WHILE slutty “nurses” and i-banking “pimps” across Manhattan consigned their Halloween costumes to the back of the closet last week, there’s a group of New Yorkers who won’t be shelving their flapper dresses, fedoras or feather boas anytime soon.
Instead, they celebrate the Roaring ’20s every day in a fashion that would definitely win Jay Gatsby’s approval. They’re here, they’re young – they’re part of New York’s growing vintage scene. These are the jazz babies, the festive fops, the swing dancers and the neo-Victorian vamps – and they all converge once a month at the Dances of Vice masquerade ball, where they swig sidecars and dance a perfect Charleston.
“We’re not throwbacks to the ’20s and ’30s, though the vintage scene is inspired by those times,” says film photographer Don Spiros, from behind a freestanding camera that’s circa 1940.
“We just want to dress up, socialize and enjoy the finer things in life.”
The Dances of Vice – which started in August – occurs the third Saturday of every month upstairs at the Pussycat Lounge. The venue invites a collision of worlds as the typical Pussycat Lounge patron (cough … bridge and tunnel!) tends to gape in disbelief as Stetson-wearing gentlemen light up corncob pipes and spiffy bobbed women remove their gloves to light cigarettes outside the club’s velvet rope.
“It’s all about the decadence,” says Shien Lee, the event’s host and founder. “Flappers were the punks of their era, and we wanted to maintain the dirty naughtiness of the time.”
SteamPunk Magazine, the must-read for all neo-Victorians and Edwardians – and which bills itself as obsessed with “fashion, misapplied technology and chaos” – sponsored the last Vice event.
Once a month, Lee outfits the bar with a large yellow moon, clears a space on the wooden floors for dancers and hires a live jazz band for the event. The ball attracts a bohemian crowd: burlesque dancers, retro performers, jewelry designers, models and, natch, Ph.D students.
This isn’t your average crowd of hipsters, all clad in identical skinny pants and matching sneers. At the recent event, one person flounced around the room in an Edwardian powdered wig, others marched in WWI uniforms, and still others posed in 1940s pinup wear.
“I’ve never seen such a blending of subcultures. You have swing dancers next to Goths next to the Roaring ’20s crowd,” says Upper West Sider Heidi Rosenau, a petite swing dancer.
Michael Arenella & His Dreamland Orchestra provide the rollicking ’20s tunes. Arenella, who sings and plays trombone, is a walking retro photograph -complete with a boiler hat, 1920s slang and a killer 1951 Lincoln sports sedan.
“It’s just swell,” he says of his newfound popularity.
Cooler-than-thou Urbandaddy – a scenester e-mail magazine – hired Arenella to perform at a recent event. He was surprised by the positive reaction from the notoriously hard-to-please hipster crowd.
“I think people are yearning for quality and a deeper experience,” he says. “The time is ripe for people to start looking back.”
The 29-year-old Arenella is something of a celebrity of the vintage scene. He lives in a Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn apartment that houses his hand-cranked phonograph and large record collection. His clear dedication – not only to the music but also to the lifestyle – sets him apart from many of the subculture’s dabblers.
He almost always dresses in vintage garb, whether he’s performing or not.
“We’re a bunch of rejects,” he says of his world. “We’re the people who could never find a place. So you can’t take yourself too seriously.”
Though Arenella is dedicated to the spirit of the ’20s, he doesn’t have the funds to buy authentic vintage clothes and period-piece furniture. It’s his friend, 49-year-old furniture maker Roddy Caravella, who is the self-described “purist.”
Caravella rarely, if ever, mixes clothing from different periods. To achieve the polished look of the ’20s and ’30s, he has his clothes made by bespoke tailor Michele Savoia. His three beloved cars all date before 1970, and his house is plastered with art deco décor.
“We are a subculture,” says Caravella, dressed smartly in a two-piece suit. “The furniture, the clothing, the music – it’s all an authentic passion for a lost era.”
Rosenau is another self-described “purist.” Her wardrobe consists mainly of clothes from 1937 to 1939, and she owns 120 pairs of shoes. Rosenau dresses vintage every day, even for work – although, since she works at the Frick museum, her choice seems oddly fitting. “I was just the funny person on the bus,” she says. “Now, at Dances of Vice I’m with people who share my passion. I guess I’m not so strange after all.”
Want to live la vida vintage, old sport?
Here’s what the swells are all about:
* Fave Gin Joints: The swing dancers congregate at Swing 46 in Midtown. In November and December, many will spend their Saturday nights with the George Gee Orchestra at the Grand Harmony Palace in Chinatown.
* Best Bootleg Liquor: Sidecars, Manhattans, martinis and Fernet-Branca, an herbal liquor made of distilled beets (sold by pharmacies during Prohibition because it tasted like medicine) on the rocks.
* Swell Movies: James Cagney’s “The Roaring Twenties” (1939) and Louise Brooks’ silent film “Pandora’s Box” (1929).
* Keen Music: Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie.
* Putting on the Ritz for Dames: Pin-curled or finger-waved hair, low-cut necklines, dresses, masculine silhouettes, stockings and heels, small cloche caps.
* Putting on the Ritz for Gents: High-waisted pants, neckties and bow ties, pocket squares, vintage corncob pipes.
* Best Place to Buy Vintage/Vintage Inspired Looks: Hell’s Kitchen flea market on Saturdays and Sundays; Starstruck Vintage Clothing in the Village.