STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Luv2Shop · Kate Spade

Ever wish....

nunzi182 · Kate Spade

I often wonder this too! I thought I was the only one. :) Sometimes I wish I lived when women wore those huge elaborate dresses. Other times I wished I was a flapper in the 20s. I also wonder what it was like when my parents were growing up.

bex · Chanel

Luv2Shop wrote:

That you could live in some other era? The other day I was watching Mona Lisa's Smile and it got me to thinking, I kind of wish I lived in the 1950's. I know the whole movie was about moving forward into the future and giving women more rights and careers, but are things really that much better now? I mean, sure, there are a ton of successful women, but what about the rest of us "career women"?

I don't think that they are. One of my reasons for this is the fact that I travel a lot for my position and I have all these high level cards at hotels and such... so you get little perks with them like special clubs for drinks or breakfast. whenever i take advantage of said perks- it is sooooo wierd. i am usually one of the few, if only, woman in the room. A hush usually comes over the room and I get these looks from the men that are like "oh look at the woman, i wonder if she is having fun playing around in the business world?" or my friend who is 35 and owns a radio station and men ask her "so, your husband owns the station, right?" umm no! she does! or they think it was passed down to her from her father. ugh! times have not changed in the business world. thats why you have to appear confident and strong and under control at all times in order to get ahead!

*vent over*

so, the era i would want to live in is the 20s. i would want the cute little clothes and haircut and i would want to be the bad ass girl drinking during prohibition!

esquiress · Marc Jacobs

totally, but i think that the grass is always greener you know? like have you ever seen Far From Heaven? w/ julianne moore and dennis quaid? seriously, you've gotta watch that movie if you're ever depressed. it'll instantly cheer you up, like yeah my life sometimes sucks but no way would i ever want hers, even with her awesome clothes!

lsubatgirl · Gucci

Oh yes Luv2Shop. I think about this often. Especially since I am now working full time and having to pay bills and everything else. I hate working in general - not really my job just the 9-6/7 sitting at a desk and doing work job. I feel that I am not the type of working girl that others are and that I'd rather stay at home and cook and clean and raise my pets (if I could have them) and be a country club wife. But unfortunately things are expensive now a days and I'm not rich nor married so I am working.

Oh but how I would love to live in the 20s (and skip the great depression era) and be like Millie in Thoroughly Modern Millie. Or live in the 50s like in pleasantville. It just looks like so much fun. There seemed to be less worries and stresses in the world. And I like the clothes too.

Elle · Hermes

I could have totally lived in Medieval times or Victorian England or something

. Would have been awesome IMO, 'cept for the chamber pots and beheadings and the like

.

Maddie · Coach

I think there are aspects of other eras that would be cool, but overall I'm glad I live when I do. I'm not very good at catching men and if I didn't have career options open to me would probably end up just settling and being miserable. I hate housework and don't know if I want to have kids, so being forced to do both of those things would be rough. I don't want to be a nurse, or a teacher, or a secretary and I'm glad I don't have to limit my options to that. Also, while dresses would be fun on occaison, I really like having the option to wear jeans a sweatshirt if I want to. I am as smart as any guy and there's no reason that I should be entertaining his colleagues. I guess it seems nice to say that things were good back then and cooking and entertaining is fun, but I don't think any of us would really want that to be our only option. At that point I don't think it's fun anymore, you're imprisoned by it.

Also, if you were gay or a racial minority in the 50s (particularly in the South) your life would be radically different for the worse.

Dizzy · Marc Jacobs

I could never live in the 1950s. If for no other reason than women wore maxipads strapped on with a BELT.

honey · Gucci

Dizzy wrote:

I could never live in the 1950s. If for no other reason than women wore maxipads strapped on with a BELT.

that cracked me up. but i feel the same way as maddie. i know that i would not have done, or be able to do any of the things i want to do if i lived in another time. it's that simple.

also, and i don't mean this as an attack, but i get kind of upset when people get all nostalgic about the good old days of yore. back them people accepted racial inequality, that's not a value i want to pass on to my kids.

