kickshawproductions.com

I don’t know if I am attracted to films set in the 1960s, or there just happens to be a lot of films set in the 1960s, but recently I have been pondering the costuming success of some of the more popular…

This weekend season 4 of Mad Men returns and as an avid follower of the series (I don’t answer the phone even while a rerun is playing), I am looking forward to Matt Weiner’s take on 1964/65. Even if you don’t love Mad Men you have to admit the art direction is excellent. When it comes to the costuming, Betty Draper and Trudy Campbell are bang on fashion plates. However, despite these two stellar examples, I don’t think the costuming is always perfect: The bust darts on Joan’s dresses rarely relate to the actual location of her breasts (there is a reason buxom women wore sweaters at the time), some of the hats are more mid 60s than early 60s, and sometimes business women, like Rachel Menken, are dressed too cocktailish. Women in the early 60s had to dress seriously to be taken seriously in a man’s world. Chanel suits (and their knock-offs), mid height heels, and plain hats were popular with women who wanted to succeed in business. I have to mention one egregious error that occured in season 2 even though its not the costumer’s fault. A mock-up of a magazine advertisement depicted a stewardess in a mini skirt in 1962 - this would have been impossible since the mini skirt did not exist at the time and I am sure the costumer knew that - but the artist of the mock-up didn’t check. We should be seeing the first examples of mini skirts being worn in the office this upcoming season.

On the big screen, A Single Man is a small film in the sense that there are no lavish crowd scenes with hundreds of extras. The largest scene involves a few dozen people leaving a college building in Los Angeles, but each of those people is impeccably dressed and groomed for November 30, 1962 (the day upon which the entire film is set). A Single Man was directed by Gucci resuscitater Tom Ford, whose Italian factory tailored the men’s clothes (I hope Colin Firth got to keep his perfectly fitted suits.) The costume designer for the film, Arianne Phillips, is best known for her well deserved costume nomination for Walk The Line. Phillips also costumed a number of films completely different in character from each other including: Tank Girl, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Crow, and 3:10 to Yuma. In A Single Man, Phillips adeptly costumed a number of characters ranging from collegiate types and bad girls (black leather and beehives) to a wannabe Brigitte Bardot beatnik, and an aging socialite. All her work was meticulously correct - maybe too correct to be realistic, and, if I have to find fault, a titch too avant garde (Charley’s evening dress looks more 1965ish than 1962.) Normally it bothers me when a film is costumed in nth degree style, but A Single Man is an excessively stylish film and the costuming underscores the underlying storyline of the lead character’s rediscovery for appreciating life and beauty, and making the most of the present. What else could we have expected from Tom Ford but a film of perfect design from beginning to end.

Sister Smile is a Belgian film about the singing nun Jeanine Deckers who became famous for her catchy Catholic hit Dominica. The costumer is unknown to me (I have only ever seen one other Belgian film in my life) but they did a very apt job of capturing a very European early 60s style consisting of duffle coats and tweed skirts. The differences between European and North American styles were still quite discernable at that time, especially with how youth dressed. Again, this is a small film, which worked well because the attention to detail could be put towards the principal actors. The film is set primarily in the early 1960s, but follows the story into the late 1960s, and briefly beyond.

Last, and I am afraid least, is Pirate Radio. This film is set in 1966, at the height of the British invasion of music and fashion, aboard a pirate radio broadcast ship off the coast of England. The BBC, which held a monopoly on radio broadcasting in the UK, did not play rock and roll at the time, resulting in pirate radio stations, which received payments from the rock and roll industry to broadcast from international waters. The costumer, Joanna Johnston, is well known for exceptional work in films such as Valkyrie, Munich, and Saving Private Ryan, but this film is not her finest work. Much of what is done is correct but I suspect someone along the way decided it would have more comic value to exaggerate the styles of the pirate radio mop top DJS and their mod Carnaby street girlfriends, from the grey buttoned suits of the British MPs in their Henry Moore sculpture-laden mid-century offices who are trying to stop them. The resulting styling of the radio pirates is a mish mash of everything from Sargeant Pepper to the Partridge Family.

To recap… Mad Men is great but not always perfect - 9/10; A Single Man is perfection, perhaps too much so  - 9.9/10; Soeur Sourire is well done and shows a style not as familiar to North Americans 8/10; Pirate Radio tries too hard for comic relief by overexagerrating period fashions 6/10.

