"Visit Ballarat, the City Beautiful"

In the 1990s the PTC released a series of 8 reproduction vintage Victorian Railways travel posters from the 1920s & 30s. I was commuting daily to Melbourne at the time and they featured prominently in the Ballarat and Spencer Street railway stations. In the early 2000s I tracked down a signed limited edition of the Ballarat poster, which now hangs on my wall at home.

Interestingly the original 1929 "Visit Ballarat" poster was painted by Percy Trompf, who had his training at the Ballarat Technical Art School, and went on to be a very successful commercial artist and art teacher.

The modern reproductions were done by Melbourne illustrator Fay Plamka in 1993, a founding member of Illustrators Australia, and now a well known Melbourne Court artist for the ABC and 7 Network. Here's the entire set from recent auctions on ebay:

Vintage "spear point" shirt

Had a major stroke of luck last weekend with a vintage shirt from the Light Lounge Op Shop. A turn-down "spear point" collar formal shirt, a style fashionable from the 1930s to the 1950s, for just $2!


Vintage poly/cotton formal dinner shirt by " Welmar".
The difference between these and modern business shirt collars is more obvious with a side-by-side comparison:


Vintage vs Modern (Target business shirt)

See this Fedora Lounge post for more on vintage "spear point" shirts, and these US, NZ and UK (1 & 2) sellers of new made replicas.

The well dressed man of the 21st Century

Behold the man of the future ...today! According to Vogue magazine (1939), this is what the well dressed man would be wearing in the year 2000. This and many other past visions of the futute can be found on Matt Novak's Paleo-future blog, a wonderful collection of images and articles dating back to the 1870s, showing how previous generations imagined the future. As for this particular fashion, I may not have the coveralls, electric vest and antenna hat, but I do favor slip on boots and facial hair :)

No Rest for the Wicked

Retro greeting card from a (now closed) boutique in Johnston St. Collingwood, so cute just had to buy it. Features "No rest for the Wicked" 1935, by William Barribal. Card published by Visoni UK