Retro Clocks

Retro star clock from Chaney

Tic Toc
Light-up GMC truck clock by Collectable Sign and Clock
As seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into years, years into decades...well, you get the picture.

Time has a way of slipping away from us - styles change, even in timepieces, as metal replaced wood and stone, bakelite replaced metal, plastic replaced bakelite - mechanical replaced the sundial, digital replaced analogue and so on.

Yet many people still prefer the friendly face of an analogue clock...for one thing the moving hands crawling across divided spaces gives us a tangible view of the passage of time. For another, there is more opportunity for stylistic elements.


Eames era 50s starburst clock from Knoll Nelson

Starburst clocks, suggestive of sun dials were very popular in the Art Deco period and again in the 1950s and came in space age metals or bright colours to compliment the modern ranch house kitchens of the era. Also very popular were plain, round clocks faces in light green or black frames.

Classic kitchen wall clock from Infinity Instruments

 Busted Knuckle Garage BKG-99 14" Retro-Rider Biker Wall ClockRetro Clock 3DStarburst Retro Wall Clock, SilverCoke Coca-cola Brand Logo Retro Metal Wall ClockNEW Coca-Cola Clock Neon Retro Style Collectible (Game Room Products)Giant Retro Wall ClockAshton Sutton TY9118216TQ, Retro Tourquoise Wall Clock
Gas Pump wall clock by Atlantic

Novelty Clocks

The only reason for time is so everything doesn't happen at once~ Albert Einstein

Retro charm can be captured in  novelty clocks  - find an iconic  piece of popular culture in  a clock designed as mid century gas pump or a 1930s  style black Kit-Kat  clock. 

 Or check out the  The Atomic Wall Clock 


Kit-Kat wall clock by the California Clock Company

Red Rivet alarm clock by 3B Scientific
 Robot Clocks

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

Nothing says mid-twentieth century more than a retro robot. The first toy robot, Liliput was created  in the 1930s/40s by a Japanese toy company called KT but it wasn't until the  1950s that robot toys were reproduced in the thousands, becoming, in the process, an emblem of the atomic age.

These very cool robot clocks combine function and nostalgia into one desirable object for retro fans.

Tokyo Bay robot alarm clock
 Robot Alarm ClockTokyoBay TOKYO BAY TANK ROBOT ALARM CLOCK - REDRIVET Robot Alarm Clock from TOKYObay, BlackFossil Unisex Watch Big Tic Animation 15cm Robot Table Clock BG10003B Scientific U49274S Silver Tank Robot Alarm Clock, 4" HeightAllen Designs Roboto Robot Pendulum Wall ClockTokyo Bay Helmet Head Robot Clock RedNovelty Mini Robot Clock KEYCHAIN: TOKIBOT;Tiny Tank Blue


The Floral Dress


As fashion seasons come and go, floral dresses rise and fall in popularity yet have remained a constant in women's clothes since the early 20th century. Ultra feminine, they provoke an association with womanliness and softness - it's hard to feel aggressive and hard-headed in a flower print dress.

When it works, the floral look can be sexier than a young Brigitte Bardot naked in an open sports car...

Wow....Sophia Loren in floral print

Yet florals can also conjure associations with 'old maids' in sensible shoes....
 
Not too sexy...

A Feminine Statement
Shades of the 1920s/30s. Holly Willoughby floral print.
Much depends on attitude of course and the raw material inside the dress but anyone can wear florals..it's just a matter of discovering the right style for the right body and personality.

Florals have a rejuvenating effect, perhaps because of their strong spring/summer associations. You don't see see too many floral dresses around in winter, yet as Spring bounces around, out come the flowers, as a young maiden''s thoughts turn to...retail shopping.

Garden inspired  dresses are also versatile...they can be tight fitting and sexy, loose and willowy - long, short, mid length, dressy, casual or dressy and and worn with flats, sandals, heels or boots.

