VintageGent’s Menswear Daily

Joe Famolare and the Platform Shoe – Part II

Joe Famolare and the Platform ShoePart II.

The Capezio and Bandolino Years

Capezio was founded in 1887 by Salvatore Capezio and still exists today as a tristed source and household name for dance shoes, later on fashion shoes, and now competitive ice skates. During Joe’s tenure he designed shoes for the Bolshoi Ballet and many others. Other highlights were designing shoes for the legendary Twyla Tharp’s Dance company.

His designs and selections also most notably appeared in the original Broadway Production of West Side story. The “Dance Oxford” created by Joe especially for West Side Story is still in use on the stage to this very day.

In my opinion, heading for the theater not only gave him an understanding of what was required in active shoes but gave him a lot of inspiration on how to be savvy, unconventional marketer and promoter of his product. One instance later found him skating on a float in a Thanksgiving Day parade to promote his shoes!

He left Capezio in 1965 over irreconcilable differences. Capezio was heading more and more into putting fashion before function, and wanting to break into the fashion market more while eliminating some comfort features in shoes, and Joe wanted to concentrate a little more on function.

His next stop along the way, was in 1965, as an executive for Marx and Newman. He was in charge of their popular division, Bandolino shoes that were sold at Neiman Marcus and elsewhere . He not only was executive vice president but designed while he was there. I am not sure exactly which models he designed, but they all were at least selected by Joe even if he didn’t design every single model during his tenure there. The company started to take a turn when Mr. Newman left the business, and as the company got more political, Joe decided that it was time to leave.

In 1969, Joe formed Famolare shoes…and the rest, as they say, is history.

Tomorrow: Part Three…Joe “Gets There”.

Joe Famolare and the History of Famolare Shoes Part I: The Beginning

On August 16, 2005, “Joe Famolare and the History of Famolare Shoes” was presented in workshop format as a part of The Vintage Fashion Guild’s “Fashionable Summer” designer workshop series on week #7 . The presenter was the author of this blog. The following article is a synopsis of presented information. Text (c) VintageGent, and The Vintage Fashion Guild. and the additional photos are copyright their respective sources (advertisements, press photos) or contributors (shoe photos). Use without permission prohibited, but may be obtained under certain circumstances and permitted in writing.

Joe Famolare and the History of Famolare ShoesPart I: The Beginning.

Joe Famolare grew up in a third generation shoe making family. He was born in Boston and grew up in Chestnut Hill, which is a neighborhood/area on Boston’s south side. His father, Joe Sr. owned Famolare Shoe Engineering, which was opened in 1934. The company made cutting patterns for the shoe industry. Joe Jr started working at the family business at the tender age of 12. Very cognizant of the child labor laws, Joe Sr. required him to pay income tax and file at that age. When he became the age of majority, he had already designed shoes and was a young executive at the family business.

Despite this early sucess he deviated from the family business and started singing in nightclubs for tips! According to Joe himself: ” I hated the shoe business. It was so dusty and boring, and the people didn’t seem happy. I could sing, and I studied voice seriously, and I found that people liked to hear me sing. So I went to Emerson to be an actor.”

For the next several years, he attended Emerson college in Boston and pursued a degree in the musical theater. Midway through, his dreams were put on hold. He was drafted by the US Army. Joe served at the very tail end of the Korean war as a radio operator, broadcasting having been a minor in college studies.

After he left the millitary, at age 23, he soon decided that a singing career was not for him. Despite his disenchantment with the shoe business, he learned that long, highly irregular hours of a musical career and the irregular and meager pay brought forth by relying on tips was not for him.

Joe Sr. demanded that he could not just wander around “finding himself, that Joe Jr. needed to get a job. So, Joe was again hurdled into the shoe business and took night courses to finish a degree.

His decided deviation from his roots was short lived indeed. He melded his two interests leaving the family business being hired at Capezio, reknowned in the dance shoe business… in 1960.

Tune in for Part II…

Nudie Rodeo Tailors on Ebay

Jamie Nudie was the original Rhinestone Cowboy.  He became a tailor in the 1930s, and was the first person to put rhinestones on menswear.  After traveling around the country, he and wife set up shop and approached Roy Rogers and Dale Evans to be their exclusive tailors.  The desirability of Nudie Rodeo Tailors rose even higher after designing Elvis’ gold lame’ suit.

Today, items crop up for sale at auctions and online.  Because they sold a complete line, you will see more basic items.   What made them famous and what goes for the big bucks are when you can find a Nudie that was documented to have been custom made for a name of note.

Right now, there is a suit on ebay that was made for Rick Danko for his appearances with Bob Dylan, so the auction says.   However, there is a photo of Montie Montana wearing the same or similar suit, and the tailor tags of the outfit say Montie Montana as well.   Because the history is a little anecdotal, could the suit have really have preciously been Montana’s that Rick had worn?   One may never know. But it is authentic Nudie nonetheless.  Maybe someone will come forward with photos of Danko for the seller.

Check the auction out HERE.

There is another Nudie of note this week on ebay. This one has a “Buy It Now” option. I have only included a small snippet. You will have to go to the listing to see it for yourself! Click right HERE.

This suit even comes with matching boots. I don’t know it this was something made for someone, or it was a style that was “off the rack” but it sure is a suit that will never be forgotten if you wear it.   Many collectors choose to display their suits only to reduce the wear and tear, but the choice is yours.

1974: New Hair!

1974: what a year!

