A question of labels

The more vintage clothes I see, the more curious I get about the labeling practices of our grandmothers' generation.  Nowadays, a ready-to-wear garment usually has two labels: a brand tag that says who was responsible for its production (GAP, Lord & Taylor, or the like), and a care tag that says what it's made of and how to launder it.  Sometimes they're clustered together; other times the maker is in the back neck and the care tag is in the side seam. 

Vintage clothes, however, often have more tags, and in different places.  I'll show you two examples from my own wardrobe. 

JACKET

This is a wool jacket I picked up as part of an ensemble.  I have since parted with the somewhat dowdy (and too large for me) pencil skirt that came with it, and kept only the jacket.  I suppose some vintage purists will revile my choice to separate the set (I'm a philistine!), but, well, the skirt did not spark joy in me, while the jacket is a regular favorite in my fall/winter wardrobe.  I decided to give the skirt a chance to please someone else. 

The jacket has three labels: two in the back/nape, and one inside the jacket front.  The inside-front label, saying "Création Michel Thierry France", is the brand.  The back label saying "Hollywood, Wilkes Barre, PA" is probably the store which sold it in the States.  I bought it in Mechanicsburg, PA, in 2018 and took it to the West Coast! 

Every time I wear it, people pet my collar. It's like an impulse they can't resist!

Finally, the mystery tag: "Styled by Heidi". What does "styled by" mean?  Is Heidi the alterationist who made the French jacket fit a Wilkes Barre lady?  Or the person who paired the wool jacket with the fur collar?  The fur is a separate piece merely tacked onto the jacket's ordinary lapel:

WOOL SKIRT

This next wool skirt has four labels!  Two in the back waistband, one in the front waistband, and one in the side seam of the lining.  The front two are similar to the back two of the jacket: one saying who designed it (Gordon of Philadelphia) and the other saying who sold it (Four Seasons Boutique of Erie).  (This one made its own way to the West Coast, where I bought it in a vintage shop in Portland, OR in 2019!) 

(The "Four Seasons Boutique" tag is sewn overtop the other, so I had to pull the back one to the front to read it!)

The front waistband has a care tag: Dry Clean only.  and then there's another care tag saying the same thing in the side seam of the lining! 

I wonder why they put that information twice?  And why put a label right over the belly button?! 

Many of my other garments have union labels in them, but these two don't.  I wonder if the union labels were more common on mass produced RTW, rather than smaller tailoring shops or the like. 

MY OWN LABEL?

Sometimes, when I'm particularly proud of a piece, or when I make something for someone else, I think it would be nice to sign my work by putting a custom tag in there.  They aren't hard to get... you can find companies online that'll make them for you in small batches or bulk.  But so far I haven't gone that route.  

What might a Karen Roy tag say?  Not "Robes de Coeur"... that's my blog name, but it's not ideal for a tag for several reasons.  For one thing, I'm pretty sure it's bad French!  I like it, but it's cutesy for a label.  For another thing, it's feminine, and what if I want to put it in menswear?  And it's about dresses, so what if I want to put it in a hat?  It's too specific to be applied to my varied makes.  I could do a tag that just said "Karen Roy - PDX".  PDX is the abbreviation for Portland, Oregon (a reference to its airport code... Portlanders are amazingly fond of their airport).  I like the idea of putting the city there, for people in the future to trace its travels, as I can trace my coat from France to Wilkes Barre!  That's interesting trivia to a clothing geek like me. 

But for right now, my workmanship is signature enough, as I try to get better with each project and expand my skills!