Fresh men in Funkomavintage world....

1930s 1940s Golden Bear black leather motorcycle jacket....

Distinctive half-belt back and pleat with a sunburst pattern of tucks...
well, I think it's a Golden Bear...the tag is very worn, and it says California Mf'g Co, Oakland California.... Nuff for me...I'm a native daughter of the Golden West....listed and sold on etsy in 5 minutes....
so if the $ doesn't arrive I'll relist it.
But here it is for reference...leave a comment if you have more information....this one was hard to research without going to the library...it's that rare.

Comfy chunky knit 70s sweater...shawl collar, big buttons. unusual basket weave knit pattern.....Oh yeah !

You know I'm kookoo for vintage military wear.....how can I be so Anti-War, and love the military goods?
Coming soon ...1950s Army Field shirt in OD wool, dated 1952 -1951.

And here's another favorite find (sold)......Mohair, a 60s mohair sweater...I love the tag! Shag-Rac.
Young Breed, and it's a Long...

2 pairs of Made in America Vintage Levi jeans........
Levis vintage 517 boot cut

Vintage 501 Made in America Levis jeans...
Another thing that I'm crazy for.....

A fantastically exciting find......1930s ulster pocket melton plaid peacoat aviator style wool jacket.
All the typical 30s design style is right here...half-belt back, button on/off belt, high handwarmer ulster pockets and big patch pockets too.

If you know me at all, I love the old stuff...antiquity...tradition...and handmade love. This jacket was so beloved by the owner, it has a charming repair on the back, patched with some fabric from the belt.
Charm. charm. charm.

handmade patch......

And get some new underwear......vintage 60s Jockey boxer shorts..........Men's lingerie !
Indian Love Call boxer shorts.....
Love love love and indians ....
horses sniffing flowers.....oh Love Sweet Love.

Vintage 50s Penney's nylon knit tank top undershirt....

Happy Birthday, Alice and her penman...Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

Lewis Carroll to us...... Happy Birthday to you.... January 27, 1832.

 Meeting the family of Alice Liddell in July 1862, Dodgson told the Liddell children a version of a story that later became an enormous success. Alice Liddell begged him to write it down,  and Dodgson eventually did, making a handwritten, illustrated book titled Alice's Adventures Under Ground, finally in November 1864.

His friend and mentor, George MacDonald, and his children, encouraged Dodgson to make it a real book.. In 1863, he  took it to Macmillan  publishing. The work was finally published 1865 as Alice in Wonderland, under the Lewis Carroll pen-name. What a stroke of genius to hire Sir John Tenniel to make those fantastical pictures !!

and did you know...all the Sir John Tenniel pictures are in the Public Domain. Read the fine print to be sure this is true worldwide, as it is in America and Canada. I think I shall wear my Tenniel-illustrated Alice in Wonderland dress.....today.


(1832-01-27)
 About a year ago I took a trip to the Oregon coast and inspired by all the beautiful earth....I made this coat......I was thinking that if Alice was a grown-up lady, if she was a bit of a tomboy....but rather sentimental and romantic.......she'd like a coat like this one that I made....perfect for girls and rabbits alike...so,
begins the adventure with a simple 70s coat.....
cut away parts that are not needed, and add lots of lace.








Pour out those cans of buttons and sew many on.




Make a pin of lace and vintage and a key with a heart.





Alice or the Rabbit?
or did you have another dream in mind?


the back has a french blue toile applique with a vintage shell button, long cotton fringe and blue edging, with lots of vintage lace.
The sides have tabs that close with antique abalone buttons......
to pull the waist in a bit....

the lining is sheer matching satin, and I added an inside pocket. The outside pocket is turned askew since it all has to do with new perspectives, anyway......

This pocket has lace, stitching in blue, lots of cotton fringe and a odd vintage googley button.


I changed the collar around so you can button it up......or leave it open........

January 25.....mom's birthday and some guy who wrote..

O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That’s sweetly play'd in tune.
....................................................
and this little ditty, Auld Lang Syne....
Robbie Burns....

PLAID!

Here's what the writer of ,Tartan: Romancing the Plaid  ,Jeffrey Banks said..."....means the instantly recognizable Burberry pattern on the company's coats and scarves may look like a tartan plaid, but is in fact officially just "a check" because Burberry is actually English. In addition, a tartan pattern has to be made up of perfect squares. Technically, a tartan plaid can be turned 180 degrees and is exactly the same.

"You can take it and literally turn it upside down and it will look exactly the same, right side up or upside down," De La Chappelle said. A Plaid, on the other hand, can have stripes that clearly run in a specific direction. In other words: all tartan is plaid, but not all plaid is tartan.

But whether authentic tartan or simply plaid, the stripes and squares seem to have a lasting and universal appeal"



Some Vintage Plaid for the men.... 

