Posted in: Vintage Flats Minturn Apartments, 22nd & Capitol

The city is replete with buildings like this–loaded with potential,  sad and forlorn–a fading shadow of a former, glorious, incarnation. The namesake of this building is from its first owner, Joseph Allen Minturn (6/20/1861- 4/3/1943),...

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Posted in: Sunday Ads Sunday Ads: State Fair: September 17-22, 1888

A few ads and other info from the State Fair program from the 1888 State Fair. Hotel English–before it consumed the entire northwest quadrant of the circle. General Fair information: 10 cents round trip on a...

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Posted in: Sunday Ads Sunday Adverts: The Postcard From Nowhere

A “Postcard from Nowhere,” side one: found in Indianapolis Marion County Public Library Digital Indy Collection A Vintage Advertising Curiosity Researching old advertisements can bring on a serious case of the “WhatTheHecks!?” Take, for example, this early...

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Posted in: Friday Favorites Friday Favorite: Classy Vintage Address

Lockerbie Street Cruising historic neighborhoods allows for many fanciful discoveries. One of the features of most every building is its number. Indianapolis started numbering buildings fairly early in its development, but because there wasn’t an...

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Ladies Lounge: Glamour For an Indy Woman, Born 1913

Does the sight of a baby ever prompt you to wonder what the world will look like for that child when he or she is decades older? Or maybe when they are your age? Think...

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Road Trip: Vintage Fashion in Pattern

“Want to write about fashion from a historical perspective…?” Pattern  Editor-in-Chief, Polina Osherov queried this past fall. If you weren’t aware, Indy has an emerging interest in fashion and Pattern is an organization dedicated to “Uniting...

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Posted in: Sunday Ads Sunday Adverts: Rink’s for Coats

The last “Friday Favorite” was about the former Joseph Rink family home; next week’s will be Rink’s Cloak House, reportedly one of the first department stores in the USA devoted exclusively to women’s clothing and...

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Ladies Lounge: Warm Colors of Autumn

I don’t know about you, but this is the most eagerly anticipated autumn I can recall. Ever. And with it, the colors of fall will soon be moved back into my wardrobe’s repertoire. You could...

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Posted in: Friday Favorites Friday Favorite: Park it Like It’s Hot

A couple of months ago, one of the current and most oft quoted Hoosiers I’m aware of, “The Urbanophile” directed his attention to a banal new parking garage soon to be foisted upon the people...

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Ladies Lounge: Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Sew Me

With all the talented women who have lived and do live in Indianapolis, I’m guessing the number of capable seamstresses, in total, is astronomical.  A few such accomplished locals have started an organization called Pattern...

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Ladies Lounge: That Ayres Look, 1951 Derby Style?

Many thanks to Thomas Brown for sharing this gorgeous 1951 advert with a dress by Traina-Norell and hat by John Frederics. If Indianapolis had a derby, I think this would be my pick! Ok, J....

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Ladies Lounge: The Skirts Have It

“There’s nothing new under the sun,” so the saying goes–and never more so than in the world of fashion. There are, in fact, just so many ways you can drape and decorate the human form....

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Posted in: IndyView Revisited IndyView Revisited: The Circle, 1942

A blustery rainstorm blew through Indianapolis in January, 1942. Photographer John Vachon was in Indy on assignment for the Farm Security Administration, and he chose to document street scenes with his small rangefinder Leica as...

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Ladies Lounge: Spring…in your step!

Our unusually early (and fabulous) Indianapolis spring inspires the dusting off of the spring and summer shoe wardrobe. Here are some fab finds from 1954–I’d love to have just about any of these. Et vous?...

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Ladies Lounge: What would we wear to the Oscars if they’d been in Indianapolis in February

1956 No Doubt there would have been a lot more long sleeves, for a start. Some of those ladies looked chilly at yesterday’s Oscars, even in California, but had they been in Indianapolis, outerwear would...

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Ladies Lounge: Pinteresting

It’s often difficult to find vintage Indianapolis ads or other ephemera we’d love to acquire to share with the fine readers of HistoricIndianapolis.com –so what a delight to find some on Pinterest.com. We’ve taken the...

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Posted in: Sunday Prayers Sunday Prayers: Commercial Buildings Need Love Too!

Would love to know what’s behind all that cruel looking vinyl and what the ornamentation and windows looked like pre-vinyl. Eegads. You can tell this had been a beauty!...

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Ladies Lounge: Elegant Winter Wardrobe, No Clothes Required

Charm Magazine, February 1953 Today’s Ladies Lounge, brought to you by Minx Vintage & Home  Please follow Minx on facebook! and check out their vintage repertoire in the Penn Arts building- 111 E. 16th Street...

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Posted in: Then & Now Indianapolis Then and Now: West Market Street and the 500 Festival Parade

Thanks to Jon Berg, a Historic Indianapolis reader, who shared this photograph at the Indiana Album Scan-a-Thon at the Harrison Center for the Arts earlier this month. The caption for this parade image reveals that...

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Posted in: Ladies Lounge Ladies Lounge: 2012 Golden Globes, Reimagined Worst to Best

With all the money, stylists, designers, and the like, how can Hollywood still turn out this many ladies looking this wrong? Most of them are physically fit, and therefore have a great frame to start...

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