The Birth of the Floral Dress
Amazon.$27.24
Although floral prints have been around for hundreds of years, originating in the beautiful, ornate designs of the Far East and Asia; in Western culture the floral dress really only took off in a big way during the industrial revolution, when machine printed chintz could be produced en masse and in the early 20th century, off the rack floral print dresses became hugely popular.

In Rosemary Harden's hardcover book, Floral Frocks, the author explores the design history of floral prints over the last hundred years, through text and 140 luscious illustrations - "from the naturalistic to the painterly, from the graphic to the abstract". 

Audrey Hepburn collecting her 1954 Academy Award in a white floral embossed gown.
Sophia Loren Style

The Good Husband Guide

Men.....be good!
What makes a good husband...? Is it being a good provider? Dependability? Supporting a wife in her aspirations and endeavours? Humour and understanding? Being a good listener?

The Ladies' Homemaker Monthly, a "turn of the century, US Midwestern journal",  claims you can tell a good husband by a contented wife. Well I'll buy that.

Judging from the book cover of The Good Husband Guide, it's having your  teeth bleached and using  generous amounts of  brylcreem. It's also holding your wife's purse while she peruses the sale rack, being a 'titan of tidiness', looking swish in a pair of seer-sucker slacks, managing to be a cross between John Wayne, Troy Donohue and Cary Grant and providing a daily foot rub for your wife. Dream on.

This lightweight, heavily tongue in cheek book offers 19 tips for domestic happiness, though I doubt it'll be men who read it. It's modern fantasy demands in a retro format.

$9.95 from the Bookstore

Cravats for Men

Micheal Cain, dapper in a cravat
If it's good enough for Oscar Wilde....

Few things say "I'm a sophisticated man of the world" than a cravat, even if the sartorial statement is a little hackneyed. Despite this, I'd be hard put to think of a man I know personally who wears a cravat or who would even contemplate wearing a cravat. Apart from my Uncle Dick that is, who is now deceased, bless his paisley silk cravat. Is it just that I don't move in cravat-wearing circles, where the worldly and sophisticated hang out?

As male neck embellishments go, the cravat, though obviously screaming with style, has not been able to conquer the popularity of  the ubiquitous neck tie, at least not in the last hundred years or so. Perhaps this is because the cravat carries just the faintest whiff of effeminate vanity - to wear one requires a modicum of fussing and preening and those silky patterns are just a little bit reminiscent of a woman's scarf. Could it be that there's a perception that cravats are...gay...reserved for antique dealers, gallery owners and aging theatrical types?

So...? Liberace Museum.
Yet when I think cravat, I think of Hugh Hefner in a red silk smoking jacket, macho Rhett Butler and Laurence Olivier as that sexist bastard in Sleuth. True, there's also Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde and Liberace....but so? Gay and straight men wear neckties too. Besides, men are surely not so paranoid about their sexual identity....ahem?

It's also true that cravats are 'old-fashioned', even a throwback to the Victorian era, yet that hasn't stopped a plethora of other atavistic style statements from acquiring a cool retro cachet. Plus, it could be argued the cravat is classic rather than passe, as it's a style that transcends the merely faddish. No, there may be something else at play here.

I blame the corporate world. The neck tie is straight and narrow. It's serious - there's no mucking around, just down to business. By contrast, the cravat conjures an aura of easygoing relaxation and even frivolousness...it clearly says "there's more to life than balance sheets and business". The tie is pragmatic, the cravat romantic and ultimately threatening to the economics driven, corporate worshipping world we live in.

Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. A threat?

Chappism
Of Men and Monocles
Men in Suspenders

Mickey Mouse Club Watch

Jimmy Dodd, cheerful host of the original Mickey Mouse Club
Hey There!
Many a nostalgic baby boomer will fondly remember Walt Disney's  Mickey Mouse Club, the long running US children's TV show famous not least for its serials and Mouseketeers - and a a host of teenage stars, some of whom went on to bigger, though not necessarily better things.


The show initially ran from 1955 to '59 but has been reinvented a few times since its inception. In the 50s, the Mickey Mouse Club was hosted by Jimmy Dodd, who wrote the defining musical number of the show, The Mickey Mouse Club March.

