Beyond the FAQs
By Luna Lark
QuailBellMagazine.com
QuailBellMagazine.com
Google 'vintage blog' and ChronicallyVintage.com will appear within the first five results. Depending on your browser and location, it may even appear as the very first. That is because creator Jessica Cangiano has turned her blog into a shrine--a shrine to old clothes, old books, and old culture. It is a place where bygone beauty is celebrated.
Intrigued by Jessica's musings, her carefully orchestrated style, and the photos taken of her by her husband, Tony Cangiano, we decided to get in touch with her. But before we did that, we did our research. We scrutinized her 'About' section and her FAQs. After all, redundant questions are only interesting if the answers changes. But Jessica seems so confident in her tastes, that we guessed that her answers regarding shopping and fashion have not changed much over the years. We guessed right. She's been paying homage to mid-century looks since her teens.
So, we posed a few new questions for Jessica. Here's how she replied:
• Can you explain why you typically gravitate toward the 1950s? What distinguishes that decade from the other mid-century decades?
While I'm the first to admit that I do veer toward the 1950s a little more, I embrace the 1940s with the same passion and sport fashions from that decade quite often, too. Both decades, though certainly marked by distinct differences, also shared much in common, including some of their fashions and a general attitude towards ladylike beauty and taking pride in one's personal appearance (two things which are near and dear to my own heart).
The 1950s was an era of hope and prosperity, rebirth, growth, social change, legendary stars, amazing fashions, and a general sense of positiveness with, for entirely understandable reasons, hadn't been present for much of the 1930s (due to the Great Depression) and 40s (due to WW2 and its aftermath). It's easy to look at the 1950s through rose-colored glasses and gloss over its less than stellar elements, but I try never to do this with any period in time and fully acknowledge that the decade had its fair share of problems, too.
Ultimately though, I believe that the 1950s represented the last vestiges of a time and way of life that began to change (not always for the better, to my mind), and in some ways vanish forever, in the ensuing decades. There was a wholesomeness, a sense of family and community, of right and wrong, of morals and standards, and respect for oneself and those around them to the 1950s that has always appealed to me so deeply.
When you couple these points with the fact that 1950s clothing, which I've loved for my whole life and have been actively wearing since my teen years, makes me go weak in the knees, it's no wonder that I can never get enough of this intriguing, inspiring decade.
While I'm the first to admit that I do veer toward the 1950s a little more, I embrace the 1940s with the same passion and sport fashions from that decade quite often, too. Both decades, though certainly marked by distinct differences, also shared much in common, including some of their fashions and a general attitude towards ladylike beauty and taking pride in one's personal appearance (two things which are near and dear to my own heart).
The 1950s was an era of hope and prosperity, rebirth, growth, social change, legendary stars, amazing fashions, and a general sense of positiveness with, for entirely understandable reasons, hadn't been present for much of the 1930s (due to the Great Depression) and 40s (due to WW2 and its aftermath). It's easy to look at the 1950s through rose-colored glasses and gloss over its less than stellar elements, but I try never to do this with any period in time and fully acknowledge that the decade had its fair share of problems, too.
Ultimately though, I believe that the 1950s represented the last vestiges of a time and way of life that began to change (not always for the better, to my mind), and in some ways vanish forever, in the ensuing decades. There was a wholesomeness, a sense of family and community, of right and wrong, of morals and standards, and respect for oneself and those around them to the 1950s that has always appealed to me so deeply.
When you couple these points with the fact that 1950s clothing, which I've loved for my whole life and have been actively wearing since my teen years, makes me go weak in the knees, it's no wonder that I can never get enough of this intriguing, inspiring decade.
• You describe Chronically Vintage as a 'visual scrapbook.' Where do you find many of your images? Do you have any inside tips for our readers about the best places to find old photos and illustrations?
The vast majority of the images that I use in posts on my blog come from Flickr, which is a true treasure trove of vintage (and antique) images ranging from people's family photos to snaps of yesteryear celebrities, found photos to thousands of scans of vintage magazines, book covers, and ephemera. Not all users there have their accounts set to allow use of the images they've posted, but many do and I've rarely had trouble tracking down the right image (or images) I was searching for from amongst these such Flickr pages.
Aside from Flickr, I sometimes turn to sources such as the Life Magazine photo archive, Wikipedia, Pinterest, fellow bloggers, and general Google searches, and highly recommend all of those sources (plus Flickr) to anyone looking for vintage photos to use as inspiration in their own life.
In terms of finding vintage images and magazines, eBay, etsy, thrift stores, yard sales, estate sales, local auctions, and grandma's attic are all excellent places to turn to if you're looking to build a personal collection of old school images. I have a modest collection of vintage magazines and books, oodles of old cookbooks and recipe booklets, and a super tiny (at this point) collection of vintage photographs that I've purchased over the years, and which I'll likely share more on my blog in the coming years.
The vast majority of the images that I use in posts on my blog come from Flickr, which is a true treasure trove of vintage (and antique) images ranging from people's family photos to snaps of yesteryear celebrities, found photos to thousands of scans of vintage magazines, book covers, and ephemera. Not all users there have their accounts set to allow use of the images they've posted, but many do and I've rarely had trouble tracking down the right image (or images) I was searching for from amongst these such Flickr pages.
Aside from Flickr, I sometimes turn to sources such as the Life Magazine photo archive, Wikipedia, Pinterest, fellow bloggers, and general Google searches, and highly recommend all of those sources (plus Flickr) to anyone looking for vintage photos to use as inspiration in their own life.
In terms of finding vintage images and magazines, eBay, etsy, thrift stores, yard sales, estate sales, local auctions, and grandma's attic are all excellent places to turn to if you're looking to build a personal collection of old school images. I have a modest collection of vintage magazines and books, oodles of old cookbooks and recipe booklets, and a super tiny (at this point) collection of vintage photographs that I've purchased over the years, and which I'll likely share more on my blog in the coming years.
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