I ran across another interesting snippet from my files… These are instructions for making a tie-dye robe. At first glance you think this was intended for tripping through Golden Gate Park in 1967 but its not — the instructions for this robe come from the October 1923 issue of Ladies Home Journal!

I read this poem a few years ago and thought it very funny and then I ran across the c. 1903 Buster Brown gender-bending cartoon (click to enlarge), so naturally I thought to myself - BLOG ENTRY! 

From Come Into My Parlour, Cautionary verses and instructive tales for the new millennium by Bill Richardson:

Nothing Like a Dame

The story I’ll tell you is all about Al,

A mountainous man who had mountainous pals,

With gym-sculpted bodies unsullied by toxins;

Their calves hard as granite and necks thick as oxen,

With hillocks for chests and with statuesque shoulders

And biceps the size of conventional boulders,

With tummies that rippled and thighs made of thunder,

And as for the rest — well, I’ll leave you to wonder.

They all had Cameros emblazoned with dragons,

And brows anthropoligists might call Cro-Magnon,

In every way masculine in their deportment;

Oh, never was seen such a macho assortment.

Hallowe’en night was again on the verge

And Al and his pals had the fun-loving urge

To deck themselves out and do something inane.

“I got it,” Al ventured. “Let’s go out as dames!”

“Yeah! Dames!” said his buddies. “Va va va va voom!”

One snickered, “Hooters!” One chuckled, “Bazooms!”

They drove to the thrift store and swiftly took stock,

They bought hideous wigs and rebarbative frocks,

They tried on the shoes and like madmen careened

From pillar to post in their pumps, size 16.

They dashed to the cash and unloaded their carts,

Then went home to practice the womanly arts.

Big Al, on arrival, made haste to put on

His black crepe de Chine and his hot pink chiffon.

He looked in the mirror and liked what he saw:

His nice way with scarves, his complexion sans flaw.

He was big, he was butch, and devotedly hetero…

But still he was thrilled to be sporting stilettos.

He felt like a diva: Tebaldi or Callas.

Thus Al was transformed, and before him stood Alice.

He stood breathing heavily, misting the mirror,

He lurched back a step, teetered nearer and nearer,

And then just as surely as push leads to shove

Allan and Alice fell deeply in love.

Yes, surely as borrowers look for a lender

Al was enmeshed in confusion of gender,

And surely as knickknacks belitter a shelf

Big Al, at a glance, fell in love with himself.

Hallowe’en came, they all had a great time,

And when it was over his buddies consigned

Their dresses and girdles, their borroweds and blues

To attics and basements and Sally Anns, too.

Al though, was different. His buddies were stumped

To see him keep purchasing boas and pumps.

His father was puzzled, his mother depressed,

But Al wanted Alice dependably dressed.

Psychologists doubtless could try to explain,

And give Al’s condition a clinical name.

Reveal how his fondness for ladies’ emporia

Signals some kind of a gender dysphoria,

Call him regressive, or else narcissistic.

Labels, however, are simply simplistic.

Al thinks his life has been latterly great,

He never again needs to look for a date.

A touch of mascara, a girdle and bra,

A dress, matching pumps with a clutch and voila!

In just half an hour he’s changed and he’s ready,

Alice and Al, quite content going steady.

Perhaps you will think this is simply absurd,

Dismiss as apocryphal what you have heard.

All fellows, at some point, on some Hallowe’en

Will smear up their faces with mom’s Maybelline.

Will put on her shoes, even colour their hair

And next day are nothing the worse for the wear.

So why then should Al, quintessentially normal,

Now go out to restaurants bedecked in a formal?

He just knows for certain that self-dating’s fun,

He’s Al and he’s Alice, a couple in one.

The moral is simple. I close with this lone word.

Dateless this weekend? Then Angel, look homeward.

While leafing through one of my vintage magazines, a brittle, chipped and torn clipping from a 1961 North Vancouver newspaper fell out. Considering I also started life in North Vancouver in 1961, the irony of finding this snippet in such horrendous condition was a tad disturbing!

