Sewing in the 1900s

When I went to the library last I found a book and I've gone slightly mad about it.
It's a sewing book about remaking vintage clothes from as far back as 1920s, the idea is to make them "modern" while still keeping their vintage charm [I can't really stand straight modern clothes, just not my style]While she has some nice ideas some of them are a bit, strange, she's into retro.

1900s classification
2nd hand - dates from now to 1990s
Retro -1980 to 1960
Vintage - 1950 to 1920
Anitque - 1920 and earlier

Retro is mainly, hippie and synthetic, how horrid!!
Vintage is a whole lot more, refined, swirly calf-length dresses
Anitque is Edwardian, then before the great war, or after they had these ugly dresses that hung off the shoulders like rectangles [the idea a short man's body in a girly coloured dress] don't forget the skull cap
hats uuggghhh.

One other thing I learned was how to tell a garments age whether it had a lable or not
before the 1940s, zips were only used on uniforms. They used elastic and domes for tailored fitting instead. 10 years later metal  zips came in on dresses and skirts but fitted in the side seams or under the arm.1950 had them running down the front.The nylon zip came out in the 60s but look closely as it might of had a repair job done long after it was made. The overlocker came in the 70s so if you find anything over-locked it will be from the 70s onwards.It is easy to confuse 50s dresses with 80s dresses as they copied 50s designs.If the item has overlocking and a nylon zip it was made after 1980.
also in the 50s they had scalloped necklines which were, of course, copied in 1980.
So after reading most of the book I remembered that I had a dress with a scalloped neck so I hauled it out to see if it was 50s or 80s the bold white,blue,black pattern said 80s all over, sure enough it was overlocked.I am wearing it now but this vintage make-over thing got to me, it is now a skirt just below knee length and took awhile to make, well, shortening the hem was the worst.But you don't need to know exactly what happened:D.This was a bit of a random post I must admit, I hope it was kinda interesting.

-Tiffany