The Swing Book (25 page)
Authors: Degen Pener
Cab Calloway in full regalia on the set of the film
Stormy Weather. (C
ULVER
P
ICTURES
)
From the Andrews Sisters to Zoot Suits: The Guy’ and Dolls’ to Guide to Retro Style
O
k, so you know how to get down with some gritty moves on the dance floor. You’re already keepin’ time with the Duke, the Count,
and the King of Swing. Now you’re ready to fly out to the hottest nightspot in town, right? Wrong. To make the scene it’s
always fun to look the part too. “You really live the fantasy when you dress up,” says Annamarie Firley co-designer of Revamp,
a reproduction clothing collection. “You can feel you’ve just walked into the past.”
Putting on a vintage look—whether authentic or reproduction—may feel a bit like Halloween at first. But remember, what makes
the clothes of the thirties and forties so knockout is that they were costumelike even back then. Just think about Cab Calloway
at his mightiest and most righteous. His zoot suit jacket hung below his knees, his chain dropped even farther than that,
his hat was like a small spaceship, and his bow tie jutted out like whiskers. And while Calloway represented the extreme,
men’s clothing, especially by the late forties, was designed to make a guy look bold and larger than life. Shoulders soared
up and out. Lapels were at their widest. The drape of a jacket tapered down to the hips. The whole build was exaggerated.
And hats increased a gent’s height. These are clothes to be worn with confidence, even to swagger in. But don’t get too cocky.
These duds weren’t rudely hypermasculine. They required polish and sophistication, forethought and savoir faire to wear correctly.
You needed to know how to knot a tie just right and how to fold a handkerchief with flair. You had to be able to choose and
coordinate hats, handkerchiefs, ties, tie clips, shirts, cuff links, suits, and shoes, all of which came in a startling array
of styles and colors. Dressed to the nines, men could really be cool cats.
Gals were bolder too, but in a different way Just think of the feminine extreme—Joan Crawford. A dancer herself, Crawford
had a look that defined the era. It wasn’t all about man-pleasing curves. In her big-shouldered suits, Crawford was sharply
defined and unequivocally imposing. With straight, more defined lines, clothing began to markedly reflect the increasing independence
of women, who by the time of World War II were going to work in unprecedented numbers. These were sensibly sexy outfits that
both looked great and commandeered respect. A new athleticism came to the fore also. Those freer clothes included both bobby
socks and the knee-length skirt, which was neither so long as to be restrictive nor so short as to leave nothing to the imagination.
Although some critics have called the forties look a bit plain, women at the time certainly didn’t skimp on dressing up their
outfits with a panoply of sexy accessories, from flowers or bows in their amazingly curled hair to gloves, seamed stockings,
and scads of jewelry. But even if you admit these clothes are a touch on the plain side, perhaps for women at the time it
was a bit of a relief. After all, this was one of the very few periods in fashion history when gents were expected to be peacocks
too.
The War’s Effect on Fashion
During the war, everyone was expected to do his or her part, and that included cutting back on the use of fabric. Silk was
needed for parachutes, and wool for uniforms. In March 1942, the U.S. war production board announced limitation order L-85,
with the goal of reducing domestic fabric consumption by at least 15 percent. The use of natural fibers was decreased, leading
to a high demand for synthetics like rayon and viscose. Women’s heels were required not to be more than one and a half inches
in height, while the three-piece suit became the two-piece suit, without cuffs on the trousers. To meet the fabric restrictions,
skirts became straight, jackets shorter. Stockings were often hard to find at all. “When nylons were rationed, [women] would
take eyeliner and draw a line up the back of the leg to draw the seam in,” says swing musician Carmen Getit. “My mother still
has a bottle of leg makeup. It’s foundation for your legs in a matte color that women would put on. It actually did look like
you had stockings on.”
