GUEST POST: Mrs Marvel on ‘Things I’m Glad Are Out of Style’

Today’s guest post comes from the fantastic Mrs Marvel, who writes the very cool vintage photography blog Who Were They?. What I love about her blog is that not only does she source out some really compelling photographs from antique stores and old photo albums, but that she makes a real effort to research the people and the stories in the images. To her, the photos are not just nameless ephemera which exist only to fill out a quirky collection of vintage images: these photographs are historical relics, family heirlooms and platforms for digging up interesting stories from history. I strongly encourage you to check out her awesome blog! In the meantime, read on for a taste of some of her photographs, and to hear her amusing take on some musty 19th century styles.

 

THINGS I’M GLAD ARE OUT OF STYLE – by Mrs Marvel

When a new fashion hits the runways in Paris or New York, consumers respond generally by adapting their wardrobes accordingly. In the 19^th century, fashion was shaped first by royalty and the wealthy, and later in Paris by high fashion houses like Charles Fredrick Worth (the first designer to have his label sewn into a garment) who is often credited as the “father of high fashion” as we know it today. Many successful fashion brands followed his example of designing a full line of clothing rather than custom making each item for one customer at a time.

But also like today, there were definitely fashion “misses”. Here are seven things I am profoundly glad have passed out of style.

 

Take this hat for instance. I can only ask “what in the world?” It’s like a pillow on her head. Perhaps she was going for the Russian shapka look, but missed the mark completely. It makes you wonder what is under there…Can you just imagine wearing this to the baseball game? A movie theater? Or anywhere people might actually see you?

 

 

 

 

 

Crimped hair, like this hair. The modern things we do to our hair are bad enough, just imagine putting your curling iron into the fireplace to heat it up. It gives a whole new meaning to those warning tags on flatirons these days!

 

 

Leeches! Leeches!! Leeches!!! A small collection of vintage advertisements for medical leeches

Business card for cuppers & leechers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 19th century. Via Life As A Human.

Leeches! Leeches!! Leeches!!! An excitable ad for fresh leeches from the Wanganui Dispensary. Wanganui Herald, 11 September 1867, pg 3. Via New Zealand National Library’s Papers Past.

Leeches have been used for bloodletting for centuries, becoming so popular in the 18th and 19th centuries that they were almost farmed to extinction in Europe. Although falling out of fashion in the later half of the 20th century, their medical use is making a comeback in microsurgery and reconstructive surgery due to the anti-coagulant properties of their secretions, which is useful for reducing blood clots and venous pressure from pooling blood, and for healing skin grafts. (Read more about medical leeches in this useful BBC article.)

But despite their usefulness, it still must have been an awful challenge to make leeches attractive advertising fare. They are essentially little vampires shaped like long black boogers, which suction onto your skin and suck your blood out. I can think of few things less appealing. I think these vintage advertisements are remarkable in the ways they’ve each tackled the problem, from the elegant botanical illustrations to the generous use of exclamation points which make ‘Leeches! Leeches!! Leeches!!!’ sound more like an exciting carnival ride than a slimy, parasitic worm that wants to drink your blood.

More ads for these cringe-worthy creatures after the jump.

A Map of a Woman’s Heart, 1833-1842

Published by D.W. Kellog between 1833-1842, this amusing Map of the Open Country of Woman’s Heart paints the “fairer sex” in a rather unflattering light. From the mole traps in the Province of Deception, to the city of Moi-meme in the Land of Selfishness, to the Plains of Susceptibility in the Region of Sentimentality, this ever-so-charming illustration certainly demonstrates this Victorian gentleman’s equal taste for maps and disdain for women. I suspect this fellow must have had a recent broken heart (see The Museum of Broken Relationships). But then again, that just be my Jilting Corner (in the Land of Coquetry, of course) talking…

From the fantastic Brain Pickings.

A lot of pictures of Pablo Picasso without his shirt on

Read on for (many) more pictures of a shirtless Picasso. Warning: it is an image heavy post, because Picasso apparently really, really liked to whip his shirt off. Perhaps he felt that extra material encumbered his artistic genius. Or maybe the legendary playboy just liked to show off the goods.

Three ridiculously interesting photographs from the history of art

Pablo Picasso wearing a cow head mask on a beach near Vallaurais. Taken by Gjon Mili for Life Magazine in 1949. Image: Life Magazine Archives, via Retronaut.

Models for Grant Woods' 'American Gothic' (1930) posed with painting. Via Twenty Two Words.

Daguerreotype of Robert Cornelius, likely the first photographic self-portrait ever taken, c 1839. Via American Library of Congress.

These three intriguing photographs have no real relationship with one another, except that each image reveals a little bit of the hidden history of art. Read on for more about these remarkable images.

Those backward Victorians

Greetings all! Apologies for my brief absence: writing deadlines plus getting locked out of my flat have prevented me from fulfilling my bloggerly duties. As a peace offering, I present a compelling photograph which crossed my path on my twisted journeys through the internet. This image puzzled me for days when I first saw it on Pinterest. Why would a Victorian photographer take a picture of this group facing the wrong way? Was it an accident? A modern photoshopped joke? A symbol of mourning? Some sort of feminist statement? Documentation of a photography studio?

