Time for Bed...


Apparently bed capes were once a thing. This young lady is either about to go to bed with her Horlicks or head out to fight crime in a knitted superhero costume.

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March of the Mods

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  Sometimes you see an image which looks quite ordinary, but with a little background knowledge a fascinating story emerges. Take the chap on the cover of the knitting pattern below. He's clearly very pleased with his new knitted waistcoat, but check the other details: the small collar, the thin tie with bang up to date pattern and the neat, but stylish haircut. Our hero aspires to Mod style. Similarly, check out the young man on the right. Banished are the chunky cable-knits, pipe and the general impatience for the arrival of middle age which were so often the hallmarks of the knitting pattern aimed at young men. Instead we see a close fit, a stylish  houndstooth check pattern and an air of youthful confidence and style.  If you grew up in the seventies, as I did, there was always the feeling that the sixties was a huge party to which you weren’t invited. The music was better (sixties Soul and Jazz versus seventies Disco – no contest!), typography and graphics were crisp...
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This knitting pattern for a buttoned top by Lee Target has managed to attract a lot of comment from the moment I bought it from a charity shop in Horsforth, near Leeds. The lady on the till gasped at the model’s tiny waist. I then showed it on a couple of vintage fashion Facebook groups, partly because I had to do quite a lot of digital retouching of the original patters, which was quite badly damaged. An absurd argument broke out in the comments when I mentioned that the poor woman could probably hardly breathe due to the undergarments needed to squeeze her into such an unnatural shape. Dior foundation garments to fit into the New Look Self appointed experts came out of the digital woodwork to tell me that women were just thinner in the 1950s and 60s, thankfully countered by others sharing memories from relatives who were around at the time, and actually wore these type of clothes. One comment was especially insightful: “Looks like the Dior New Look inspiration that came after the Sec...
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From Beatniks to Bullitt: The (almost) Accidental Invention of the Smart Casual Look

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