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March 19, 2024

Beautiful Fashion Illustrations by René Gruau in the 1940s

Count Renato Zavagli Ricciardelli delle Caminate, professionally known as René Gruau (1909–2004) was a fashion illustrator whose exaggerated portrayal of fashion design through painting has had a lasting effect on the fashion industry.

Fashion illustrations by René Gruau in the 1940s

Because of Gruau’s inherent skills and creativity, he contributed to a change in the entire fashion industry through the new pictures that represented the already popular designs created by designers in the industry. The benefits, including economic stimulation and enhancement of advertising are still present in the industry today via a new way of fashion illustration, fashion photography.

Gruau became one of the best known and favorite artists of the haute couture world during the 1940s and ’50s working with Femina, Marie Claire, L’Officiel, L’Album Du Figaro and an assortment of “high-style” magazines. His artwork is recognized and commended internationally in some of Paris and Italy’s most prestigious art museums including the Louvre in Paris and the Blank in Italy.

In addition to his international fame and recognition, “Gruau’s artwork is known for its timeless and enduring style”. Here below is a set of beautiful photos that shows fashion designs illustrated by René Gruau in the 1940s.

Cocktail suit and hat by Balenciaga, illustration by René Gruau, 1945

Christian Dior design for Lucien Lelong, illustrated by René Gruau, 1946

Costumes designed for the Ballet de Chota de Monte Carlo by Couturier Alex, illustrated by René Gruau, 1946

Day dresses designed by Balenciaga and Jacques Fath, illustrated by René Gruau, Femina, December 1946

Fur coat by Max A. Leroy, illustrated by René Gruau, Autumn/Winter 1946-47

March 18, 2024

MadonnaLand at Macy’s, 1985

Long before there was the Truth or Dare or the Material Girl line at Macy’s there was MadonnaLand back in 1985. Andy Warhol was there at the opening as well as Maripol, MTV and, of course, Madonna lookalike JeanAnne DiFranco.

The Virgin Tour was responsible for generating a new brand of female fan called a Madonna Wannabe. Madonna’s trademark lace attire, rubber bangles, and crucifix earrings became a fashion trademark for Madonna Wannabe’s all over the world. 

Macy’s department store in New York stocked an array of Madonna-inspired lacy garments, together with rubber bangles and large crucifix earrings. There was a somewhat frenzied copying of Madonna’s style during this period, among young women. Women were dressing like Madonna to attend The Virgin Tour. It seems that the whole world wanted a piece of Madonna.

Debbi Voller, in her book Madonna – The Style Book, says “Hundreds of thousands of young girls came to the concert dressed like her, with bleached and tousled hair, see-through tops, bras, fingerless gloves and crucifixes. Magazines and TV shows ran lookalike competitions.”

Madonna herself has said, “I never set out to be a role model. I am a strong woman, a successful woman and I don't conform to a stereotype. For so long, women have been told that there are certain ways they mustn't look if they want to get ahead in life. And there I was, dressing in a forbidden way and yet obviously in charge of my life. It was then I realized why were all of them out there in their seats, dressing like me.”

Sam Gower, writing in Rolling Stone, said “In the sixties, women burned their bras, now they wear five at a time and bare their belly buttons. Madonna has done for the corset and crucifix what punk did for the safety pin. Macy’s New York department store was flooded with buyers who bought the tour merchandise like the crucifix earrings and fingerless gloves.”
 







March 18, 1931: The First Viable Electric Dry Shaver Goes on Sale in the U.S

Jacob Schick was the inventor. He served in the U.S. Army, and during the Spanish-American War was in the Philippines; he got dysentery, a disease common in the tropics. After Schick recovered (which took a year!), the Army transferred him to Alaska—the opposite of the tropics. There Schick helped lay down a thousand miles of telegraph lines.

After retiring from the Army, Schick explored for gold in Alaska and Canada. He hated shaving with water in the bitter cold and tried to invent a better (drier, less cold) way to shave. He came up with an electric shaver that was bulky and required two hands: one hand to hold the shaving head, and the other to hold the bulky motor, which was connected to the shaving head by a cable.