But in addition to specific mandates, the board made pronouncements against innovation in fashion,
hoping to slow the pace of change in the style world so that clothes didn’t go out of vogue quickly. This partly explains
why the look of the forties seems so distinct today; the fashion stayed nearly frozen. With new clothes hard to come by, people
made do by constantly reworking old pieces, often adding different details and stitching. “A lot of the clothes from the war
era are so obviously worked and reworked and refit. If I turn a garment inside out, I can tell how many times it’s been remade,”
says costume designer Harper Della-Piana. Inevitably, however, once the war was over, a reaction occurred. “People went nuts.
They could suddenly use as much fabric as they wanted and clothes went completely overboard,” says Revamp’s Firley In 1947
Christian Dior’s “New Look” revolutionized the fashion world, ushering in bigger skirts, softer romantic looks, and an hourglass
figure. By the beginning of the fifties, the straight skirts had fallen by the wayside, replaced by voluminous circle skirts.
“A circle skirt can take up to five yards of fabric,” adds Firley. Goodbye Rosie the Riveter. Hello Jayne Mansfield.
And preen they did. Swing’s best-known bandleaders were notoriously concerned about looking their best. Tuxes and white tails
were often the preferred outfits. Stories abound of careless sidemen being called on the carpet—or even being kicked out of
a band—for showing up with a stain on a shirt or a pair of shoes in need of a shine. The suavely elegant Duke Ellington was
noted for putting on a different pair of shoes for each set of the evening. Wearing the latest style was so important that
legendary trumpeter Roy Eldridge would buy himself a new suit every two weeks during the time he played at the Savoy. “You
had to be band-box perfect,” says Frances Lynne, a singer who performed with both Gene Krupa and Charlie Barnet. “Every band
I was with was glamorous.” Or as Bing Crosby warned in his hit duet with Louis Jordan: “Tain’t no use son, cause your sox
don’t match.”
Of course, you don’t need to dress up to enjoy the music and the dancing. But after slumming all day at work on casual Fridays,
it can be a thrill to pull out all the stops when you hit the town on the weekend. Men and women are once again enjoying getting
togged to the bricks—an expression for wearing your fanciest clothes. “I just love being able to dress up to the nines and
go out. There are just no other excuses to do that anymore,” says style aficionado Harper Della-Piana, key costumer for ABC’s
Spin City.
And if you don’t want to do it for yourself, remember that your clothes are just as important as your dancing in making your
partner look good. (Besides, many clubs have dress codes that prohibit T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers; some require jackets
as well.)
Don’t forget one other thing: these clothes have come back for a reason. “Period stuff is so much better made. The fabrics
were really wonderful and a lot of them just are not made anymore. You can’t find rayon like that anymore,” says Della-Piana.
“That’s why everybody in the swing crowd loves the older clothes.” But are the fashions of the swing era really so retro after
all? Today they seem more timeless than ever. “You don’t put on a great-looking suit of that era and look back at pictures
of yourself and go, ‘Oh man, what was I thinking?” says Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s Scotty Morris. Adds Leslie Rosenberg, editor
of the swingzine
Atomic:
“It’s not about what’s hip, it’s about what endures.”
1. Run out to the nearest vintage store and start your education on what’s authentic retro clothing and what’s not. A “Union
Made” label is usually a good sign an item is old. Cuts, styles, and stitching were different back then compared with today.
To find out how to pick out clothes from particular decades, quiz the store’s owners, who are usually experts on the subject.
Keep an eagle eye out for dead-stock—a term for clothing from the period that’s been sitting in warehouses and has never been
worn. Patronize the old mom-and-pop hat shop in the neighborhood. And make sure to hit vintage stores when traveling to out-of-the-way
places. In the biggest cities, period clothes are nowhere near a bargain anymore. You can also check out on-line sites like
eBay for clothing auctions. (A list of fashion Web sites, for buying both reproduction and vintage clothing, is included in
the appendix.)
2. Do the movement test. You should make sure that clothes not only fit well (guys especially need to pay attention here—nothing
looks worse than a poorly fitted suit) but also move well. You should try on the clothes and move around in them in the store.