Sweet plaid for the vintage ladies....

Children's vintage little 60s plaid jumper....

Fashion Design the movie kind....

I follow movie costume designers like other people love movie stars! One of my favorites died this weekend. Miss Theoni Aldredge passed from this life. She designed the wardrobes for a wide range of movie genres proving her enormous talent...
a short list:
Addams Family Values, Annie, The Great Gatsby, Moonstruck, Ghostbusters, The Rose, Rich and Famous, Semi-Tough, Network....

a few of her creations...Yes, the penultimate goth comedy...Addams Family Values....

The steampunkian Victoriana Charles Addams drew...translated in the second movie about my favorite fake family....

And look...the contrast is striking eh? The dark Wednesday in her turn-of-the-century inspired bathing costume contrasts very well with the sappy happy middle class "normal" girls in orange. Even if you don't know the story, you get it just with costume design.
And of course, Wednesday explains American History, Addams Family style.......

The Great Gatsby...aw...the 20s...Miss Aldredge won the Oscar for this magnificent effort. It set off a fad for 20s style clothing in fashion during the mid 1970s. (with a bit of help from some guy named Ralph Lauren)

Annie !
this bit has Carol Burnette, Bernadette Peters, and yes, that's Tim Curry.



here's a blurb from DePaul University Art Museum
" She received an Academy Award for The Great Gatsby in 1974, designed the original A Chorus Line costumes in 1975, as well as for Annie in 1977, 42nd Street in 1980, and La Cage Aux Folles in 1984. ...In 1984, she worked with Jane Fonda to develop more than 200 designs for the original line of Jane Fonda Workout Wear. She currently lives in New York City. "

Theoni Aldredge, I loved your work. thanks for all the Dreams!

the vintage Home Decor...

...and just as you have suspected, I have a lot to offer......
here's a sneak peak of what's coming to the etsy store...
and Heads up, soon, on my funkomavintage  website, I'll be offering New. New things I find in my vintage travels....like...Margaret O'Leary sweaters, and all manner of things that aren't vintage...but totally with the funkoma look.....which is?
Which is rustic, classic, heritage, nautical, antique, midcentury, steampunk, romantic...tarnished and tattered....and just generally clever.

1929 cast aluminum The End of The Trail Mission bookends.

Mission style, Arts and Crafts, Craftsman and Prairie style art, architecture and home decor all are influenced by each other , and have a lot of similarities. They all celebrate handmade, handforged, hand-assembled and handcrafted as a political rejection of industrialization.


With the rise of mass production in the middle of the nineteenth century, with the filthy factories and mind-numbing inhuman work conditions that stole families from their rural lives, many philosophers, intellectuals, poets, writers, artists, craftmen, witches and healers decried the blossoming Capitalism.

William Morris, John Ruskin, Rosseau, Oscar Wilde,  Gustav Stickley, Walter Crane, Rosamund Marriott-Watson, the Roycrofters, and so many more challenged the "profit over people" ideology that is Capitalism. They knew that without beauty, without art, without leisure, without respect for the working man and woman, life is banal and brutal.

It is these thinkers that inspired the back to the earth movement of those times, and the bohemians of the 1920s, the union movement, the grow-your-own, the beatniks, and the hippies....
Young people that think they might have invented Handmade, like on etsy, are so funny!
It is those historical bohemians, that coalesced into an identifiable movement almost 200 years ago in reaction to the destruction of the slow and small lives that most humans had led since time began.
The Slow Food, artists lofts, handmade, farmer's markets, buy local, think small, and the support small business ethos began 20 decades ago, and for the same reasons it still resonates and has become popular again, and again.

I could go on for pages and pages...on this era of design and philosophy.....and I think I shall ! It's my favorite ....from the mid-Victorian through the 1970s.....but especially from 1890 to 1939.

Aluminum history...... 
The history of "The End of The Trail"....

 American-born artist James Earle Fraser, sculpted The End of the Trail for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California.
Placed in the Court of Palms at the entrance to the Expo. Fraser’s statue was a fantastic success and he was awarded the gold medal for sculpture. It entered the public mind and many reproductions, and near-repros followed for decades.

Of course, America's greatest export has always been the romantic Wild West! The Indian's life has been changed forever with the movement west. Long gone were the open ranges and they were relegated to reservations and shipped to cruel city environments.
 

The End of the Trail created a desire for more sculptures to be cast in bronze, but the United States entered into World War I, and bronze became very scarce. Many artifacts from the Exposition, such as plaster sculptures were tossed into a mud pit at Marina Park.

A few years later, the citizens of Tulare County, California, rescued The End of Trail in 1919 and placed it at Mooney Grove Park, near Visalia, California. In 1968 it was finally cast in bronze, and the cast sculpture was placed back in Mooney Grove Park.

The beatnik...

and the Paint By Numbers made in "spare time"....