In classic academic fashion, I was over thinking it. I’ve done some research on the image and the answer turned out to be deceptively simple. It is not a modern fake, but a genuine tintype from ca 1880, from the Andrew Daneman collection of American Tintypes (photographer unidentified). Can you guess why they are facing backward before you read the answer? (Answer after the jump!)

Hidden mothers in Victorian portraits

The first photographic images in the late 1820s had to be exposed for hours in order to capture them on film. Improvements in the technology led to this exposure time being drastically cut down to minutes, then seconds, throughout the 19th century. But in the meantime, the long exposures gave us a few unmistakable Victorian photography conventions, such as the stiff postures and unsmiling faces of people trying to remain perfectly still while their photograph was being taken.

Seems children were just as squirmy then as they are today, because another amusing convention developed: photographs containing hidden mothers trying to keep their little ones still enough for a non-blurry picture.  These fantastic portraits of children (found via Retronaut) all contain their mother, disguised as chairs or camoflauged under decorative throws behind them. Can you spot all the mothers (and one father)? More after the jump!

GUEST POST- Claire Atwater on The Bone Mother: Arresting images from Russian folklore

Baba Yaga by Ivan Bilibin, 1900.

Happy 2012 everyone! To start the year off with some beautiful images, todays post comes from a dear friend of mine, historian and writer Claire Atwater. In addition to her awe-inspiring knowledge of obscure history, historical fiction and film, Claire also has one of the most vivid and beautiful imaginations of anyone I’ve ever met, and it is a treat to hear more about one of her sources of inspiration: a stunning set of early 20th century illustrations from Russian folklore, by Ivan Bilibin.  Read on for more about her take on his amazing work…

Pike, by Ivan Bilibin.

Since childhood I have had a recurring dream where an impossibly old woman with wild pale blue eyes, iron teeth and strong, spindly fingers is braiding my hair. She is always whispering into my ear and I can never quite make out the words. Though always similar in content, this dream has varied in tone from terrifying and sinister to deeply comforting.

I am certain that the woman in my dream is Baba Yaga, the fabled crone who turns up repeatedly in Russian Folklore. A sort of demented fairy godmother, Baba Yaga flies through the air in a mortar using a pestle to steer. Her cottage rests on live chicken legs and goes whirling and screeching through the air until Baba Yaga is summoned by someone very brave or very foolish. She is the Bone Mother, nature spirit, equal parts witch and wise woman.

Eternity clocks by Alicia Eggert and Mike Fleming

In this wonderful sculpture by Alicia Eggert and Mike Fleming, the pair installed 36 clocks behind a piece of white acrylic, and manipulated the hands to read “Eternity”.  Once the clocks are started, they read “Eternity” only once every 12 hours. The result is a hypnotic meditation on time and an elegant kinetic sculpture.

The video above shows the piece go through the whole twelve hour cycle in just 31 seconds, which is over 1,000 times its actual speed. How much of it would you last through in real life before dying of boredom?

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Images and video via the fantastic blog Today and Tomorrow.

The Museum of Broken Relationships

An under-knee prosthetic limb, Croatia, 1992. "In a Zagreb hospital I met a beautiful, young and ambitious social worker from the Ministry of Defense. When she helped me to get certain materials, which I, as a war invalid, needed for my under-knee prosthesis, the love was born. The prosthesis endured longer than our love. It was made of better material!"

Divorce day dwarf, Slovenia. "... He arrived in a new car. Arrogant, shallow and heartless. The dwarf was closing the gate that he had destroyed himself some time ago. At that moment it flew over to the windscreen of the new car, rebounded and landed on the asphalt surface. It was a long loop, drawing an arc of time – and this short long arc defined the end of love."

Cell phone, Croatia, 2003-2004. "It was 300 days too long. He gave me his cell phone so I couldn’t call him any more."

Glass horse, Slovenia, 1982-1997. "He said: Darling, I love you. I’ll never stop loving you. You are my life. I answered: Me too, dear. When we entered the room, I opened my gift and saw the little glass horse. 20 years later, I am divorced. His love disappeared like the wind."

A "Mira Furlan" bowl, Slovenia, 2003-2005. "You wanted me to bake bread. Because a woman kneading dough is so erotic, isn't she? You probably thought I’d work up such a sweat that it would drip from my breasts directly into the bowl. One summer day I dressed up only in an apron, just for you and the bowl..."

A monument to broken hearts and lost loves, the clever Museum of Broken Relationships features objects related to former romantic relationships, anonymously donated by broken-hearted people all over the world. The museum was originally conceived by Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić as a travelling exhibition, and now has a permanent home in Zagreb, Croatia. Featuring diverse love tokens such as teddy bears, wedding dresses, underwear, and even an axe, the collection becomes a (slightly funny) physical manifestation of the heartache, nostalgia and anger experienced during the demise of a relationship.