In the middle of a Maine blizzard,

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Oui, No

Vintage iron-ons that might look funnier on the front and back of a t-shirt, but for now they're on our studio wall.






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The Jeaning of America (1974)

1974 Oui magazine spread of all things blue jean. Basically everything looks terrible except the Levi's bags, which,  if you didn't buy one at the time, luckily you can now visit our shop to pick up the San Francisco-made bike bag:

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For the 2-year-old designer

Vintage 1960's trompe l'oeil Health-Tex shirt,

 $15! in the shop

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It's a balaclava weekend

Or just a stay inside and make candles, which is what we're doing...

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Marimekko Tasaraita-Striped PJs and Underwear

In honor of pajama weather, Marimekko's striped, cotton jersey pajamas and underwear, circa 1969.

The Tasaraita stripe and its equal spacings represent the equality of men and women, its unisex-wearability, and the equality of every body type that can wear it (see the paunchy middle-aged man in the mix).

From "Finnish Design: Facts and Fancy" (1973) 

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Charity Shop

So the kids can be alright: Roger Daltrey's Fillmore East jersey from The Who's 1976 US Tour, on Ebay UK to benefit the Teenage Cancer Trust. (click here)

I love that he still has it.

Top: Michael Zagaris' photo of The Who at Oakland Coliseum, Oct. 9, 1976

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Madman Across the Water

"Mr. Freedom- Tommy Roberts: British Design Hero".

One of the most innovative boutiques in rock fashion history, Mr. Freedom was as much a show as a shop—a fashion, art, and design mecca for Swinging London’s most outré set. In his new book, Mr. Freedom—Tommy Roberts: British Design Hero (Adelita), Paul Gorman tells the story of the boutique’s driving force: the stocky maverick entrepreneur Tommy Roberts, “one of those unpindownable figures,” the author says, “who fast-tracked vanguard ideas right into the mainstream.” Roberts was the first to sell slogan T-shirts, license images from Disney, and integrate the new Pop aesthetic into everything from the clothes and furniture he sold to the decorating of his shop, a task he regularly put in the hands of young designers and artists just out of art school. Hot pants, chairs shaped like dentures, and window displays of huge detergent boxes were the order of the day. Though Mr. Freedom’s moment was fleeting, such was its impact that when Cecil Beaton organized the Victoria and Albert Museum’s first fashion exhibition, in 1971, he featured 24 of the label’s pieces alongside loans from the British royal family, Madame Grès, Balenciaga, and Mary Quant.
-from Diane Solway's article in W


Paul Gorman's brilliant new book is my new favourite. Tommy Roberts is absolutely fascinating: entrepreneur, shopkeeper, designer, curator, restaurateur- like a more fantastic Terence Conran. The book is filled with creativity and inspiration- it reminds me of Conran's House Book in the regard that virtually every page has something incredible on it that you need to bookmark. Roberts makes one want to do more- be more creative, to push it. The clothing and furniture designs he had made for his boutiques (Kleptomania, Mr. Freedom, City Lights Sudio, Practical Styling) and restaurant (Mr Feed'em) were all amazing, fun, and ahead of their time. Paul Gorman and Tommy Roberts were on BBC radio last week, and Robert Elms asked Tommy, "Where are all these fantastic things? What happened to them?" "Well, we didn't keep anything, we just moved on to the next thing". Thankfully it was all documented, and thanks Paul Gorman for bringing it all back and into our bookshelf.

Mr. Freedom on Amazon
Paul Gorman's blog
related (literally) Mrs. Paul Gorman's blog, which you'll also like.

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Flying Colors

Linda's egg jeans , Gerber sneakers, a vintage Fischer lullaby toy, and The Beatles.

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Francine

Vintage denim chore/ doin' time jacket. Looks like it belonged to the baddest dude in the yard, but actually has the name "Francine" written inside.

Related:
also from Maine, the old Thomaston prison to be exact, this 1940's Bilt Well denim work apron.