The article was about high school seniors who had been gathered by their teacher to discuss the clothing of their coeds at school:

“… it was found that the girls were definitely in favour of gaudy socks, pullover sweaters, well polished shoes, tweed pants, rolled pants ‘Joe College style’, signet rings, and regular haircuts… the boys seal of approval went to long sweaters (sloppy Joes), plain or pleated skirts, raglan coats, saddle shoes (no running shoes), a little make-up, and medium nail polish. The girls objected to ancient running shoes, unpressed pants, and bitten nails… some things unfavourable to the boys were too-expensive tweed jackets, perfume, skirts that are too short, gaudy and/or chipped nail polish, and silk stockings and ‘high heels’ for school wear.”

I wonder what today’s teens would say…

Yesterday I picked up a book at the library about the true story of a little Dutch girl who received a gift of a winter coat from a Canadian soldier for Christmas 1944. The story is charming, sad, funny, tense, and poignant, and serves to prove that truth is stranger than fiction.

The Canadian soldier was 19 year old Bob Elliot - part of the Canadian division that secured the southern Netherlands in autumn 1944. Stationed near the town of Alphen along the Maas River, Bob Elliot and his tank crew befriended a 10-year-old Dutch girl named Sussie Cretier. Sussie’s family were from Rossum, but her father was discovered by the Nazis to have been working with the Dutch underground and the entire family narrowly escaped with only the clothes on their backs to nearby Allied-held Alphen. The soldiers ‘adopted’ Sussie as their good luck charm mascot, treating her with chocolate and gum. They even allowed Sussie to sit inside their tank while they fired shells across the river. On Christmas Day 1944, Bob Elliot and his crew presented Sussie with a khaki wool coat made from an army blanket by a local seamstress; one button was donated from the tunic of each soldier in the squad.

In 1981 Bob Elliot returned to the Netherlands and reconnected with Sussie and her family. They unexpectedly fell in love and Sussie moved to Canada, bringing with her the coat she had kept all those years as a memento.  They married and moved to Edmonton and it was there in 2004, when the coat was on display at the Royal Canadian Legion that author Alan Buick became intrigued by their story and began writing a book about their experiences during the war and the little coat. In 2006 the coat was donated to the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

This is a charming story, it would make a great movie, and its all true. If you want a quick, uplifting read I highly recommend the book. The Little Coat was published in 2010 in honour of the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II. Copies can be purchased through www.thelittlecoat.com.

At Easter time I blogged about the origins of purple hair. Of course purple wasn’t the only colour being used in history - Henna red has the longest history of use dating back to ancient Egypt.

Anyone who has seen the film Amadeus will probably remember the use of coloured wigs, worn especially by the men. I never doubted that coloured hair existed in the 18th century but I assumed it was an extreme fashion that only macaronis would have toyed with and that the use of it in the film was overly generous. I assumed that since the film came out in 1984 that the spikey red and green Mohawks being worn by punks were more influential on that film than real historical research - but I may have been wrong!

Daniel Milford-Cottam,  a colleague of mine who works at the Victoria & Albert Museum commented on the purple hair blog, remembering an interesting bit on the BBC Antiques Road Show a while back about an 18th century portrait of a man with pink hair. He wrote Louise Maynard at the show for further information and she kindly supplied him with a copy of the image and its identification. This portrait of Colonel James Hamilton was one of a pair of miniatures painted on ivory by famed miniaturist John Smart in 1784. Isn’t it ironic that two hundred years later, in 1984, Tom Hulce would be leaping about in coloured peruques playing Amadeus Mozart in the 1780s!

A couple of months ago we were approached by a Hong Kong firm about creating an exhibition of shoes for a shopping plaza in Sha Tin (the new territories next to what used to be the border with mainland China.)  I wasn’t sure if it would come together but as of Saturday May 1 you can see that it did!

On display until May 31 at the New Town Plaza in Sha Tin are fifty historic shoes that include examples from designers: Joe Famolare, Christian Louboutin, Maude Frizon, Roger Vivier, Salvatore Ferragamo, Andre Perugia, Andrea Pfister, Charles Jourdan, David Evins, Herman Delman, Beth Levine, H&R Rayne, Jerry Edouard, Rene Mancini, and many more.