Schick’s earliest prototype for the electric shaver was a bulky, two-handed affair.

Manufacturers didn’t like his idea.

During World War I, Schick served in the Army again. After the war, he started working on his idea again. He manufactured it himself and brought it to market in 1929—just in time for the Great Depression!

Schick’s razor didn’t sell well. But he didn’t give up. He mortgaged his house to get enough money to keep the business alive, and he finally got the motor and shaving head to the size so that the razor was handy instead of clumsy. With the entire razor-and-motor in one unit that fit comfortably in one hand, the electric razor that Schick brought out in 1931 finally began to sell.. .and sell, and sell.


Actually, it’s almost surprising that this early razor sold as well as it did. It cost only $25—but that’s like $400 in today’s money! Still, customers compared that cost to the cost of blades and shaving cream and other expenses of a wet shave, and decided the price was just fine.

In just 6 years, 1.5 million razors sold.

Ad for the Schick "20" electric shaver, printed in the Saturday Evening Post, October 3, 1953. Notable as the source for Neon Park’s cover art for the Frank Zappa album Weasels Ripped My Flesh.

Schick got rich and retired to Canada. But his lingering health problems caught up with him, and he died in 1937. He said the lifespan of a man who shaved correctly every day would be 120 — he lived less than half that time.

35 Glamorous Photos of French Model Marie-Lise Grès in the 1960s

Marie-Lise Grès (1939–1983) was the epitome of early-Sixties French chic — as French, perhaps, as only someone who’d grown up in suburban London could be. Born in Mauritius, Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot cane to England with her family aged 8, and came to prominence as a model a decade later. In an era of fragile blondes, Volpeliere-Pierrot’s blunt features, huge eyes and dark, heavy fringe set her apart from the pack — and though she shortened her surname for work, it was to the no-less Gallic Grès.

Marie-Lise Grès in the 1960s

Working with Frank Horvat, Eugene Vernier, Terence Donovan and David Bailey, Grès was lauded as one of the most promising faces of the coming decade. She fulfilled that promise by appearing in some of the era’s most dramatic fashion images — perhaps most notably for William Klein, who shot her outside the Paris Opera in Yves Saint Laurent, the only recognizable figure in a faceless crowd.

In 1967, Denholm Elliott introduced Grès to Hurt. Within a week they moved in together, marking the start of an enduring affair. Grès gave up modeling, and indulged in her passion for horse riding instead. One January morning, sixteen years later — a day that was ‘cold, wet, nasty altogether,’ Hurt would remember — the couple were out riding near their Oxfordshire home when their horses bolted. Grès was thrown into a ditch, and died.

A decade later, a journalist asked Ossie Clark which models had first inspired him. Clark’s answer, instantly, was the “truly wonderful” Grès. Take a look at these glamorous photos to see portraits of Marie-Lise Grès in the 1960s.

Marie Lise Gres in strapless tiered lace evening dress by unidentified designer, photo by Frank Horvat, 1960

Marie Lise Gres in black lace dress with swinging bolero, tiny waist and swirling skirt ruffled with lace and tied with satin by Nettie Vogues, shoes by Charles Jourdan, photo by Michel Molinare, Harper's Bazaar UK, December 1961

Marie Lise Gres during fashion shoot at the home of Otto Lucas (milliner), photo by Sandra Lousada for Queen magazine, 1962

Marie Lise Gres has a straight-on haircut, beautifully asymmetric that frames the face with a soft fringe, by John, photo by Michael Williams, Harper's Bazaar UK, July 1962

Marie Lise Gres in black faille ball gown with gored skirt and braided and sequined top by Julian Rose, satin stole from Jacqmar, photo by Richard Dormer, Scott Memorial, Edinburgh, Scotland, Harper's Bazaar UK, August 1962

Found Photographs Capture the Unexpected Role Cigarettes Play in Chinese Weddings in the 1980s and 1990s

Cigarettes played an unexpected role in Chinese weddings in the 1980s and 1990s. As a token of appreciation, it is customary for the bride to light a cigarette for each and every man invited. The bride and the groom are then invited to play some cigarette-smoking games of an unprecedented ingenuousness.

