19th January 2014 / No Comments Yet
Men Only /
September 1951
I think the copywriters might have sunk several pints themselves in the sun, because this advert has many words, few of which make any real sense. The comment referring to ‘womanlike’ is very confused, and it’s hard to make out who is actually being sold to. Perhaps this is the sort of rambling mess these ad men offered their own wives when stumbling back from a long liquid lunch.
Tags: blatant sexism, dodgy advice, emotional blackmail, marriage, retail, social history
12th January 2014 / 2 Comments
Men Only /
September 1951
Will’s Cut Golden Bar, a product of a bygone age (in the UK, at least). The advice is also from a bygone age, when pipe smoking was a sign of manhood, and smoking a routine sight in British offices.
Tags: dodgy advice, retail, social history
7th January 2014 / No Comments Yet
Men Only /
September 1951
Well, this is a fascinating snippet of history. I was given two issues of the pocket-sized magazine Men Only from 1950 and 1951 as a marvellously well-judged birthday present, which, at this point, bore no relation to the current pornographic magazine. Men Only from 1935-1970 was rather akin to GQ, although less concerned with pictures of women, the one nude in each issue being a ‘tasteful’ colour illustration. As this is pre-‘lad’ culture, the emphasis is more on being a responsible man; but not *too* responsible.
Hence, we have this advert for BP (at this point, called the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company), which appears to be referring to the nationalisation of oil production in Iran in 1951, causing Britain to organise a worldwide embargo of Iranian oil. Therefore, no BP (or Anglo-Iranian) products were available. This advert seems to be a remarkable ‘keep the faith’ message from the company, which at this point had withdrawn from Iran, only to return in 1953 when a Western-sponsored regime change had been installed. Petrol rationing in the UK had only ended in 1950, so the company could afford to sit things out back home, due to mass motoring not really becoming popular until the end of the 1950s onwards. As the excellent Wikipedia article shows, this wasn’t to be the end of the company’s troubles in that area.
This advert also appears to be addressing the development of the UK road network, which had been started in the 1920s, with the 1950s seeing the construction of motorways. All of great interest to the predominately male motorist, of course.
Tags: retail, social history
29th November 2013 / No Comments Yet
Woman's Weekly /
30th April 1965
Let me know whether you’re interested in the story that this picture accompanies, but I thought it was a rather lovely example of the type of line drawing that went out of use in magazines not that long after this was published. It certainly looks like an intriguing plot…
Tags: romance, social history
6th November 2013 / No Comments Yet
Woman's Weekly /
11th July 1969
This ad captures a point in consumer camera equipment where flashcubes (disposable flashes) were beginning to be included with cameras, rather than a flash being seen as a permanently separate element. I remember my parents using flashcubes, but all of my cameras have had electronic flashes included. The references to ‘drop in’ films probably signify the start of film cartridge use for non-instant cameras, something I remember being very common in the 1980s. Digital cameras have solved this problem, of course.
The model for kids makes sense, but the model for women heavily implies that women aren’t interested in taking the best photos they can. This could all be waved away as quaint old sexism, were it not for nonsense such as this from Bic, Lego’s appalling ‘Friends’ range, or this ‘girly laptop’.
Remind me what year we’re in?
Tags: blatant sexism, retail, social history
3rd November 2013 / No Comments Yet
Woman's Weekly /
18th June 1965
Well, as a plus-sized lady, this advert for the now well-known clothing store Evans (then D.H.Evans), was of great interest. It’s not a stand-alone advert for the store, but part of a slightly patronising feature for the ‘not-so-slender’. Hm. Of course, this might have been out of necessity, as a dress pattern is also included, presumably because the mainstream patterns weren’t designed for bigger women. I remember my mother (a plus-sized lady herself) telling me that Evans were awful in the ’60s, with frumpy designs, and this does seem to be a case in point. 10 years ago, I would have recoiled at that dress, but, now I’m in my mid-30s, I can start to see the appeal. Evans is nowadays part of the Arcadia chain, but, despite the recession, is still a major high street retailer. Even though, frankly, I still think it’s a bit rubbish. At least Evans’ heart is in the right place nowadays, with great plus-size models, rather than the rather niche, ashamed-of-itself image it’s giving in this piece!
Tags: fashion, social history
30th August 2013 / No Comments Yet
Weekend /
30th January 1974
So many gems here, but what really leaped out at me from this collection was the topless catsuit, as I remember ads for something similar in the News of the World, which my parents read regularly when I grew up. The weekend supplement was responsible for a fair bit of my sex education; thank goodness my parents were willing to answer the questions I had after reading the articles!
Tags: adverts totally made of wrong, dodgy advice, fashion, retail, social history
15th August 2013 / 1 Comment
Weekend /
30th January 1974
There’s plenty to enjoy here, of course, but I like the implication that Soviet men are suffering due to the lack of totty to wank over, and am curious as to whether the competitions to see which wives carried out their ‘duties’ were a regular thing in the USSR. There was a practical point being made by Soviet Sport, however, in that a competition based on looks WAS a political problem in the enormous and ethnically diverse USSR. Don’t worry, though, the treatment of women as accessories of men (albeit through their domestic work) still meant that it wasn’t all that different to the decadent West.
Tags: blatant sexism, social history
11th July 2013 / 2 Comments
Weekend /
30th January 1974
Good jobs. Good money. Good times; with a ‘lively’ posting in Northern Ireland, I expect. Although it must be emphasised that being on the front line isn’t the only career being promoted here. Long-term readers will recall adverts for nursing also concentrating on pay and holidays/time off, which is something unthinkable nowadays, not least because large nationalised organisations with collective pay bargaining are becoming something of the past. I suspect Thatcherism, with its emphasis on ‘hard work’ (but only for a certain section of the population) did for this sort of advert, as questions around holiday & benefits are now considered taboo in job interviews, as if all jobs were a selfless vocation, rather than a honest exchange of labour/skill for money. Again, this coyness about benefits seems to disappear the further you get up the greasy pole. Curious!
Tags: careers, social history
23rd March 2012 / 1 Comment
Woman's Weekly /
4th July 1969
Blimey, I had no idea that Avon reps used to wear a uniform! Although the corporate site has some history of the company, it doesn’t mention anything about uniforms, sadly, although there is a picture of the same uniform as in this ad.
Tags: avon, social history