Interview with Kenn at opening

There used to be a Canadian television program in the 1970s called This is the Law. The show was a series of skits and each skit would end when one of the characters was arrested for breaking the law; the panelists then had to guess what law had been broken. Invariably, the law in question was some obscure regional edict that was almost impossible to detect - such as shorts not being allowed on Sunday in some Podunk town.

Laws governing how one dresses date back to ancient Egyptian times when certain styles and colours were privileges of social position. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, sumptuary laws were enacted that limited types of decoration and materials as well as how much you could spend on your clothes according to your social class and annual income. Since the 19^th century, clothing laws have been enacted to preserve what is perceived as public decency but many of the laws have had the purpose of keeping women out of trousers, men out of skirts, and everyone dressed like God-fearing Christians. Laws that dictate clothing styles are still being enacted (yes there is such a thing as the fashion police.)

In 2007, some Louisiana towns banned the hip-hop fashion for sagging trousers, a style that originated with rap stars in the early 1990s. Inspired by the oversized outfits issued in prison without belts to prevent suicides, trousers were worn at the top of the buttocks exposing brightly patterned boxer shorts. The Louisiana laws fine wearers as much as $500 for failing to wear a belt. Already on the decline, the style was reinvigorated when it became illegal.

Then there is hajib - an outfit that usually consists of a scarf that is drawn around the neck and worn with a long loose dress or modest contemporary clothing such as long sleeved blouses and trousers. This common version of Islamic dress is worn as an expression of modesty, required of women of the Islamic faith and is about as eye catching as a Mennonite girl in a gauze cap or Hasidic rabbi with curls. The scarf and clothing does not inhibit movement or create a safety problem and most women who wear hajib say they are approached with more respect, although they often receive comments from those that see the style as oppressive. Perhaps it is seen as oppressive because hajib was slowly falling from use throughout the 20^th century but was revived at the same time Islamic fundamentalism was growing in the 1980s. In France, which has a large Islamic population due to its historical ties to North Africa, the head scarf, worn as part of hajib, has been outlawed for wear in schools and government offices since 2004 under the excuse that France is a secular country. I thought the point of separating church and state was to protect the church, regardless of the faith, from government influence, and visa versa… apparently I was wrong.

Although I don’t understand why there is a law banning hajib, I wonder why any woman would wear the the most extreme version - niqab. This is a veil that covers the entire body but for the eyes and hands. A couple of weeks ago I was having my taxes done when I noticed one of the accountants was a woman in a niqab. The full veil is a strong statement that says the wearer is inaccessible, even antisocial. I didn’t know what the protocol of interaction would be if I got her as my accountant; I would have to talk to her about my taxes but I doubt the offer of a handshake, a standard protocol for business, would have been accepted. Fortunately, we were shown to the accountant at the neighbouring cubicle. The premise for wearing a niqab for modesty doesn’t make sense here in the West because the outfits look so peculiar that they bring undue attention to the wearer.

Ironically the reason for banning sagging trousers was immodesty, the same reason Western dress is banned throughout much of the Middle East, or fully covered by ground sweeping robes in public. Western fashion may not be at its most modest right now but don’t forget that only a 100 years ago a woman didn’t show her ankle in public, and only forty-five years ago there were outcries of public indecency regarding the adoption of mini skirts. Less than twenty years ago I was asked to leave the non-air-conditioned Old Mill restaurant on a hot and humid August night in Toronto because I removed my tie after dancing the Jive. I didn’t break a law, just a house rule, but considering the circumstances I thought their rule was pretty stupid…

Update: In Britain there is also a law that bans sagging trousers as well as hoodies worn up! However a recent judge overturned the rule in his court as a violation of human rights - read about it HERE

Unlike most Canadian cities that share their name with a foreign capital, Paris Ontario is not named after the City of Lights but rather the lime gypsum found in the area that was used to make plaster (as in plaster of Paris.) Despite the namesake’s lack of prestige, there is at least one important fashion based in Paris Ontario – the Mary Maxim sweater.

It all began when Willard and Olive McPhedrain of Sifton Manitoba opened a small woollen mill in 1937 to make blankets and work socks. In 1947 Willard felt that Sifton Products didn’t portray the right identity for his goods so he advertised his goods under the name of Mary Maximchuk, an employee of the McPhedrains (the name was later shortened to Mary Maxim.) At the time, using women’s names was thought to give a product a more homey, comforting feel; the most famous woman’s name brand was probably the fictitious Betty Crocker who first appeared in 1936.

