What Is Old Is New Again

Happy October, everybody! In case you’re still searching for decorations (or just some inspiration), and especially if you like an old-fashioned aesthetic, here are two sites that specialize in vintage-style Halloween art.

1. Madame Talbot’s Victorian Lowbrow

The Victorian Americans (late-1800s through early 1900s) loved Halloween. So does my dear friend Christy, who told me about Madame Talbot. This artist creates imaginative hand-designed posters (“no computers used in the making”!) in a beautiful Victorian-inspired style.

Poster commemorating the Danvers State Hospital, the place that inspired the film Session 9.

The print I bought, now framed on the living room wall.

 

 

 

 

If you want to know more about the mysterious Madame Talbot, read this interview conducted by the Mutter Museum, that famously morbid medical-oddities museum in Philadelphia.

2. Vintage Beistle

Vintage Beistle creates striking, inexpensive paper goods and recently re-issued some of their own designs from almost 100 years ago. Their colorful, playful products perfectly capture the classic “old-school Halloween” imagery.

 

This guy is currently taped to our front door.

From their website:

“The Beistle Company has been the largest producer of Halloween decorations since the 1920’s. Since Halloween is one of our biggest holidays, we decided to create reproductions of the Vintage Halloween line first. Each of the products we will introduce are reproductions of actual vintage artwork from our archives. Some of the pieces selected to be re-introduced were very popular and others were selected because of their ornate classic Beistle artwork. We hope you enjoy these mysterious pieces that Vintage Beistle is bringing back to life!”