forties – Page 3 – Swing Fashionista

Vanity Fair September 11: Editorial for W.E

Oh what a delicious editorial in this month’s Vanity Fair, shot by Tom Munro! The shoot is to promote the upcoming film W.E (directed by Madonna!) which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in a few days. If you haven’t heard about it yet, W.E of course stands for Wallis and Edward, and the film will explore the story of the romance between Mrs Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne to marry the glamorous divorcee. Some stills have been released from the film, so I will post those as well – it’s going to be a Swing Fashionista’s dream come true, swoon!

Everyday fashions of the 20s, 30s & 40s by Sears

For me, as a vintage clothing collector and wearer, old clothing catalogues are must have as they are gold-mines of imagery and info. Part of recreating a vintage look is understanding how an outfit was put together back in the day, and old catalogues are the best way to find this out.

The clothes people bought to wear to work, around the house, for vacations or for more formal or glamourous occasions are all to be found in Sears catalogues. Dresses, hats, shoes, purses and scarves, jewellery and stockings. These books are a wonderful record of exactly what people wore in the 20s, 30s and 40s and HOW they wore it. It can be hard to source original catalogues these days and most go for a fortune on ebay, so these three “Everyday Fashions” books from Dover Publications are great resource and not too expensive. I use them all the time as a reference. They are available from Amazon.com

Book: “Cary Grant: A Celebration of Style”

A divine book about a divine style icon, not just for the photos of Cary Grant in all his splendor, but a wonderful read as well. What a way to express fashion and style:

I’m talking about style, not only in the sense of how he wore his Savile Row suits, but style as a revelation of character, as a way of facing the world, a means by which all of life’s riches are embraced and celebrated.

– Prologue pXII

Golden Gowns

I stumbled across this photo of Cheryl Cole in a golden gown on the X-Factor. It reminded me of some photos of vintage starlets in metallic gowns I have set aside over the years. Amongst the beauties here we have Ginger Rogers, Jean Harlow, Baba Beaton, Rita Hayworth, Eleanor Powell, Nancy Coleman, Veronica Lake, Myrna Loy, Carol Hughes and Delores Del Rio. Wow, I need something like this…

Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian in LOVE Magazine

Seriously, are those really their names? I’ve missed this whole Kardashian revolution and have no idea who the “Kardashian Sisters”, oh famed tabloid darlings, really are. What do they do exactly? How many are there? Do all their names start with a K? Well anyway, these two have a vintage noir, femme fatale look going strong in this shoot for LOVE Magazine, shot by Patrick Demarchelier. Enjoy!