Dressing Up Vintage [Hardcover]

Tracy Tolkien (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2000

With vintage dresses like Marilyn Monroe's JFK birthday dress selling at auction for more than one million dollars, vintage is clearly "in". Dressing Up Vintage celebrates the best of old-school couture, offering tips on how to spot a valuable garment and how to distinguish one designer from another. an enormous "sources section" features over 600 stores around the world where devotees can purchase vintage clothing. If you love the look of a bygone era, this book is for you!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Covering 50 years of fashion history, Dressing Up Vintage examines times past and what women wore in response to them. Starting with the '40s and the somber mannish suits worn during WWII, Dressing Up Vintage takes us through the beaded cardigans of the '50s, the mod explosion of the '60s, the '70s disco and wrap-dress rage, the broad-shouldered power suits of the '80s, and ends up with an understandably short chapter on the '90s and the popularity of the grunge look and retromania.

Spying and collecting vintage wear takes the same skill and competitive edge as does collecting fine art or antiques. Author Tracy Tolkien, owner of a very successful vintage shop in London, has been honing her hunting skills for many years and shares them with us in this thoroughly researched, entertaining book. She explains why certain fashions came into being and why they are now collectible. Did you know corsets came back into style because of Dior's wasp-waisted dresses? Tolkien also gives hints on where to find the best vintage wear (there's a long list of shops in the back of the book, both American and British) and what to look for (labels, tears, staining). "One of the best, often overlooked, sources though is probably out there in your own backyard," she says, "tucked away in the darkest corners of your friends' and relatives' wardrobes." Each section is filled with examples of vintage fashions, including hats, gloves, shoes, and costume jewelry.

An interesting journey into our fashion past--great finds and faux pas all--Dressing Up Vintage could be helpful to the beginning collector and just plain fun for those who like to browse, shop, and heed the words of mini-making mogul Mary Quant: "Fashion allows you to be what you want. You can dress the part and--my God, it happens!" --Dana Van Nest

About the Author

TRACY TOLKIEN is the owner of Steinberg & Tolkien, a vintage clothing sotre in London which holds the largest collection of couture in the world and has attracted the attention of fashion designers John Galliano and Jean Paul Gaulthier, among others.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli (June 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847822648
• ISBN-13: 978-0847822645
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,625,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, March 24, 2003

By 

Jodi B "Swell Spinster" (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dressing Up Vintage (Hardcover)

Although filled with beautiful photography of period styles, I found this book to be ultimately a disappointment--short on substance.

The introduction, where she states that "Basing a collection around thrift-store bargins is not only unrealistic, it can take days, weeks, literally years of your time." is the your first clue. The rest of the book is then devoted to extolling the virutes of couture and its designers. Fine for a small amount of those who can afford it, but unrealistic for the rest of the population.

Tolkien has a mere two pages to fashions of the 1940's (which she calls "simple" and "utilitarian" before moving on to the rest of the 20th century. She divides the various decades into the trends that defined them, but then lets the pictures do the work for her. Tolkien also devotes a part of the book to 90's fashion--a decade which most vintage wearers would not even consider to be "vintage" in the first place.

If you are looking for a very brief overview of late 20th century designer fashion, you might enjoy this book. If not, Amazon has plenty of other books on the subject that do a much better job.

30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Flavorful, but not very in-depth or informative, July 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Dressing Up Vintage (Hardcover)

This book gives a rough overview of the latter half of clothing styles of the 20th century, very nicely illustrated with punchy, colorful photographs.

However, this book is more of the coffe table variety than a volume to be used for serious or even casual research or reference, as its text describes trends of the decades rather than a lot of sartorial details, and the photographs are more reminiscent of a fashion magazine glossy than a review of stylistic changes, decade-by-decade.

Fairly enjoyable for its visual appeal, but not very edcational, with an ineptly-researched index of vintage clothing Web sites.

By far, the index of online purveyors of vintage clothing was terrible. It substitutes sheer volume for a considered guide to vintage on the Web. The author or editor(s) seem to have just gone to a search engine like Yahoo and just listed the first matches for "vintage clothing" found.

So many of the sites listed are among the first ones on the Web, but unfortunately have hardly been updated since their inceptions. This index frequently lists third-string vintage clothing sites while omitting some really great ones that have popped up in the past couple of years. Any one putting in a couple of hours of honest searching on the Web can come up with a better list than this.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars tracy talks vintage, May 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Dressing Up Vintage (Hardcover)

This book is great fun and so colorful! Rather reminds me of the times she is covering. Although she touches on the early post war years, the book's focus is on the 60's through the 90's. There are wonderful photos and illustrations and great text. She covers everything in fashion from clothing to jewelry, shoes and purses; the book is really a complete history of modern fashion. In that sense, it becomes a "what to look for and how to find authentic pieces" guide. The source list is worth the price of admission. I learned some things and am happy to have this in my collection.