Top 20 Coolest Bikini Beauties of the 1950s

Due to its controversial and revealing design, the bikini was accepted very slowly by the public in the late 1940s and 1950s. It was accepted on European beaches years before American morals allowed them at public pools. At that time, the one piece swimsuit was preferred.

The bikini gained increased exposure and acceptance as film stars like Brigitte Bardot, Raquel Welch, and Ursula Andress wore them and were photographed on public beaches and seen in film. In many countries the design was banned from beaches and other public places.

Diana Dors, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Brosmer in bikinis, circa 1950s

The minimalist bikini design became common in most Western countries by the mid-1960s as both swimwear and underwear. By the late 20th century it was widely used as sportswear in beach volleyball and bodybuilding.

Here below is a stunning photo collection that shows the coolest bikini beauties of the 1950s.

Anita Ekberg

Abbe Lane

Bettie Page

Betty Brosmer

Brigitte Bardot

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Incredible Black and White Photos Show the Wild 1970s Party Scene in Nightclubs Across New York

Photographer Meryl Meisler has released an exhilarating exhibition of snaps giving us a peek into the excitement of the epic era. The talented photographer offers outsiders the opportunity to peer behind the curtain at another world.

New York City in the 1970s has become the stuff of legends. Anyone who was anyone got down and dirty in the city's downtown clubs with drugs, sex and disco the order of the day.

The exclusive Studio 54 disco scene saw outrageous outfits, frisky dancing and illicit fun take centre stage in an era of drama and excitement.

In an interview with Jocks & Nerds magazine, Meryl said: “I absolutely loved the disco scene; the music, the dancing, the mixed crowd and creative energy.”

Meryl Meisler has launched her exhibition with a collection of wild photos from the 70s New York club scene

Three's never a crowd in the New York clubs

Partygoers queue outside a New York venue

The dancing gets underway as these topless revellers display their acrobatic prowess

Glenn Hughes from The Village People performs to a sell-out crowd

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1940s Hair and Make-Up Secrets From Hollywood Stars for Your Face Type

Back in the 1940s, women used to choose their hairstyles depending on their face shape. For instance, if a lady had a thin face, she used to let her hair down to make it look wider.

However, even though that’s not really the case nowadays, we should just keep it in mind once we follow the vintage lifestyle. Modern Screens beauty expert Carol Carter had written for Vintage Makeup Guide and shows you how to match your given face with a glamorous Hollywood star in 1940s make-up and hairstyle.

1942 Hair and Make-up – Oval Face – Linda Darnell

Wear your hair this way:

For daytime – brush your hair from temples and sides into soft curls behind your ears to accent oval contours. Both the short feather and the modified long bob are becoming.

For evening – brush front hair into soft bangs or a smooth pompadour roll and curl the side sections into smooth reverse rolls.

Apply Make-up this way:

Place rouge in centre of cheek, blending it smoothly over cheekbone. Wear clear lipstick, not too bright, and make up mouth full, following its natural outline.

1942 Hair and Make-up – Round Face – Lynn Bari

Wear your hair this way:

Daytime – part hair on side, dressing top with small soft curls or rolls to add length to your face or sweep hair from temples into side pomps. Avoid heavy waves or curls below the ears.

Evening – brush top and side hair into smooth curls and rolls to add height. brush back section up from neck in soft, smooth waves and accent with light ornament.Avoid a bulky coiffure at your neckline.

Apply Make-up this way:

Wear rouge lightly on outer portion of cheek, blending it softly toward ear then down to jawline. Make up mouth wide following natural outline.

1942 Hair and Make-up – Square Face – Gene Tierney

Wear your hair this way:

Daytime – concentrate all fullness on upper half of the head. Wear a low side part to make forehead appear broader. Wear hair low behind ears in soft loose waves to soften the angles of the face.

Evening – sweep sides up in pompadour style. Brush hair back of ears into loose waves or curls, or ornament with pretty ribbon or barrette if you like.

