‘Sensual and Imaginative’: Glamour and the Vintage Body

Abstract

In this chapter I look at the history of glamour and how ‘glamour’ might be used to recreate a particular vintage identity, based on particular practices. What is glamour? Before 1900, it was seen to be about ‘witchery and the occult … 1900 to 1929 saw the beginnings of the modern idea of glamour’ as opulence, display, exoticism, and sexual sophistication (Dyhouse 2010, p. 9). It is this latter idea which has persisted; no one would now say that someone had put a glamour on someone, meaning a charm or spell, although its current meaning developed from it. ‘Glamour is primarily an attribute of an individual. It is an appearance, including the supernatural, magical sense of that word—as in apparition. The appearance of glamour resides, though, or is created in combination with dress, hair, scent, and even mise en scene. Its end result is the sheen, the mask of perfection, the untouchability and numinous power of the icon (Wilson 2007, p. 105). As Elizabeth E. Wissinger (2015, p. 70) argues, glamour is a form of mimicry in that anyone can learn the (modern) fashionable practices required. In the same way, the practices of ‘vintage’ glamour can be learned, its coolness coming from a lack of cool (it is not up the minute fashion, it is outside of the fashion system, it is second-hand) which eventually circles all the way back around to being subcultural capital (because it is outside of the fashion system, although referenced by the fashion system, and indicative of accrued knowledge and personal style). ‘Glamour labor works on both body and image – the bodywork work to maintain appearance in person and image work to create and maintain one’s “cool” quotient—how hooked up, tuned in, and “in the know” one is’ (Wissinger 2015, p. 3). Twelve of the 20 female participants stated that dressing in vintage attire made them feel glamorous. Glamour is gendered and has been almost exclusively applied to women so I do not discuss the three male participants Harry, Orson, and Richard. (No one would ever think that a ‘glamour shot’ would be a photo of a naked man.) Having said that, I should make clear that the three male participants also maintained an appearance which was both formal and traditional (often wearing suits, having short hair, being very groomed) but also flamboyant compared with many forms of masculine attire. ‘Men had come to be consigned a highly restricted dress code, whereas women were permitted to retain much of the elaborated code that had evolved for them over prior centuries’ (Davis 1994, p. 39; see also Breward 2016). For example, in Harry’s wardrobe hung a 1950s Lurex shirt which he said ‘could get him in anywhere’ [nightclubs or events] because it was so striking; Orson wore two- or three-piece suits daily; and Richard wore only 1940s or 1950s styles. So all three participants articulated a form of masculinity which was an alternative to current modes of dress for men, such as constantly wearing jeans and trainers.