vintage fashion

The Art of Vogue Covers

i was given a wonderful gift recently from Anton’s gran, who was cleaning out her book collection and came upon an old copy of The Art of Vogue Covers. it details the illustrated covers of British Vogue from 1909 through to 1940, including the entire collection of covers between 1920-1930. i was only familiar with a few of the illustrated Vogue covers (a handful of which were turned into posters and probably hang in many a college dorm room), so i thought i’d scan in some of my favourites and share them with you.

most of the work showcased in the book are by seasoned Vogue illustrators Helen Dryden, Georges Lepap, Harriett Maserol, George Plank and Eduardo Benito amongst others. if you’d like to see more please let me know and i’ll continue adding them to the flickr collection, this is literally just the tip of the iceberg.

see them all here.

 

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Matching Shoes

i suppose i have been kind of shoe obsessed around here lately – and this is of course because i am truly shoe obsessed in real life at the moment. at the moment? all. the.time. it’s quite difficult finding really nice (affordable) shoes in south africa, so that’s why a lot of my internet daydreaming is shoe related.

this editorial was shot by nina leen in 1946 for life magazine. as you can see the theme is matching shoes… and i mean literally matching to your outfit – not just matching your shoes to your handbag (which i find pretty ridiculous and outdated, let them clash i say). it’s a really fun and fashion-forward editorial considering this was the mid-fourties, and i wouldn’t mind snapping up the plaid booties in the second to last image… but i’d keep the hat at home.

all images courtesy of the life image archives.

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Beautiful Girls in New York

street style circa 1944, photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt for a series called beautiful girls in new york for Life. i really think fourties style has to be one of my favourites, though perhaps women in new york have just always looked amazing.

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Kiki Dee

i admittedly don’t know anything about kiki dee apart from the fact that she makes up the other half in elton john’s fabulous don’t go breaking my heart. yep, fabulous. i’m unsure how to explain why this was happening in the first place… but today i was going down a weird rabbit hole of elton john image search results in google (some of which are horrifying by the way) and happened upon these press photos of miss dee looking like a fox.

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Northwest Vacation

i enjoyed this fashion story from a 1946 edition of LIFE magazine

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