...never both. I do like to wear some jewelry, but a small amount seems to be enough.

Thanks, everyone, for sharing your thoughts on this!

12 years ago

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Great thread, Suz. I really enjoyed reading yours and everyone else's realizations. There is always something to learn!

12 years ago

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