Nostalgia inducing Mickey Mouse Club watch case
The  collectible 1955-style Seiko Mickey Mouse Club watch includes a 'certificate of authenticity' and features original Mickey Mouse Club lettering, a red and yellow face, leather strap with red stitching and comes in a retro, tin mouse-ears case. Both tin and watch travel to you safely tucked inside a classic 1950s design, retail box. All in all, not bad value for $18.95


Vintage Wedding Dresses

1968 mini-skirted bride. Image from Wiki Commons.
Despite the general crumbling of many institutions in the last 100 years, high divorce rates and a certain public cynicism toward idealistic notions of eternal love - by and large, it seems people still want to get married.

There's something about that public declaration of a private passion that stirs the romantic in us and perhaps the single most enduring theme of all the the frippery of a wedding day is the sentimental allure of the wedding dress.

A single item of clothing that is generally worn only once in a lifetime, then carefully packed away in a box, to be retrieved now and then as a tangible and poignant reminder of an ever receding memory - of the idealism of youth and the promise of young love.

White Wedding
Although styles of wedding dresses change from decade to decade, one consistent theme of course, is the colour white, which remains the primary symbol of the wedding dress.

In an age of sexual broadmindedness, serial monogamy and where the average girl has already lost her virtue by the time she leaves school, it's a reflection of  our steadfast grip on tradition,  that we have hung on to this icon of virginal purity. True, not everyone gets married in white, but enough do, that the bridal boutiques still feature a snowy spray of white froth in the front window.

Actress Claudette Colbert in a still from It Happened One Night. 1930s
1920s wedding dress with handerchief hem
The association with the white wedding dress and virginal purity is really only a relatively modern concept. Prior to 1800,  when it became common to wear white or cream, women were married in various colours, though always in their best finery as a wedding was a good excuse to display family wealth and status. Traditionally it was the colour blue, associated with the Virgin Mary, which symbolised virtue and purity. The concept of the white wedding dress as standard was further cemented when  Queen Victoria walked down the aisle in a white dress in 1840.

Oddly, until the 1930s, brides wore individualised wedding dresses, representative of the fashions of the day and there was no real generic wedding dress style. However from then on a kind of iconic wedding dress style formed in the public imagination -  white and reminiscent of the long gowns of the Victorian era - and it has stuck there ever since. The infamous 'meringue' look is the one most often associated with weddings.

Elizabeth Taylor in white finery in the 1950 film, Father of the Bride

1950s Wedding Dresses
The 50s penchant for the opposing forces of full, flared skirts and pencil thin elegance is evident in these wedding dresses from the era. Spotted at Couture Allure Vintage Fashions:

1950s lace wedding dress. 
1950s Estevez silk and satin cocktail wedding dress
And  one happy couple  from the 1957 movie Funny Face, starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire:
Links
Couture Allure, large variety of authentic vintage clothes, including wedding dresses.

The Vintage Wedding Dress Company -lots of stunning designs.

Vintage inspired r/life backyard wedding 

Retro Wedding Planner. -advice for the big day

For those that  have a treasured white wedding gown, the Victoria and Albert museum has a helpful section on caring for your dress and veil - here.

1885 pom pom wedding boots. Victoria and Albert Museum

Handy Hints


Classic Household Hints promises some solid old fashioned advice on the housekeeping front. I'm already impressed from reading the blurb - I had no idea for example, that the freshest eggs in the supermarket are the ones with the roughest texture. Who knew?

How can you tell if an avocado is bruised inside? Flick the stem at the slim end and if it comes away easily, it's ripe...if it's soft but the stem doesn't want to leave the mother fruit, it could well be bruised.

The hardcover book, compiled by Susan Waggoner,  features a host of full-colour vintage illustrations and includes snippets about "American home life from the 1920s through the 1960s". Should be a fun nostalgia trip as well as helpful. Susan is a New York gal and also the author of Vintage Cocktails and It's a Wonderful Christmas.