Back to the 1990s / Crinoline Robot's Vintage Week

I haven't done a general week posting for a while, but you know what life is like: even when it hasn't been all thrills, there are usually little things going on. I've been asked to join in a blog tour later in the month. I don't know how much I can say in advance, but vintage knitting fans are going to love it! And on the knitting front, I'm cracking on with a pair of steampunk socks, free pattern to be given out when I do my talk at Waltz on the Wye. Inspired by a couple of friends who once bellowed "Look at the ankles on her!" from a car window at me, I have designed – oh, the smut! – a pair of ankle-less socks. Yes, a woman (but probably not a lady) can don these and have warm tootsies and gloriously naked ankles. Given how often she wrote about Albert helping her remove her stockings in her diaries, it's fair to say that Queen Victoria would have been amused... in private. I'll put the pattern up on the blog after doing my talk.

I was amused to see the 1990s have now been declared vintage (mainly by Wayne Hemingway) as I still have a few bits and bobs from that time in my wardrobe, leftovers from my university days and early days in Bath. I have to say I won't be wearing them much, partly because I was eight and a half stone then and I'm 12 now so they're mostly all far too small, and partly because it'd be akin to having a 'Best Before' date stamped on my forehead. (That said, I'm wearing an early 90s Fields of the Nephilim T-shirt today because I've been a lazy spud and haven't done any ironing.) I wasn't very impressed with the 1990s at the time, my main gripe being that I'd missed seeing the Sisters of Mercy and The Mission at their peaks, and instead got lumbered with Britpop, grunge and the arse-end of Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Anyway, short version: that particular vintage bandwagon can roll along at whatever speed it likes, this passenger will not be climbing on board... But what about you? Remember the 90s and want to go back there? Can't remember the 90s but want to go back there? Don't care whether you remember them, they're still not vintage? For me it's too soon. 1999 was less than 15 years ago. It's within teenage memory. Too soon to be vintage to me. I'd love to know your feelings on the matter.

Comments

  1. Oddly enough a lot of my clothing from the 90s is actually from the 60s-70s, as I was a retro-head then! Haha! I've just kept it, it's increased in value (e.g. a £5 faux fur coat now worth about £40 ta very muchly).

    Although I don't think it's old enough to have any rarity or high prices (bar designer), I really don't care if people want to wear it retrospecively and nostalgically! One think retro-heads in the 90s seemed NOT to have is a certain 'preciousness' some modern vintagers have.

    We don't own the word. It's an adjective. Not even Hemingway could trademark it, and quite right too!

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  2. I don't like to be told what to wear so I just wear what I like, which happen to be 'mostly' 30's, 40's and 50's inspired stuff, I have a strange hankering for bustles and corsets but that might just be from watching too much Sherlock Holmes! X

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  3. Eesh, 90s are my high school years, not fun!

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  4. Perdita, I agree with you on the preciousness - I tended to be quite cavalier with what vintage IO had in the 1990s. *Winces at memory of 1920s silk velvet dress ruined by washing* The stuff I've kept from the 90s tends to be stuff associated with particular occasions (eg the dress I wore for my graduation, my 1990 Neph tour T-shirt), or stuff I adored but never wore out. There's not much, but it's all special.

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  5. I don't pay things like this much heed. Especially if it has come out of the mouth of Hemmingway.

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