What a Tag Tells You
Investigate the date of your vintage garment using these five steps
Alexandra Stevens
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Hi there! My name is Alex, and I’m the owner and operator of St. Evens, an online vintage shop. This is the first installment in a recurring column for Clotheshorse in which I take you through the process of dating and identifying vintage garments. Every single element of a piece can give clues as to when it might have been made, and those clues give us a deeper understanding of fashion and textile history.
To start this series we’ll be looking at an off-white, lace-trimmed nightgown by American lingerie brand Vanity Fair. This garment only has one tag: a very small, double-sided piece of fabric. Despite having such little information to go on you’d be surprised at how much we can find out!
Front and back view of embroidered tag in this nightgown
Here are some of the steps I take to narrow down a time frame for a vintage garment.
1. Does this company still exist? Has it gone through a name change or a major branding overhaul, etc?
Vanity Fair was bought out by Fruit of the Loom in 2007, but lingerie and undergarments under the Vanity Fair brand name are still being manufactured today. If the company had been shut down or merged with another brand, we would be given an end date for the latest year this piece could have been made. That isn’t the case here, so let’s keep it moving.
2. When was the company founded?
This gives you an oldest possible date for the garment. This brand has been around under the Vanity Fair name since 1917! That means we’re looking at a pretty big time frame here. However…
3. What does the fabric tell us about the garment’s date?
Nylon, invented in 1935, was the first fully synthetic fiber created for apparel. It was initially used primarily for stockings, but due to a huge decline in garment production during World War II, most fully synthetic garments were manufactured in the late 1940s or after. Rayon, viscose, and acetate (semi-synthetic fabrics derived from plant-based materials through a chemical process) were used for clothing manufacturing in the early 20th century, so we’d have a potentially earlier date for our garment if it was made from any of those materials.
This nightgown is made of “nylon tricot,” a type of fabric weave using nylon which seems to have been introduced into Vanity Fair’s garments in the late 1940s. A press release from 1948 (available to view here through the Hagley Digital Archives) describes Vanity Fair’s use of “glamorous nylon tricot” in their fall collection. The detailed description of DuPont’s “transformative” fiber indicates that it was new to the market. Many consumers in the late 1940s would be seeing nylon apparel for the first time.
4. Is there a care instructions label?
This garment does not have a care instructions label and there are no indications that any labels were removed or fell off the garment over the years (look for leftover strips of fabric or thread embedded in seams, or damage and repairs alongside inner seams). Care instructions became industry standard for American manufacturers in 1972. While it is possible that a tag was carefully removed from this piece, it’s highly unlikely that this could have been done without leaving behind any traces or damage. A large and well-established brand like Vanity Fair would have followed the Care Labeling Rule, which tells us that this piece was made prior to 1972. Now we know that this garment was made between the late 1940s and early 1970s. We have also confirmed that this piece is true vintage!
5. Are there any reliable label resources online for this brand?
If examples are available, you can compare your label to the lettering, colors, and other stylistic elements of brand labels from various eras. I frequently reference the Vintage Fashion Guild (VFG) website, a longstanding and trusted online resource. Based on the provided examples on their website, the Vanity Fair label on my nightgown matches those seen on pieces from the 1950s and 1960s; they feature white tags with pale blue script lettering, with “Vanity” appearing on top of “Fair” instead of both words shown side by side. Another common practice with older pieces is for tags to be embroidered instead of printed. Most manufacturers ceased this practice to cut costs as manufacturing ramped up. Based on the VFG examples, it appears that Vanity Fair switched primarily to printed labels by the mid-1960s. The latest embroidered tag shown in the VFG is from 1964, and the piece I’m researching has an embroidered label.
Ta-da! With just one tiny tag and little bit of research, I can confidently say that this piece was made and sold in the 1950s or 1960s. I personally believe this nightgown is more likely from the 50s based on the embroidered tag design and lack of additional information on the tag, but as a vintage seller I always err on the side of a broader estimate.
Sometimes you get really lucky and find an actual date on a piece, but otherwise all vintage dating is educated guesswork. It’s always good to remember that there were simply fewer garments being made and sold the further back in time you go, and early- to mid-20th century garments in good condition are becoming increasingly rare. There is simply a greater chance of a piece being newer rather than older, so most industry professionals make estimates leaning towards a more contemporary era if they’re uncertain.
Want to learn more about fashion history? Follow me on Instagram at @wear_st.evens, and shop vintage pieces (including this nightgown!) on my website at wearStEvens.com. Twenty percent of all sales are donated to a different charitable organization each month.
Have your own vintage piece you’re curious about? I’d love to help you identify what era it might be from! If it’s a good candidate, it could be featured here on Slow Notion. Are you a vintage seller or expert that specializes in specific types of garments, or a certain era in fashion? We’d love to feature your expertise!
Resources:
Reynolds, Jennifer, and Neilsen, Michele. “The Fabrics of Our Past: Textiles and Fashions, 1860’s - 1960’s.” San Bernardino County Museum. http://www.sbcounty.gov/museum/media/press-kit/fabrics-of-our-past/Fabrics-textile-timeline.pdf
Adams Bramlett, Sharon Elizabeth, admin. “Vanity Fair.” Vintage Fashion Guild: Label Resource, July 2010. https://vintagefashionguild.org/label-resource/vanity-fair/
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Public Relations Department. “Vanity Fair Features Glamorous Nylon Tricot.” Hagley Digital Archives, 1948. https://digital.hagley.org/1984259_010913_171#page/1/mode/2up
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