These photos come from the Beijing Silvermine project, an archive of half a million negatives salvaged over the years from a recycling plant on the edge of Beijing by the French collector and artist Thomas Sauvin.

Sauvin has been collecting photographs taken by ordinary Chinese since 2009, when he discovered a garbage dump on the outskirts of Beijing that housed bulks of discarded 35mm. negatives, ready to be processed to extract silver nitrate. He bought the negatives by the kilo and started an archival project, Beijing Silvermine, which now houses an estimate 500,000 negatives. The photographs, shot between 1985 to the early 2000s, when digital replaced analog, offer a surprisingly intimate glance at Chinese lives against the backdrop of the country’s vast social changes.






Life in the U.S. in the 1950s Through Wonderful Color Photos

The 1950s were a decade marked by the post-World War II boom, the dawn of the Cold War and the civil rights movement in the United States.

“America at this moment,” said the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1945, “stands at the summit of the world.” During the 1950s, it was easy to see what Churchill meant. The United States was the world’s strongest military power. Its economy was booming, and the fruits of this prosperity–new cars, suburban houses and other consumer goods–were available to more people than ever before.

However, the 1950s were also an era of great conflict. For example, the nascent civil rights movement and the crusade against communism at home and abroad in the Korean War exposed underlying divisions in American society.

These wonderful photos were found by Thomas Hawk that show what life in the U.S. looked like in the 1950s.

1950 Ford Custom Deluxe

Handwritten on back of slide, "July 1950"

Handwritten on slide, “1950"

Handwritten on slide, “Chaplin, 1950"

Handwritten on slide, "December 1951"

March 17, 2024

Vintage Photographs of Bronze Traffic Signal Towers in New York City From the 1920s

In the early 20th century, street congestion along New York’s Fifth Avenue was so bad that it might take 40 minutes to get from 57th to 34th Street. Horses, carriages, pedestrians, street cars, bicycles, and automobiles all competed for limited space along the city’s grand boulevard. Collisions were commonplace, especially as cars began to rule the road, and for the high-end department stores that dotted the thoroughfare, bad traffic meant bad business.

It was thanks to a generous gift from millionaire physician and New York commissioner of traffic, Dr. John A. Harriss, that the city’s traffic problem finally got a reprieve. His 1920 design for a simple, two-light signal, which consisted of a wooden shed housing light bulbs and supported by a steel base frame, was nothing to look at, but it quickly helped to solve the problem of endless gridlock.

Dr. John A. Harriss, in charge of traffic, had originally introduced traffic towers along Fifth Avenue on February 16, 1920. Harriss paid for the traffic towers’ construction and maintenance out of his own pocket. These first traffic towers were sheds, housed twelve feet off the ground in the center of the intersections, manned by a traffic officer who controlled hand-operated green, yellow and red signals. The other traffic officers stationed along Fifth Avenue would take their cues from these signals in regards to the flow of traffic.

On May 16, 1921 the New York City Board of Estimate approved five new traffic towers to replace these original towers along Fifth Avenue at 34th, 38th, 42nd, 50th and 57th Streets. Two more towers were eventually added to the plan and placed at 14th and 26th Streets, making a total of seven towers running up and down Fifth Avenue. The towers would be a gift from The Fifth Avenue Association, but would then be maintained by the city. They were designed by Joseph H. Freedlander and cast by John A. Polachek Bronze and Iron Co. of Long Island City. Each tower was about 24 feet tall, weighed five tons and was built of solid cast bronze on a heavy steel frame.

The towers had electronically synchronized clocks on their north and south faces and 350 pound bronze bells which would toll the hours. The first new tower was put into service at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street on December 14, 1922  at 2 pm amid much fanfare. The rest of the towers were opened in the following days.

On April 27, 1925 the new city law went into effect, and amber or yellow lights were eliminated to signal that northbound and southbound traffic had the right to proceed. From that day on, red would forever mean “stop” and only green would indicate “go.”









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