Jockeying for Position: How Boxers and Briefs Got Into Men’s Pants

Just as underclothes are shielded from public view, the evolution of men’s most intimate apparel is shrouded in secrecy. But the story of men’s underwear is about more than which came first, boxers or briefs. Undergarments as we know them today were first sold to promote cleanliness and improve the comfort of wearing clothing. That they might one day be deemed fashionable was not even an after-thought.

“Shirts … (continue reading)

Dying To Go Retro? This Modern-Day Morticia Gives Death A Makeover

Caitlin Doughty gushes about death like it’s her high-school crush. “I don’t just pretend to love death. I really do love death,” writes Doughty. “I bet you would too if you got to know him.” The young mortician’s web site even includes a checklist of tips for improving your relationship with death, like magazine dating advice (“Spend quality time together,” “Review your expectations,” etc.).
Like a character straight out of HBO’s … (continue reading)

Making, and Eating, the 1950s’ Most Nauseating Jell-O Soaked Recipes

Poring over vintage cookbooks and food advertisements is equal parts intriguing and repulsive: People willingly ate things like “Shrimp Aspic Mold” and “Chicken Mousse”? Unlike the menus on contemporary food blogs and in best-selling recipe books, mid-century cooking seems guaranteed to make you gag, thanks to its mismatched flavors, industrial ingredients, and gelatin overload.

Often the strangeness of this era’s food stemmed from innovations being tested on our nation’s … (continue reading)

Uncovering Clues in Frida Kahlo’s Private Wardrobe

Frida Kahlo wore her heart on her sleeve, though not the way one might think. In real life, as on the canvases of her many self-portraits, Kahlo used fashion to channel her physical and emotional insecurities into statements of strength, heritage, and beauty. Yet for nearly 50 years, her personal wardrobe remained hidden to scholars and fans alike, locked away shortly after Kahlo’s death in 1954.

“Because of … (continue reading)

Nostalgia is Magic: Tavi Gevinson Remixes Teen Culture

Tavi Gevinson was just 11 when she appeared on the fashion scene in 2007, not via New York or Paris, but through her PC in Oak Park, Illinois. Through her insightful and whimsical blog, Style Rookie, Gevinson mused on topics ranging from couture collections to middle-school dress codes, building an online fan base of teenagers and adults who loved her then-signature gray hair and eccentric sense of … (continue reading)

Abandoned Suitcases Reveal Private Lives of Insane Asylum Patients

If you were committed to a psychiatric institution, unsure if you’d ever return to the life you knew before, what would you take with you? That sobering question hovers like an apparition over each of the Willard Asylum suitcases. From the 1910s through the 1960s, many patients at the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane left suitcases behind when they passed away, with nobody to claim them. Upon the center’s closure in … (continue reading)

Sex! Gore! Scary Monsters! Attack of the Mexican B-Movie Ads

John Cozzoli’s collection is frightening. Not because of its sheer size (though he does have over 500 film artifacts), but because Cozzoli’s ephemera all relates to lesser-known horror movies of the 20th century.
Primarily devoted to Mexican lobby cards, or small placards displayed in theater entrances to advertise upcoming films, and American pressbooks, which provided promotional guides for theater owners, Cozzoli has curated an extensive array of cult classics … (continue reading)

In Pursuit of the Great American Jean

Admit it: If you’re not wearing jeans right now, you wish you were. Loved by everyone from ranch hands to runway models, blue jeans are a unique clothing hybrid, living simultaneously in the worlds of high fashion and hard labor. But it’s no accident that companies like Levi’s are looking backwards for inspiration, emphasizing the product’s American workwear heritage (even if they are now largely produced overseas). More than … (continue reading)

Meet the Man Who Made Cowboys Love Rhinestones

Though it might seem like country-western stars sprang from the womb wearing golden boots and rhinestone suits, it wasn’t always so. In fact, we owe such flashy styles to a Ukrainian-born Jew named Nudie Cohn, who was the first to mix Nashville and Hollywood, making it hip to be ostentatious.
While Cohn’s name might not be familiar, you’ve certainly seen his famous Nudie suits, ranging from Gram … (continue reading)

How Collecting Opium Antiques Turned Me Into an Opium Addict

You really have to work hard to get hooked on smoking opium. The Victorian-era form of the drug, known as chandu, is rare, and the people who know how to use it aren’t exactly forthcoming. But leave it to an obsessive antiques collector to figure out how to get to addicted to a 19th-century drug.
Recently, Steven Martin—no relation to the actor—came by the Collectors Weekly office and told … (continue reading)

Style Gone Wild: Why We Can’t Shake the 1970s

It’s hard to take the ’70s seriously. The decade is usually reduced to a shag-carpeted, bell-bottomed punch line, parodied for its tacky consumer culture by shows like VH1’s “I Love the ’70s” or websites like Plaid Stallions. While the ’70s did include more than its share of garish colors and over-the-top looks, such bold moves were necessary to break free from a cautious, cookie-cutter society. Among other things, the … (continue reading)

Before Rockwell, a Gay Artist Defined the Perfect American Male

Nobody had to tell J.C. Leyendecker that sex sells. Before the conservative backlash of the mid-20th century, the American public celebrated his images of sleek muscle-men, whose glistening homo-eroticism adorned endless magazine covers. Yet Leyendecker’s name is almost forgotten, whitewashed over by Norman Rockwell’s legacy of tame, small-town Americana.
Rockwell was just an 11-year old kid when Leyendecker created the legendary “Arrow Collar Man” in 1905, used to advertise the … (continue reading)

There Goes the Neighborhood: Mobile Victorian House Sets Sail for Desert

Burning Man is flipping weird. The annual pilgrimage draws tens of thousands of attendees to the middle of an inhospitable desert where they enjoy a week of delusional mayhem, often in a haze of physical and spiritual intoxication (not to mention the dust clouds that frequently cover the sky). In this wild dimension where fantasy and reality collide, it’s not uncommon to see giant moving sculptures and … (continue reading)

Psychedelic Poster Pioneer Wes Wilson on The Beatles, Doors, and Bill Graham

Between 1966 and 1967, San Francisco rock poster artist Wes Wilson designed posters and handbills for the first Trips Festival, the last show by The Beatles, and dozens of concerts at the Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore Auditorium featuring everyone from The Association to Frank Zappa. Along the way, he defined the psychedelic poster, in which blocks of letters were used to create shapes, which seemed to bend … (continue reading)

Digging Up the Weirdest Old Books and Comics From the Thrift-Store Bargain Bins

When we first encountered Alan Scherstuhl’s “Studies in Crap” column over at the “SF Weekly,” we knew he was one of us. Every week, he goes digging around thrift stores and flea markets looking for that special book that speaks to him. Sometimes its a Kool-Aid Man comic book where the oversize beverage pitcher busts into orbiting … (continue reading)