Apply Make-up this way:

Place rouge in centre of cheek under eye and blend, then downward. Make up mouth wide with upward tilt to corners.

1942 Hair and Make-up – Heart Shaped – Mary Martin

Wear your hair this way:

Daytime – keep front locks soft, with bangs or waves dipping inward from temples. Wear sides smooth with fullness below ears to give chin width.

Evening – brush hair softly up from brow in reverse bangs or with top curls forming partial bang on right side. Keep loose or adorn sides of hair with flowers – very pretty.

Apply Make-up this way:

Apply rouge high on cheek, blending softly toward temple. Follow natural outline of lips but curve top one slightly at centre.

1942 Hair and Make-up – Long Face – Dorothy Lamour

Wear your hair this way:

Daytime – brush hair soft and fluffy at sides at sides, maintaining fullness below the ears to give face added width. Also wear fluffy bangs to shorten apparent length of face.

Evening – part hair in centre, have two reverse rolls going from each ear to centre part. Back hair may be combed into one low roll below ears or may be fluffed out.

Apply make up this way:

Place rouge in centre of cheeks, blending in toward nose. Accent natural outline of lips, making lower lip slightly full at corners.

1942 Hair and Make-up – Diamond Shaped – Claudette Colbert

Wear your hair this way:

Daytime – wear hair soft and full above and below ears, but dressed snugly at cheekline to give more oval contours.

Evening – encircle head in smooth reverse roll, with soft wave breaking into ringlets or bangs at the brow.

Apply Make-up this way:

Rouge highest point of cheekbone, blending gently outward in all directions. Curve lips slightly, following natural outlines, but avoid making them look too wide.

(This original article was published on Vintage Makeup Guides)

30 Amazing Color Photos of Iconic Vogue Model Jean Patchett in the 1950s

Jean was “a young American Goddess of Paris Couture” – Irving Penn, Vogue photographer

Jean Patchett (1926–2002) modeled from 1948 until she retired in 1963. Jean did model selectively after 1963 and was available to photographers for special assignments through the 1970s.

In the 1980s Jean moved from New York City to La Quinta, CA with her husband. During Jean’s heyday, her accomplishments became legendary, as she was one of the most recognizable and popular models in American fashion couture.

The October 1950 issue of Vogue Magazine featured Jean Patchett not just on its cover, but on many pages of the feature section! In this publication, there were five full-page illustrations, 3 partial page illustrations, and 4 full page advertisements! The number and frequency of Jean’s appearances in fashion magazines were amazing. She had become the center of fashion photography and was in great demand. Jean Patchett was referred to as the “Queen of Fashion Inc.” by fashion editors and photographers during this decade.

“An absolutely stunning creature with a signature beauty mark, Jean was a super model decades before the term ‘super model’ was coined, and, staggeringly, has had more covers than any fashion model in history. Jean Patchett was to Ford what Babe Ruth was to the Yankees.” Said agency owner Jerry Ford of Ford Models, who represented Jean in her heyday during the Fifties. Jean signed on with the Ford Models on May 10, 1948 according to Miss Patchett. In the Sunday News on March 18, 1951 a feature article titled: “There’s Nobody Like Patchett” author Jess Stearn wrote: “No matter what’s wanted in a model, Jean seems to have it. Because she knows exactly what to do with her hands, head and feet, and takes the right attitude toward her work, Jean has earned the rating of super-model.”

In her early career many readers of the slick magazines did not know her name but they knew her face. Jean’s face was startlingly and unconventionally beautiful, with bone structure large slightly delineated chin. But her features, delightful as they were, were not responsible for making her the most sought after, the busiest, and the most successful photographic model in New York.

Jean Patchett was a highly paid models because of a blemish. Jean had a mole next to her right eye which she darkened with an eyebrow pencil to make it more prominent. For the mole became her trademark. Manufacturers of every product from toothpaste to fashions, and jewelry to luxury cars insisted on having the girl with the mole in their advertisements.

