IF: International Fashions

Worn proudly by pimps everywhere -- in the 70's.



For more retro fashion-for-men goodies, see Fashion ads from Ebony Magazine, 1970 - '76.

Move Your Boogie Body

Judi Sheppard Misset & friends Jazzercise to "Move your Boogie Body" by the Bar-Kays.

The Slippers That Got Away

They lured me in, with their sweet kitschy goodness...

And the $95 price tag meant all I could get was these photos.

Snotty French Tricks

The French are always up to something... Like this vintage hanky which has "Pour Le Rouge De Vos Levres" printed on it.



Pour Le Rouge De Vos Levres means, "For The Red Of Your Lips."

Yeah, put your lips to what I blew out of my nose here. No, no, it's fine. Would this sweet little kitten fool you?

No Bull

In a world without men we may be free of the bull shit -- but who will lead the cows?

Photo by Corey Arnold.

Vintage Dancing Bear

Someone didn't read the fine print closely on that promotional flyer. Me? I'd have had a swell time.

And seen a possible future career.

Children of the Atomic Age

This week's Craft-Scan Friday is the bedroom of the kids of a 1950s rocket scientist -- no Beatles or football or Vietnam here. We're looking to the skies and the future!

The english-mangling caption reads:

In-orbit room for boy has atomic motifs on bedspread, rug with radiant northern lights, sleek tables. String circle, the pillows symbolize sun, moon, and earth. Plane, balloon, show the progress of flight. Setting is by Irma Bolley.

Irma Bolley, it appears, affected a generation with her string art, so it's no surprise she reproduced, as funky string art, something Dave Bowman saw in his descent into spaciness. While she did her best to interpret what a sky-obsessed kid would like, it's obviously what a kid would get if his grandma designed his bedroom using a handful of random space terms pulled from a hat. It even goes so far as to assume some important facts. For example, from the diorama, we can assume that kids who idolize astronauts drink Coca-Cola, eat uncut raw tomatoes, and snack on Shake-n-Bake pork chops. They enjoy the letter M, globes, chess, and Montgolfier. They will appreciate the opportunity to tell their friends that their afghan is decorated with an atomic diagram of beryllium. A truly geeky kid can understand the planetary symbolism depicted on the pillows, and will snort loudly while mocking less-nerdy kids who don't get it. Personally, I think the shag rug might actually be rather enjoyable, lying on my stomach with my nose an inch from that 12" black-and-white TV, even though the 'northern lights' symbolism is invisible even to my tolerant eye.

The amount of media in the room is a nice forward-looking touch, though. Not only is the space-faring child a TV watcher, they're a radio-listener and a record-player-player. Bolley also took the time to make rudimentally-accurate wooden model of the X-15, complete with external fuel tanks, to hang in the room. I admit, without a note on another page I probably wouldn't have recognized it as a real plane, but in comparison they did an adequate job of representing it. The abacus on the wall is nicely geeky, but it was probably as foreign to a kid of the 60s as a slide rule is to a kid today; although, I'd wager that once this kid reached his teenage years, having a counting/adding machine mounted above his couch-cum-bed would lead to knowing looks and innuendo. Having that, his friends might even overlook the creepy string art.

(source: McCall's Needlework & Crafts, Fall-Winter 1968-69)

I Love The... Crusty Artist

My new favorite crusty artist is Timothy Ray. I met Timothy at the NMVA's Art Burn on Saturday and yet it wasn't until I read more about him that I discovered his inner-true-crusty-artist self.

Timothy Ray on the Herd About The Prairie buffalo event:

On the one hand, this project has been repeated so often with so little variation, that one cannot be blamed for saying “Oh, no. Not again” On the other hand, these projects are enormously popular, easily out-drawing even the most important museum exhibitions. So even though it is corny, trite, and represents a feeble effort to raise cliché to the level of kitsch, one must participate. Otherwise, if one simply opts out, he doesn’t get to make these statements.