-- Edited by honey at 19:45, 2006-01-06

halleybird · Hermes

I love history, so every once in awhile I get like that. But women had it pretty bad throughout history -- it wasn't uncommon for a man to have 4 or 5 wives in a lifetime because they would die from childbirth, etc. And all of the disease! ugh! Germ theories weren't popular until the late 1800s, I believe.

I would love to visit, though, if I had a time machine. It would be pretty to see California and the Northeast before roads & cities destroyed much of the environment.

lynnie · Chanel

its hard to say if i would ever want to live any other era now that i'm used to the comforts of todays society. I was in the car with a puerto rican cabbie for a long drive today (from times square to brooklyn- at least 30 mins) who had lived in new york his whole life (maybe 60 years) and used to be in all the gangs and stuff. he told me so much about the gangs during the 50s and the best mafia run restaurant (i think he said monte's somewhere in a weird area near park slope)- he drove past it- and showed me the street al capone was from, and showed me the house where everyone used to line up to buy their drugs. It was interesting hearing about brooklyn when it was dangerous and gritty (now it can be pretty posh in some areas). But despite all this- he kept saying in his thick Brooklyn accent "Oh but man, the fifties and sixties- they were swinging. You'll never find a better time in new york. People would be dancing in the streets. They were swinging.." In kind of an old wistful tone. It captured my imagination and made me long to live in new york when it was still growing to be the power that it is today and rock and roll was just starting to enter the city. I'd also like to be a hippie in the 60's or just hanging out during the 70's. I love those decades. I don't love war though- that would have sucked. Though i think it did shape a generation and make it so interesting and give life the sort of poignancy that is often forgotten today- even despite all the tragedies of recent times- i don't think our era has that feeling to it.

eta: halleybirds post got me thinking about exploration and manifest destiny- i've always wanted to know what it was like to move out west and discover the new frontier. i wish i didn't know where everything was on the earth. it makes me sad that they say space is the final frontier. space IS cool though.

-- Edited by lynnie at 19:58, 2006-01-06

theotherjess · Chanel

Oh yeah. There are tons of time periods I would have liked to live in.

-Back before America was discovered I would have like to have been a Native American (princess? ). Just to live off the land and delve into the whole one with the earth thing.

-Pride and Prejudice times. The whole courting thing and going to these fabulous balls in a pretty gown and talking to charming gentlemen.

-The 50s/60s seemed like they would have been fun and sweet too. Plus they had great clothes.

-Medieval times living in a castle somewhere...mostly just for the pretty dresses, though.

laken1 · Hermes

I feel like i kind of am living in the 50s -ish era, yet i have the best of both worlds. You really COULD stay home & wear cute dresses & work on your house & cook for your hubby, etc if you chose to do so. I myself clean house in my capri / tank pjs & it's really not the same, but you could do it if you wanted! Yet you have the option to work & make your own money & have a career etc if you want to. I don't buy into a "neccessity" for having a dual income - i think it's a choice (one I have made) that you do without if you want to stay at home for whatever reason. So I like this era because next week or next year I might decide I want to be a magician or a doctor or a truck driver & in this day & age, those opportunities are indeed open to me.

And we can always buy vintage clothes....

ETA: I do kind of feel like a throw back because I learned to knit & I want to sew & can things, stuff that young people just don't do anymore. And people - PARTICULARLY young women around me - think I'm crazy for wanting to do anything "domestic". It's kind of sad actually that we are now EXPECTED to have careers.

-- Edited by laken1 at 21:26, 2006-01-06

Alikat · Kate Spade

Not really.... I know it sounds weird, but as a historian I love reading and imaging them more than actually wanting to have lived then. I guess I learned about all the other issues that went on in other times and effected 90% of the population. Not to mention that women were poorly treated for a long time.

I'm happy with my life here and now. There are so many opportunities available to everyone its truly remarkable.

Cortney1982 · Chanel

I'd rather have today's conveniences. All you have to do is find a good husband with enough income to let you stay at home and take care of things! You can pretty much live how they did back then, how far you want to take it is up to you.