Jean refused to work before 10 am or after 4:30 pm because she liked to cook meals for herself and her banker husband. And she only worked 3 ½ days a week. In the early 1950s Jean said: “I cut down my schedule because so many photographers wanted me to work for them that I was being booked months in advance,” she said. “That didn’t help, so I had my rate raised to $50. an hour, but that seemed to make them even more eager to have me because they all wanted to pay the highest price. I guess that’s why I’m so busy playing hard to get.”

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These Incredibly Colorized Portrait Photos From the 19th Century Will Blow You Away

Up until the 1950s and 1960s, color photography was extremely rare, and so when we think about history prior to that time, we often envision it in black and white.

Colorized photos of French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt and English actress Ellen Terry in the 1860s

Today's technology now enables us to colorize historical photos, giving us chances at imagination what the world really looked like back then. And it was truly spectacular.

These incredible portrait photos (most of them are celebrities) from the 19th century were colorized by seriykotik1970 that will blow you away.

Portrait of a beautiful woman by the Boston daguerreotypists Southworth and Hawes, about 1848

Swedish opera singer, often known as the 'Swedish Nightingale', Jenny Lind, 1950

Irish singer Lola Montez, circa 1851

Irish singer Lola Montez, taken by the Boston photographers Southworth and Hawes, circa 1851

One of the most famous and extravagant courtesans of Paris, with a string of aristocratic and royal lover, Cora Pearl photographed by André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, 1854

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38 Amazing Photos That Capture Street Scenes of Salt Lake City in the 1970s

Founded in 1847, Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous municipality of the U.S. state of Utah. Salt Lake City is further situated within a larger metropolis known as the Salt Lake City–Ogden–Provo Combined Statistical Area. This region is a corridor of contiguous urban and suburban development stretched along an approximately 120-mile (190 km) segment of the Wasatch Front. It is one of only two major urban areas in the Great Basin (the other is Reno, Nevada).

Salt Lake City's street grid system is based on the north-south east-west grid plan developed by early church leaders, with the Salt Lake Temple constructed at the city's center.

Due to its proximity to the Great Salt Lake, the city was originally named "Great Salt Lake City"; however, the word "great" was dropped from the official name in 1868 by the 17th Utah Territorial Legislature.

Salt Lake City is also the industrial banking center of the United States.

These photos from Garrett that captured street scenes of Salt Lake City in the 1970s.

Eastbound I-80 at 700 East, September 1970

Eastbound I-80 at 700 East, September 1970

300 West (2nd West) at North Temple, April 1970

Looking west on I-80 at 700 East, September 1970

Looking west on I-80 at 700 East, September 1970

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Amazing Photographs of Willa Mae Ricker and Leon James Demonstrating Steps of the Lindy Hop in 1943

Willa Mae Ricker was one of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, featured in the famous 1943 LIFE Magazine story on the Lindy Hop with Leon James, along with the white Broadway dancers, Stanley Catron and Kaye Pop whose picture appears on the cover. The photographs of individual dance steps by Gjon Mili are sensational. Especially notable is a full page photograph on a black background of Willa Mae and Leon both exuberantly jumping in mid-air.

Frankie Manning says of his longtime friend Willa Mae Ricker, “She was one of the greats of Lindy Hop... She was the soul and heart of the dance”. He specifically notes her skill in doing all of the aerials, and her physical strength “to hold men up so they could shine”.

Although Willa Mae and her husband Lindy Hopper Billy Ricker were high school sweethearts and enjoyed a long and healthy marriage, they rarely danced together professionally. She partnered Leon James, Al Minns, Frankie Manning, Russell Williams and others. She won the first Harvest Moon Ball with Leon James in 1935.

When Willa Mae died of cancer in the sixties, the romance had still not left her marriage to Billy, she never stopped dancing, and never lost the sweet disposition that made her the most beloved of the Lindy Hoppers.

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