Which I find really amusing -- mainly because I didn't dare utter such a thing when our daughter, Allie, had a part in painting a buffalo. Mommy-work collides with my true aesthetic response. It's not that I don't find her work or the other artistic bison messages interesting, or even non-art; I support the arts (nearly) as much as I support my kids. But damn if Ray doesn't speak the truth of such events & 'opportunities.'


From his Studio Crawl note we glean more about Ray's views on art:

If you're looking for ducks, cute children or fall landscapes, try someplace else. There is lots of that out there.

Oh, he's so damn wise. He describes the reason why I avoid many art shows. I've got cute kids at home. I collect ducks. Fall happens for many months -- every year. With art, I want something new. Something... else.

It can't be wrong to covet an artist's work for his personal crusty-factor; it's like the living artist's statement.

Crazy Cat Cutouts

I found this classy ad in the February 1959 issue of Home Craftsman -- get yourself 110 different jigsaw patterns:

Have Fun - Make Money selling these amazing NEW UNUSUAL Novelties, Gifts, Lawn Figures...Animals, Bar Implements, Door Markers, Plaques, Wall Shelves, etc. Easy...Trace, saw out, and paint. $1 brings you these EXCITING and DIFFERENT 110 fill size BIG patterns. Order now!

When they say UNUSUAL, EXCITING, and DIFFERENT -- they mean it, if the rest are anything like their best examples from the ad. Stepping away from the cute and homey patterns that usually came in jigsaw pattern books , these are right out of Mad Magazine: A wacky buck-toothed cat, tongue lolling out, saliva splattering off it? Was this supposed to be for Grandma to put up in her garden, or Mom to hang over the kitchen sink? It has a very grubby, loose style associated with underground comics (or "comix" if you're not a square like me). There's something very familiar about these two examples, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Is there anything remotely cute or endearing about this duck? He's got some headband with leaves or feathers in it, leaning forward menacingly...and I like him. These two examples have some life to them, something that separates them from the generic style in most ads. They're not sweet, they're not traditional -- they're art. It's too bad the illustrator isn't named in the ad: the address for this "Trans Plans" company isn't some fancy office building -- according to Google Maps it's a residential area in Yonkers, sandwiched between Lincoln High, Yonkers Raceway, and Hillview Reservoir. It'd be easy to make a joke about drawing crazy comics while living in mom's basement, but, well, that's where some of the best comics came from.

How the 1950s Saw Themselves

In 1958, RCA Camden released "Hits of the '50s", just 1/5 short of the actual decade's end. Not that they were missing much -- the hits for the rest of the decade echoed what's on this record: light popular music, with just a touch of rock-and-roll. This is a 'cover' album in the traditional sense, new versions of popular music performed by B-list musicians rather than the one who popularized the song. The Honeydreamers, Connie Haines, Dave Martin and the Strollers, they had names outside of this album, and are a step above a studio band. The songs are actually pretty good: Peter Ricardo's version of the Banana Boat Song takes from the Tarrier's version, and is a bouncy alternative to the rather somber Bellafonte version.

However, the cover is excellent:

click for a larger view

That space helmet kicks ass -- remember, in 1958, sending a person into space was still a sci-fi fantasy. Once we started popping people out of our atmosphere, space helmets stopped looking like this one, opting for a more stark, aviation style.



The antenna on top is a classy Googie, Jetsons thing -- with radio and television dominating the world, everything in The Future would need an antenna, even your head (they were actually pretty close). Back in the fifties, though, putting airtight plastic over a kid's head was preparation for their spacefaring futures -- their flying cars were only a few years away. Until then, though, Dad dons his porkpie hat, mom wears her opera gloves, everyone hops into the Volkswagen to drive it to the farthest star. Make sure the canvas roof is closed, though. That cloth sunroof, incidentally, warranted a credit on the back of the cover: Volkswagen Sunroof supplied by Fifth Avenue Motors, New York City. The photographer's name, the models' names? Nowhere to be found.