By 1950, everyday knitting was falling in popularity – it had become associated with the Depression and World War II when the craft was more of an economic necessity. In the post war world of the 1950s, store-bought socks were more desirable but there still remained an appreciation for hand crafted fashion items. In 1951, Alma Warren from Woodward’s department store in Edmonton Alberta suggested to McPhedrain that his company make bulky yarn sweaters. She suggested he look at sweaters made on Vancouver Island by the Cowichan band of the Coast Salish Natives; Cowichan sweaters were made with Native spun goat hair in a circular knitting method using European Fair Isle style patterns with some totemic motifs worked into the designs.

Later that year, McPhedrain hired Barry Gibson as his manager/designer and the two then laid the groundwork for the Mary Maxim 4-ply wool sweater style and its distribution through department stores across Canada. The company created and copyrighted designs based on outdoor activities and Canadian emblems and hired Stella Sawchyn to design a sweater with a Reindeer motif. Sawchyn and Gibson created a graph style pattern for Mary Maxim sweaters and soon reindeers, prancing horses, curling brooms, beavers, and totem poles were appearing on men’s women’s and children’s sweaters.

The graph style patterns were a hit and created a new international standard for knitters who preferred to work from graphs than words. The company quickly found success and in 1954 Mary Maxim was officially incorporated. The new headquarters were in Dauphin, Manitoba with a branch office opened in Paris, Ontario, managed by Earl Shaw, the McPhedrain’s son-in-law. In 1956 an American office was opened in Port Huron, Michigan, managed by Willard McPhedrain’s son Larry. By 1958, Barry Gibson had left the company but Mary Maxim continued to expand when Earl Shaw opened an office in Leicester, England. That same year the McPhedrains moved the company’s headquarters to Paris, Ontario to be near its largest fibre supplier, Spinrite Yarns in Listowel, Ontario.

The Mary Maxim sweater era was coming to an end when Earl Shaw left the company to buy a woollen mill in St. Thomas, Ontario in 1964. By the time Willard McPhedrain died at the age of 68 in 1971 the sweaters were considered kitschy and were no longer popular. However, Cowichan sweaters increased in popularity throughout the 1970s, spurring on copycat styles in earthy-coloured wool using a combination of totemic and Fair Isle motifs. The classic Mary Maxim style sweaters depicting everything from antique cars to oil rigs never found the same popularity they had from the early 1950s to the early 1960s. There was a small revival in popularity for Mary Maxim sweaters in vintage clothing stores in the 1980s when collectors and museums began to appreciate their designs and they have remained a collectable vintage clothing style ever since.

The company continues to operate, selling a variety of yarns and their graph style patterns. Rusty McPhedrain, the grandson of the founders, currently runs the company after his father Larry McPhedrain passed away in 2002.

Over the years I have seen some great period costume films and its a shame not to review them just because they aren’t recent productions. I just re-watched 200 Cigarettes, a 1999 comedy set on New Year’s Eve 1981. I remember the era well, in fact I remember exactly what I did that particular New Year’s Eve, so I can say with some authority that the costuming is excellent.

The costumer, Susan Lyall, doesn’t normally do period films but she has been in the costuming business since the late 1980s and I suspect she also remembers this era well. I might have balked at the fashions being a little too ‘nth’ degree trendy had the film been set on any other night of the year, but people do dress their best on New Year’s Eve and the spikey Mohawks, brothel creepers, and vintage 50s party dresses were all spot on for the artsy-edgy types of lower Manhattan.

Lyall’s costumes are accurately detailed and perfect for the characters of this post-studio 54 era in New York — a time just before Trump and his yuppie band of developers spearheaded the economic resurrection of the city that turned the lofts and derelict squats into chic eateries and condos.

If you want to see 1980s fashions, there are plenty of original films from the decade that depict teenage trends, office power suits and high glamour, but bohemian street fashion is rarely depicted outside of brief bar scenes or specific characters (such as in Desperately Seeking Susan.) 200 Cigarettes is a fun film with great fashions from thirty years ago and gets a 9/10 for accurate costuming.  And if you want to read more about film costuming check out Frocktalk - a costumer’s industry ezine.