AN ANNUAL CELEBRATION 

THE VINTAGE FASHIONS STYLE SHOW AT GENEVA, ILLINOIS 

 

Written and Photographed by June Grayson 

 

 

	 When Geneva celebrates its annual 	Historic Preservation Days, one of the 	high points is a three day Vintage Fash	ions Style Show combined with a leisurely 	Victorian High Tea in the city's leading 	restaurants.  

 

 

If you love something, you want to share it. Marbella Glass and Marilyn Long have discovered the ideal way to share their love of vintage clothing. Every year they produce a vintage fashions style show using garments from their own personal collections as part of their community's observation of its historic past.  

Residents of Geneva, Illinois, astride the picturesque and peaceful Fox River only forty miles west of Chicago, are determined to preserve the best attributes of small town living in spite of surrounding suburban expansion. So each spring Geneva celebrates its heritage with a three day community festival called Historic Preservation Days. Everyone - the city government, the Chamber of Commerce, business people, local organizations, and residents - cooperate to make the celebration a success. There is usually something for everyone: quilters, home remodelers, health enthusiasts, shoppers, diners, and fashions devotees.  

Only about 350 people each year, however, are fortunate enough to secure the tickets for the popular Victorian High Tea and Vintage Fashions Style Show held each afternoon in one of the three downtown restaurants. Tickets are limited because restaurant seating capacity is limited.  

These lucky ladies - and a few intrepid gentlemen - will spend 90 minutes sipping on assorted teas and sampling dainty sandwiches, scones, desserts, and house specialties. They have come to see the dozen lissome models (with those 18 inch waists you would die for, but not diet for) in their more than two dozen authentic costumes from a romantic past.  

Five years ago Marbella Glass and Marilyn Long pulled the first vintage fashions style show together in four weeks at the urgent plea of the program committee of the Geneva Chamber. A sellout from the first, the show has now grown into a year-around project for these two Geneva friends who are also local antique dealers.  

Vintage clothing is an increasingly popular collectible in Geneva, as well as throughout the United States. What used to be considered simply old and out of date, has now achieved status from an artistic and historic, as well as an investment, point of view. 

Since "vintage" means "of a particular time," fashions lend themselves to classification according to decade. For their shows, therefore, Glass and Long usually start with an ensemble from the 1880s and finish with the 1950s.  

Long writes and prepares the printed program, different each year, that weaves a tale and describes each costume in full. The models are prepared to stop and answer questions from the audience about any item they are wearing.  

	How do they secure their costumes? "They just come to us all year long, as if by design," Long says. "We always have enough so that we never have to use a costume more than once."  

The two friends do all of the acquisition, cleaning, and repairing themselves. They are mortal enemies of dirt. "Clothing disintegrates because of dirt, not age," Glass asserts. "You can wash almost anything, even a beaded dress. Soak a garment in your bathtub in water, a gentle laundry soap such as Woolite, and a tiny amount of bleach if necessary. The most important thing is to rinse the garment thoroughly. Arrange it carefully to dry on a white sheet laid over a piece of plastic on your rug."  

Long does the research and assembles the accessories for the outfits. "Accessories are so important in presenting an outfit correctly," Long believes. "The hardest things to find are the shoes. So few of them have survived. If we can't find any to fit, we just ask our model to wear a plain black pump." 

Glass, the owner of the Geneva antique store, A Step In The Past, has collected vintage clothing for 25 years. "Whenever I had a booth at an antique show, I would insist that my helpers dress up in romantic Victorian outfits. That was when most women still wore slacks all of the time. People loved the beautiful costumes. It brought romance back into their lives." 

Long, the owner of Geneva's Crary House, began collecting vintage clothing when she lived in Europe. In addition to writing the program, she is also responsible for securing the models, all local volunteers. "It's such a pleasure to call them," Long beams. "They always say - don't leave me out. I love doing it. I look forward all year to doing your show." 

If you decide to collect vintage clothing, how do you start? "Elderly relatives and friends may have clothes packed away in their closets, too good to throw away, but no longer useful," Glass suggests. "They might be happy to give or sell them to someone who could make good use of them. Record the stories they tell you about the clothes. The history can be as interesting as the clothes and will add to the value of your collection." 

"Look for accessories as well as clothes," Long adds. "Hats, feathers, purses, gloves, and shoes are always needed to make an outfit complete. Even a damaged garment may still be worth buying just for a special trim." 

Because of the sheer volume of collectible clothing available, you may find it helpful to specialize by a period such as the Victorian or a category such as hats. "Collections that feature one fashion designer are especially popular but are difficult to find and expensive to assemble," Long thinks.  

Glass and Long are free to concentrate on the style show itself because the city's Chamber of Commerce handles the business side of the show, such as the publicity and the sale of the tickets. The participating restaurants are happy to cooperate because the shows are scheduled for the afternoon between two and four so their usual luncheon and dinner guests are not inconvenienced. The same program is given each of the three days but at a different restaurant each day. "We would like to be able to accommodate more people, but we don't want to move the show to a big hall," Glass says. "Then we would lose the warmth and small town feeling, as well as the wonderful ambience, our three beautiful restaurants provide," Glass says.  

Little wonder that tickets go so fast for these special shows and that Glass and Long - and their models - keep coming back for more. "We can tell when our shows are a hit," Long says. "That makes it all worthwhile. We don't get paid. Our models don't get paid. They do it out of love. I guess that is why we do it, too."  

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