bangsandabun.com

Vintage Bangs

That’s me, as Junior Bangs. I was always a bit of a poser. I believe that was my moody/brooding look. It’s funny how sometimes the things you’re around/interested in as a kid carry right through to adulthood. I figured maybe taking a look back at a little vintage Bangs would go some way towards explaining some things about me now, particularly my passion for style.

I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to a Canadian father and Irish mother. My mother, known round these parts as ‘Mama Bangs’, was a weaver. That’s her on the left, weaving.

This was the late 70s/early 80s and Halifax, at the time, had a thriving arts and crafts scene, which my mother was very involved in.

She’d weave fabrics and make clothes.

She had a shop, Clique (pictured left) and would put on fashion shows (pictured right).

And all in all, she was kinda ridiculously stylin’. I mean, look at her. (That’s her with Brother Bangs, before I came on the scene).

So you see, with all that going on around me, it was kinda hard for me to not take an interest. Mama Bangs always made my clothes and though I was just a kid, I remember being conscious of style, what my mother did and seeing people in her fabrics.

I moved back to Halifax, Nova Scotia for a while a few years ago and there’s a shop there called Mills Brothers who still use Mama Bangs’ fabrics in their Christmas displays to this day.

Being surrounded by all that as a youngster, it seems almost inevitable that I’d have an interest in style. We still have a few of the clothes my mother made with her fabrics, including some wonderful capes and I will never get rid of them.

She made clothes for me well into my teens and will still make the odd thing now. She and I share this passion for style to this day and it’s been something we’ve bonded over all my life.

So you see, for me, my love of fashion goes a little deeper than the need to waste money on a shopping spree. It’s about creativity, watching something being made from scratch, seeing someone continue to wear it years later, the bond between the women who fawn over it. It’s about having something of my mother’s that I can hold onto forever and being miles away from home but catching a little slice of Mama Bangs in a shop window.

Related posts:

Tags: clothes, history, Mama Bangs, style