[ExI] history of fashion

Sat Oct 15 00:56:22 UTC 2022

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] history of fashion

On Fri, 14 Oct 2022 at 23:16, spike jones via extropy-chat < <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Do pardon, for I am surely asking the wrong crowd, but I am doing a bit of genetic detective work.  We can solve a mystery if we can get an approximate date on this photo.  I know not diddley about fashion, but this photo to me can’t be much earlier than about 1970, because I just don’t recall men wearing plaid trousers before then.

> 

> The photo was taken we think in Virginia at a family reunion but all of these people have passed on now.

> 

> Are there any among us who can ask their local fashion experts using skirt length, collar styles, belt width, cloth patterns, shoes, hair styles, who can offer us a reasonable estimate of the date on this photo?

> When I hear back I will offer why we need a date, within a year or two if at all possible.  It’s cool.

> 

> spike

> _______________________________________________

>...I don't think you will be able to get a date.  Fashions change by age of the people (no trendy youngsters in your photo) and by whether it is a more conservative area of the country.  I might call those trousers 'checks' rather than more colourful plaids.  Hemlines started moving above the knee in the 1960s though there are no youngsters wearing mini-skirts in your photo. If you search for photos of Virginia 1970 family reunions some look quite similar to yours. I would guess at 1972 plus or minus 5 years.

BillK

_______________________________________________

THANKS BillK, that is exactly what I was hoping someone could verify.  If that photo is interpreted as 9 women and four men, then it would need to have been taken before 1961, and one of the men was missing for unknown reasons.  But the photo was annotated as "Mom and all the children" with no mention of anyone missing.  After 1961, there were only 8 remaining daughters alive.  So... I theorized the photo was taken at some later date, based on the observation that the checked trousers were something I just don't recall seeing before about 1970.  They looked stupid then and still do now.  But men wore them around that timeframe.

OK then.  We see in the photo (posted previously) eight women and four men, not including their mother in the blue dress, plus one person in back mostly obscured, who I thought was another woman.  But if that is a woman, the photo must have been taken before 1961, and skirts were longer then, women hadn't really started in with the big helmet hair, and men hadn't yet started wearing trousers that look stupid.

So... I theorized that all the children did show up, that the person obscured in back is a man.

Here's the kick, and why I am doing all this.  This month, two new people showed up on AncestryDNA, neither one knew the identity of their biological father.  One of the two only found out this month, when in his late 70s, that the man he knew as his father isn't his biological father.  His half sibling showed up.  Neither knew about the other.  So... I started digging, because both are third cousins to me.  I found this photo, did the detective work, identified each of the men in that photo except the one in back.  Found their descendants on AncestryDNA, and by process of elimination, figured out the father of our two new cousins is that guy in back.

Second kick: he never married, so there are no known preserved photographs of him.  He was a man of the world, always away from the family and as far as we know, this is the only reunion he attended.  That person in back I initially interpreted at a woman, but by the early 70s, some hipster men in their 40s were doing the whole poofy froofy hair thing, not caring if it looks... stupid.  

Consequentemente…  this photo, where most of his face is obscured... is now the only photographic record we have of the man.  We don't even know where he is buried.  We have nothing.  Just that one photograph where you can't even see him really.  I hafta tell his two biological children: this is the only known image of your bio-father:

Hell of a note, ja?  Is this what you want to leave behind, to inform your descendants?  Now take some photos of yourself and post them somewhere please.  Upload your innermost thoughts to the internet!  Upload, forthwith!

spike

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