Brylcreem ran an ad touting the virtues of the “NEW” short hair. They “explained the difference between the short hair that went away and the short hair that’s coming back.” Ads, I guess, were always more lenghty then, and they used their space to tell you how to order your barber around to get the “NEW HAIR.” The style was a hint at the Luke Skywalker ‘do (or non-’do that was to come. Do you think barbers were helpful that their customers knew what they wanted, or do you think ol Bob and Gus who were cutting the dude’s hair since they were five years old thought, “Don’t tell me how to do my job?”

At any rate, here is how to get it:

Ask your barber to scissor your hair – no clippers – to a length of about an inch on top and in back, graduating to about an inch and a half in front and on the sides.

Around the neck and ears hair should be left shaggy enough so that it will still meet your collar and the tops of your ears. Trim your sideburns slightly, to the middle of your ears. Now you have only two problems to cope with: fuzziness and dryness. In no time short hair can look like sunburned straw. It needs frequent conditioning.

Re-enter Brylcreen, the conditioning hair dressing.

Oh, so this is not REALLY a public service announcement.   You can’t get the style if you don’t use Brylcreem!  By the way, Virginia Slims may have said “You’ve come a long way, baby,” but Brylcreen says:

We’ve come a long way since “a little dab’ll do ya.”

Wait a sec. My first grade teacher said that about glue! We used to use so much that we would have to peel the rest off our hands like we were shedding snakes when we got home.

One may wonder what the difference between 1974 and the current “I am sort of starting to grow my hair out” looks?  This was actual a specific style that one worked towards versus just “letting it happen.”

The part that I thought was particularly funny, is that the ad proclaims that this would be the style SURELY that would last for many years to come.  SURELY the writer didn’t see Disco or hair bands, or even Robert Plant coming.  Or they didn’t want to.

1979: Slippery Sleepwear

RollerKaty brought up a (not so) fond memory of laying on the living room floor, Sear’s Christmas Wishbook spread out on the floor.   I always used to skip the “boring” section (the clothes), and started out somewhere before the toys where the “novelty gifts for adults” were (Namely, gumball machines and chess sets with scifi characters) and I studied every page from there on out.  I always was glad that Sears left the back supporters and the support hose out of it, but was sometimes a little weirded out by adults in sleepwear.

RollerKaty offers forth this selection from 1979.   I like the “family portrait” at  far left.  The pose is so natural and believeable.   The gentleman in the main photo looks like he is ready for a strange boxing match.  Isn’t there something just a little wrong about that?

I vaguely remember liking to look at the bedding section of the catalogs, but wondered to myself if someone bought satin sheets and satin robes and satin boxers, they would either sweat to death or slip right out of bed and end up somewhere between the threshold of the bedroom and the guest bathroom way on the other side of the house.

For purists, there is silk satin, rayon satin, and artificial satin.  These are actually Arnel triacetate, but I would argue they fall neck and neck with rayon satin and just above silk satin in the slip and slide department.

Did Mickey Mouse Kill Disco?

We know that “Video Killed the Radio Star,” but what specific and single entity killed Disco?   Broad summaries of the changing tastes of society does not do for Disco what the Buggles so succinctly described regarding musicians with a face for radio several years later.

Thanks to Katy, otherwise known as her Super Hero Alter Ego, RollerKaty, for a stirring up a painful childhood memory of mine at TheRollerBlog.   The Mickey Mouse Disco Album would be definitely a part of any good thesis on why Disco sputtered and died, or evidence of the moment when it was about to crumble.    The creative moment when someone in a meeting suggested that a Disco version of “It’s a Small World” must be unleashed on the world had to involve a compromised mental state for sure.

If you were old enough to have any conscious memories from any part of the 70s, or you weren’t conscious until much later and just like the retro vibe, the site is definitely worth a stroll and a laugh or too as well.

Sunday Funnies

Add your own caption!

This vintage ad from the 1970s (as if I had to mention the decade as it does all but smack one in the head) is one of my favorites. I was going to add my little historical commentary about it, but thought it would be far more fun for people to comment with their own captions or commentary about what is happening here to see what readers came up with.

Do you think I will regret my decision about opening up the floodgates on this one?

I will reveal the product that this ad was hawking and the probably less thrilling real captions later.

To add your two (or three) cents, just leave a comment at the bottom of this post. I will approve them as I go for others to read, and then will publish the best ones when I post the true details of the ad.

I can’t wait to read it.

It’s Seiko Time

Seiko began in Japan, at K. Hattori, the eponymously named clock and jewelry shop of Mr. Kintar? Hattori. In 1892, the “Seikosha” clock was born. Thirty-two years later, the first Seiko watches, were on the market. The watch world was innovated with the Seiko Astron, the first quartz watch, in 1969. Just for trivia’s sake, it is said that the word “seiko” means “minute,” “exquisite,” or “success.” Very apt for the brand that has been the official timekeeper at many Olympic games since 1964.

I found a few Seiko Watches on Bluedial.com. One or two bring to mind the Gold Grand Seikos that were made with real gold in the 60s and the 70s. This one has the full 35mm dial. Today, with the price of gold, of course, you will get a gold plated or stainless steel one, but admirers won’t know. There are slight differences in design nuance, of course, from period pieces. However, if you are looking for a masculine (read: BIG dial), gold tone watch to make your 1960s or 1970s (leisure suits!) ensemble a little more authentic looking, it may be the watch for you. Only time piece historians, and not your admirers, will probably point it out to you.