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New Yorkers in Their Favorite T-Shirts, 1979

By Their Fruits of the Loom Ye Shall Know Them. But if you don't, there's Andy, Debbie, Grace, Patti, The Smothers Brothers, Meat Loaf, Glenn Close (loving mutts even back then!), Legs McNeil, Suzy Chaffee, and a bunch of Broadway people, Punks, Penthouse Pets, and New York Rangers. All wearing their favorite t-shirts and shot by Jean-Paul Goude for Penthouse Magazine, July 1979. Gotta love Karla de Vito's classic "If it ain't Stiff...", but I think my favorite is Debbie Harry's Glaser-esque, Chwastian "Telluride Film Festival".

related:

Published!

from a Salvation Army in Bay Ridge Brooklyn a few years ago.

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Speaking of Jumpers...

Clint Eastwood and friends wearing them well-
from Playboy, March 1972.

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A Relic From a Different Age

Our (my) newly acquired Wings sweater by The Ritva Man- one of only 5 black ones ordered by Paul McCartney from Mike Ross in 1975 for the Wings Over the World tour. Very 70's, very Ritva, and very glam rock- designed like a sports/concert t-shirt but made with flashy silver Lurex yarn, and a thick embroidered Wings logo designed by Hipgnosis.

More about The Ritva Man (our friend and recent visitor Mike Ross who's absolutely the coolest 70-something year old you could ever meet ) here. And if you're in London anytime, be sure to pop over to Surrey and check out The Lightbox's show Snap Crackle and Pop: British Pop Art meets the High Street in the Swinging Sixties. Writer Paul Gorman has a great preview of the opening night on his blog here.

...and just in from the encylcopediac mind and scanner-like eyes of Greg Allen is this awesomeness from the late Tony Curtis' closet: Three Ritva Man sweaters worn so much that the labels are unreadable, including a blue Wings, all three on the block at Julien's Auctions, Sept. 17th: No bidding against me...

Thanks Greg!

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Vegetarian Champion

Vegetarion (I should've spelled it that way) t-shirt a la Artimus Pyle made from one of our old Champion stock. And related, below, Cesar Chavez is one of Richard Avedon's 72 political-world subjects in the October 21 1976 Rolling Stone. (If you're going to have any issue of Rolling Stone, this is it.) And if you're going to iron-on letters to a t-shirt, make sure you get the placement right before you iron, otherwise you may end up with a backwards n, like I did.

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de Kooning, 1964

Willem de Kooning in his studio in Springs, NY, 1964, by Hans Namuth

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Dad's Style

The Wary Meyers Shop Father's day Gift Guide is up and it's fantastic man!

Thoughtfully stocked from one dad for another dad, there's a little of everything for all types:

Here's a sampling:

For the designer: 

For the workwearer:

For the mariner:

For the architect:

For the writer:

For the jogger:

For the beachbum:

and much more...

Everything ships in time for Father's Day!
(Also we added a lot of other great things in all the categories!)

See it all here:

The Wary Meyers Shop

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The Post Modern Memphis New Wave Avant-Garde... in Accessories!

If Robert Venturi and Delia Deetz got together and made jewelry

 it might look like these one-of-a-kind post modern masterpieces.

New in our shop, vintage old stock PoMo earrings, 2 bracelets, and a pin.

See them all here.

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The Well-Dressed Apache

Chief James A. Garfield showing the white man how to wear his clothes, 1889.

From Penthouse magazine, 1973.

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Stripes

1960's denim palazzo pants, from an estate sale in Key Largo






Design, Form, and Chaos by Paul Rand



Altamont by Bill Owens



muscle car



Snakeskin wallet

Peter Fonda by Gary Lee Boas

 Patricia Johanson, Mrs. Paul Feeley, Helen Frankenthaler, and Lisa Motherwell, Buskirk, New York, early 60's

William Clark by Patricia Johanson

Stephen Long by Patricia Johanson



From Famille 2000: Maison et Decoration, 1971

Vogue UK, April 1973

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