When Clowns Scare The Snot Out Of People

I wouldn't have the nerve to bring a clown towards my face -- I usually shield myself from them because they scare the snot out of me. Which, in theory, means a clown hanky would hold, literally, a certain sense of poetic justice, right? But this one has "moveable bead eyes", which means it would be looking at me -- able to make eye contact even! :shudder:

Not to mention the pains of the whole nostril-to-eye dealio.

Susy (Is) Wong

From a 1962 Today's Woman Christmas Ideas magazine (page 142) comes this Susy Wong Doll pattern:



'Cuz nothin' says, "Merry Christmas, female children!" like your very own handmade brothel doll.

The World of Suzie Wong, by Richard Mason, was published in 1957 and the Paramount film (starring William Holden & Nancy Kwan) was released in 1960. (My copy of the book, shown here, is a 1960 paperback printing whoring the movie.)


Hard to even imagine that Fawcett Publications could be ignorant to the connection...

Going from Suzie to Susy won't make a Wong right.

Too Excited

I'm listing in the store, and as per the usual I get all excited over the junk inventory.

It doesn't matter what it is really, but I have to stop and enjoy it while listing it. I rationalize that buyers want to know all about it, but really it's just because I love stuff.

When playing What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls I coincidentally drew the heart-shaped personality card shown here. It reads:

You get too excited
Bad for: Surgeon, Lawyer and Astronaut

Yeah, well, I don't want to be any of those things anyway. I don't want to be anything which has a threshold of 'too excited.'

But the reason I'm telling all of you this is that the posts might just be coming all fast-and-furious like. Just one vintage magazine could keep me here for 24 hours -- and maybe you too, huh.

Plug In And Turn On To... Flavored Candles

This Hollywood Fudge Candle, © 1971, made by Control Tower, Hollywood, Calif. is a brown candle on wooden sticks with a paper label to further enhance the frozen-treat look.

Packaging reads:

Artificially Colored, Scented, Quiescently Poured Candles

Ingredients: Artificial flavoring (except banana and root beer) a variety of flickering, far out, absurd flavors.

More proof that the 70's were a confusing time - a fudge flavored candle? And nowhere does it say that this candle should not be ingested. Nor does it state that you ought not put the lighted candle in your lap...

I guess that's why ControlTower is no longer around. Even with such a cool tag line as "Plug In And Turn On To Bright Ideas" (What?! No, "man" at the end of that?)

The 70's were indeed a kinder, gentler time. I guess with all the drugs, no lawyers were really needed.

But still, with all the far out drugs, should flavor-tempting home decor be left near guests with munchies?

Pageant Dolls

Barbies depicting all the pageantry of um, pageants -- from fabulous exotic locations, like Kyrgyzstan & Nebraska.




Amazing how many are blonde, huh.

NiniMomo says, "Barbie® dolls are the copyrighted works of Mattel, Inc. They are being recostumed, republished, and sold in this instance only with the express written permission of Mattel." I guess that explains the boxes.

Baby's Bottle Of Doom

Baikinange brings us this gem for the Save The Baby files:

Future Hauntings

When at the Trash or Treasure event for CQ, students from Studio One guilted me into an interview which has now been posted.

In it you get to see more of me than I'd like. Not only do I discuss that ugly little sad folk art piece and my boudoir chair, but I threaten my children -- publicly:

"I keep telling my kids if they get rid of my stuff when I die, I will haunt them. So they are not allowed to get rid of it."

So I guess if I haunt them, I'd legally be without a leg to stand on. And, if the chair is one of the items they get rid of, I won't even be able to sit on that. But I don't suppose either of those things matter to ghosts.

Where Disney Goes, Smileys Always Follow

Together, forever.

Slow Moving Mondays

And don't you just wish your boss would modify your workload.

Practical Polly's Wonder Woman Sweater