Tag: vintage

The Blue Book – A Glimpse into Former East Germany

Published on by hellosamanthadear12 Comments

You all know me by now; I love collecting mementos from the Cold War era! Finding vintage items from the USSR isn’t hard at all; there are countless online sellers living in post-Soviet countries who have entire Etsy shops dedicated to such vintage goods. But finding vintage items from East Germany, however, is an entirely different story!

I’ve read many insightful books on East Germany, and yet it still seems like such a mysterious shadow of a former country. It only existed from 1949 to 1990, as did its other half, West Germany.

East Germany was a communist country though and didn’t have free trade (it was a satellite state of the Soviet Union and therefore, behind the Iron Curtain), and finding vintage items online from there is harder, 30+ years after Germany reunited. There are less online sellers who sell things from the former DDR….

…but I found this!!! And boy was I shocked to come across it on Etsy, from a seller in Berlin. It’s a 1970’s membership book of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organization (it was for East German youth aged 6 to 14).

The photo of Erich Honecker is a real throwback; his portrait was everywhere in the East back then, as he was the leader of the country at the time.

I seriously can’t believe I have this. It’s a real thrill finding historical items from the Iron Curtain countries, and I’m thankful for the Internet, which enables me to further dive into my strange-fascination with fallen communist regimes! 😃

Funny side-note: while Google researching this pioneer organization, I found a vintage poster for it in Google images and the girl reminded me of myself as a kid…we even have the same TEETH, hahaaaa!!!

Now, let’s end this post with an outfit!!! I love this one because it has all sorts of color shades going on and that pop of red and pink. 💖❤️

See ya next time!!! ❤️ Do you have any collections? Feel free to share in the comments!

Uniform Nostalgia

Published on by hellosamanthadear2 Comments

The other day, my friend and I got coffee to-go and walked around the beautiful Fresno High School campus, and I came across this sign, in which I wanted a photo of me with it just because of the irony that I was holding a Frappucino.

Walking around a high school campus got me thinking about my own high school days. The black neckerchief I’m wearing in this outfit was actually part of my U.S. Naval Sea Cadet uniform! I was in the program for 3 years in high school. I decided to pull out the neckerchief from my closet and let it out for air, but this time with a more fashionable spin on it.

Here’s evidence that I was in Sea Cadets (and there’s the neckerchief, too). This was taken at Naval Air Station Lemoore in 2004! I was sixteen! The certificate I was receiving was my completion of Airman Training, which was two weeks of learning about jets, hands-on. I spent a lot of time around jet mechanics and even got to sit in the cockpit of a jet! It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and one of the biggest highlights of my life.

So I’ve always had a soft spot for uniforms, because of the nostalgia factor. It brings back good memories of my days in Sea Cadets. ❤️

Which leads me to my next neckerchief, which was also once part of a uniform. I found another vintage gem from the former USSR, and this time it’s a red neckerchief worn by the Young Pioneers organization. This one was unissued from 1990!

Reference Photo of the Young Pioneers Uniform

So here’s to bringing old things back to life. Two neckerchiefs that each served as part of a uniform at one point, are now living a new life as a fashion accessory. ❤️

Also, like my new tights?!?!?!?!?! I’m in love with them! They’re each from Amazon and you can find the cat ones here and the heart ones here!

See ya next time!!!

My Vintage Dress That’s Actually a Soviet School Uniform

Published on by hellosamanthadear9 Comments

Woohooo!!! The dress I’ve been waiting so long for finally arrived in the mail! 😍

It came from one of my favorite Etsy shops based in Ukraine that specializes in vintage USSR items, that I mentioned in my last post. When I first saw this lovely dress (I’ve been wanting a brown dress for a really long time, especially for fall), I was amazed to find out it was a 1980’s-era school uniform. All that was missing from it was the white apron and collar/cuffs, but the foundation of the uniform dress remained! And it’s in great shape, to boot!!! ❤️

I’ve always thought Soviet school uniforms were so cute! I found a great photo on Google for reference:

I’ve been fascinated (okay, obsessed) with The Cold War/US and USSR relations/the Eastern Bloc/the collapse of the Soviet Union since I was really young. I have no idea how or when it started; it’s just always been an interest of mine, it seems! So the dress is an absolute gem in my eyes, since it encapsulates both my passion for fashion and history.

Check out the old tags on the inside of the dress, written in Ukrainian:

It makes me wonder what student(s) previously owned this 30+ years ago. If only a dress could talk! And then I think of how awe-inspiring it is that it made its way to me from so far away. I’ll definitely take good care of it and I’m so happy it found a new home with me! ❤️

Lastly, my current read (because it goes sooooooo well with the content of this post and you already know I’m a history nerd), Perestroika by Mikhail Gorbachev (the former president of the Soviet Union).

I’ve been wanting to read this book, written in 1987 (the year I was born, haha), to see how Gorbachev intended to restructure and reform the USSR, which ultimately collapsed in 1991. Had the Soviet Union not fallen apart, would his reform policies have worked in the long run? We’ll never know…but now I have a piece of this collapsed, now non-existent part of history, in the form of a dress. In a lot of ways, I think the dress found me.

See ya!!! ❤️