Do a turn and see if you can really work that skirt. Swing your arms in a big circle. “And then do a test kick,” says Leann
Wright of San Francisco’s vintage boutique Guys and Dolls.
3. Be willing to stray into other decades. Many regulars in the swing scene will wear only forties clothing. A few are so
strict, in fact, they’ve been unkindly branded “retro nazis.” “Some people will look at a tag and see fifties and not buy
it,” says Wright. Adds Meredith Trailor of San Francisco’s Martini Mercantile, “You could have the perfect vintage suit but
be wearing reproduction shoes and people might be snobby about it.” But don’t let that bother you. Branching out into the
twenties, the fifties, and even the sixties is not only more and more common, it’s a great challenge trying to mix and match.
Bands like Alien Fashion Show and Jet Set Six prefer sixties sharkskin suits. Great Gatsby caps are more popular than ever.
And fifties skirts—which are much more full than those of the forties—“are almost more fun to dance in,” says Wright. Adds
singer Lavay Smith, “I just like bombshell clothes. I get things modeled after Jayne Mansfield’s dresses.”
The Best Vintage Find Ever
It’s fashion kismet when you hit the right store at just the right time and make a dream discovery. A few style aficionados
reminisce here about their all-time greatest hits, from oddball items to art pieces.
“I was in a store where they hadn’t realized what this coat really was. It didn’t have the designer label in it. It had a
fancy ladies store label. But I figured out immediately that it was an Elsa Schiaparelli thirties full-length wool evening
coat. It was from a collection she did that was based on Jean Cocteau. It has two beaded white doves on the front of it. I
freaked out. It’s a museum piece. Every once in a while I look at it and go, ‘Oh my god, how did I find that?’ It’s luck.”
— HARPER DELLA-PIANA, key costumer for
Spin City
“Back in the early eighties I was shopping in LA and I found a pair of medium-toned denim pants, real forties baggy pants.
The waistband is about eight or nine inches wide with four sets of belt loops and four matching denim belts. It comes up like
a straitjacket over my chest. It’s got the button fly. It’s heavy-duty old denim. They were stiff as a board, you could stand
them up. I mean, these are the most outrageous pants you’ve ever seen.”
— SAVOIA MICHELE, suit designer extraordinaire
“The one thing that I love the most are these fifties-style earrings that have these little mink-fur balls that are hung at
the bottom of a series of pearls. I found them in Michigan and I paid like two bucks for them at Value Village. We joke that
they double as fishing lures. They always get the best reaction.”
—CARMEN GETIT, singer and guitarist for Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums
“I found this baby blue woman’s suit that was just incredible. It was made by Turk, who did a lot of Western stuff for rock
‘n’ roll artists in the fifties and sixties. It was heavy-duty gabardine and had black detailing with arrows. The work on
it was so amazing.”
—GRACIELA RONCONI, owner of San Francisco’s
Guys and Dolls vintage store
You may also want to consider wearing quality reproductions, since fragile period clothing falls apart very easily on the
dance floor. “I’ve ripped an armhole from just tossing back a martini,” says Sarah Franko, codesigner of Manifesto, a small
San Francisco clothing line that designs dresses for dancers with more room in the shoulders. Adds Autumn Carey-Adamme, codesigner
of Revamp, which creates period looks in breathable modern fabrics for such singers as Lavay Smith and Carmen Getit, “A lot
of vintage is wool, which looks great, but who really wants to dance in heavy wool?” And if you like to do it yourself, look
out for old sewing books, Simplicity patterns at garage sales, and
Everyday Fashions of the Forties as Pictured in Sears Catalogs,
a great resource book.
4. A cheap way to get started is with accessories. One killer-diller hat, a flipped pair of cat’s-eyes glasses, or a jazzy
tie can really dress up an otherwise nineties-looking outfit. “You could have a Macy’s or Nordstrom’s double-breasted suit,
but if you wear a hat, people see it as retro,” says Al Ribaya, the owner of Martini Mercantile. “Using accessories is a much
easier way to go.”