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Vintage bicycle fashion vol. 2: the Tweed Run - retro cycling

In Vintage bicycle fashion vol. 1 you could find insprations from the past. This time we will show you how they inspire people today and how vintage fashion, connected with cycling, became stylish and popular way of spending their time. If we're talking about stylish retro cycling, classic garments and vintage fashion on two wheels, we just can't miss the Tweed Run: The Tweed Run is a metropolitan bicycle ride with a bit of style. We take to the streets in our well-pressed best, and cycle through the city's iconic landmarks. Along the way, we stop for a tea break and a picnic stop, and we usually end with a bit of a jolly knees-up - we can read here, on official Tweed Run website. First edition took a place in 2009. From this time, year by year, people in London go across the city centre on their vehicles, in traditional British cycling attire.

Of course, vintage cycling is popular not only in London. Other countries also have their version of retro cycling festivals, such as Tweet Ride in Alabama (below - photos by Todd Douglas, see whole series here):

and Tweed Run Budapest (photos by Zsolt Szabo, more - here):

See also vintage Cycle Chic from streets of Copenhagen, here. Those people truly show that bicycle is not only the lovely way of transport but also very stylish element of their vintage image.

For more vintage inspirations check also our Pinterest set - Vintage Bicycles.

Posted: Jul 16, 2015 | Tagged: bicycle, cycle chic, cycling, cyclist, fashion, retro, vintage

Vintage bicycle fashion vol. 1: garments, posters, revolutions

Cycles + fashion + vintage - that's really nice connection. Regardless of whether you use the bicycle for everyday rides, or do not use it too often (or at all), you may know that cycling has quite rich story - not only as a kind of sport but also as (life)style, changing trends and much more: social revolutions. As fans of vintage cycling fashion (and, of course, of vintage cycling posters) we would like to present couple of sources which are a great reflections of vintage cycling. Just check:

Wheels of Change

Today most of us have an opportunity to decide if it will be better to wear a flexible, convenient cycling outfit or to ride gracefully through the streets in a stylish retro costume. While watching dozens of female cyclists on the streets, we rarely wonder how controversial was a view of the lady on a bike (let alone view lady in trousers) in the past. There was even such thing as a list of Dont's for Women on Bicycles (circa 1895). Meanwhile, for many of our ancestors bike was more than "just" a comfortable, practical and environment-friendly way of transport. It was a symbol of social change and hardly acquired female independence. More about those changes you can read in the book Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way). More on Brain Pickings (picture source).

Cycling in Posters

The book Cycling in Posters is a collection of nineteenth-century bicycle posters, which can be regarded not only as a story of vehicles, but also of changing bicycle dress-code. You can see the ladies in long dresses, however - more and more often changed for equally stylish and more comfortable sport versions of women’s wardrobe.

Source: Season Books

Posters from Rue Marcellin's collection

First bicycle ads are often unusual, eccentric and fanciful. In our collection you can also find posters for vintage cycling lovers:

1. Cycles Cottereau Original French 1896 Poster

2. Cycles RAD 1910 Original Poster

3. Pannetton Cycles 1900s Original Poster

In second part we will also show how vintage fashion inspires contemporary cyclists, how it still stays "alive" in our times... and much more. If you like vintage cycling, than stay tuned!

Posted: Jul 04, 2015 | Tagged: bicycle, cycle chic, cycling, cyclist, fashion, posters, vintage

Making of a poster: Letterpress

After our series about vintage typography, we're starting a little journey across printing methods, poster design, working process and all which is related with making of a poster. First - letterpress. Below - the story (and process) of this beautiful printing technique. As you'll hear during watching this short movie, it was invented about 1450 by Johannes Gutenberg. Contemporary letterpress is based on traditional printing process and printers often use old renovated press.

Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

As elements and compositions are carefully hand pieced, this method is labor-intensive but it gives really nice and unique effect. Each piece has its own character so letterpress is often treated as good opposite to the digital printing. It's also great for vintage projects.

Another special thing is that letterpress gives an opportunity to obtain convex elements, using very tick paper. In this case noble cotton paper + old printing machines is a really great connection. That's why letterpress, even though it requires more patience and takes more time, is still valued by many printing lovers.

More about letterpress:

For Print Only (A Division of Underconsideration) - place with a lot of inspiring printed projects (not only letterpress - you can search for your inspiration by print method or project type)

Vintage Letterpress - Facebook Page and Dawanda Shop with beautiful letterpress printing plates

More about printing process on Oh So Beautiful Paper

Letterpress* - Facebook page in Polish but with a lot of inspiring photos, which you can check here

Posted: Jun 23, 2015 | Tagged: letterpress, making of a poster, printing, vintage, work in progress

When past meets future - modern projects based on vintage elements

In one of our posts from the past we played a little bit with "time machine", connecting vintage posters from our shop with contemporary images. As we really like this kind of projects, we would like to show you a couple of examples, in which Past meets Future - and as you'll see, together they can have a really good fun!

1. Alexey Kondakov collages

Ukrainian artist used figures from classical paintings and placed them in conteporary spaces to make intriguing and a bit humorous collages with a dose of nice distance. More - here.

2. Outings Project

A great connection of museum art pieces from the past and contemporary street art. This global participative project was initiated by Julien de Casabianca, a French visual artist and filmmaker and it appeared in 28 cities around the world so far (in 12 of them - made by participants). Check how it looks in urban spaces here.

3. Oldies + Photoshop - collages by Giacomo Carmagnola

Another collage series but this time artist used various types of visual arts - mainly photos and sculptures - and the effect is more mysterious and a bit disturbing. See all works here.

4. Bonobo - Cirrus, official video

This labor-intensive and detailed video created by Cyriak is a lovely example of motion collage, made of dosens of vintage photos and fragments of old movies. Great music connected with this image gives an effect which is impressive and memorable:

Posted: Jun 08, 2015 | Tagged: art, collage, connection, painting, vintage

Vintage typography & lettering, part IV - actions & resources

The last part of our series about vintage typography is a set of of various areas of our typographic journey - from packages and labels to street discoveries and playing with letters found in library. We hope that you'll enjoy it. Just check our links and have a nice time with those beautiful vintage letters!

Vintage packages and labels

Great source of vintage typography is Once New Vintage. In addition to vintage packages and labels you can find there also other beautiful examples of vintage typography in use from various sources - even unusual ads or lettering on buttons, like below:

Museum of typography

If you'll have an opportunity to visit Germany, go to Museum of typography (Buchstabenmuseum) in Berlin - a place with great examples of vintage, as well as of modern typographic letters and characters. You can find there a lot of beautiful signs and neons. Museum has 10 years, place was established in 2005 by Barbara Dechant and Anja Schulze. Here are couple of photos from Buchstabenmuseum's Facebook site:

Searching of typography on the streets

Literolap (Typo-catcher) and Wytypowane are Polish initiatives, that aim to found, collect, and remind examples of letters hidden on city streets - buildings, shops signs, trolleys, etc. Literolap is focused on the area of one city - Torun and Literolap is a nationwide action where people send their examples from various parts of Poland. Here are some photos from Literolap:

Playing with vintage typography

And for a dessert - some special thing: Polona Typo - place where you can play with letters from Polonia Library's resources. Just type your text there and see the effect. Lovely way to procrastinate. Here's our example: