Tuesday, February 17, 2015

1954




Classic Mad Men, n'est-ce pas?
I just had a birthday. I was born in 1954. Yeah. Yeah. I know I'm old. If you stick around long enough it is bound to happen to you, too. These people were ALSO born in 1954. So I have to think that it was a pretty good year! 
The cover story was about little Arabella Churchill who was considered a potential future bride for Prince Charles.
 
 If you ever want to feel REALLY OLD. Go out and find yourself a magazine that was published around the time that you were born and check out the advertisements.
Even if you're only 20 years old, go get a mag from 1995.
 It will blow your little mind.
 
 Women mostly stayed home and cleaned house.
This kitchen appears to have a stripper pole. An obviously very CLEAN stripper pole.
 
My Mom was probably feeding me this crap.
And wearing one of these torture devices.
And getting all jacked up on sugar.
 
Just about everybody smoked. Doctor's Orders!
 
 Unfiltered Camels are so therapeutic for those delicate opera singer vocal chords.
 
Oh look. A group of babysitters for me!
 Most likely sneaking cigs and spiking their Seven-Up with Jack Daniels.
 
And of course there is our never ending obsession with weight control.
I'll have to try this the next time I bake. Rolling pins for all types of buns.
 
 
 I saved the best for last. Love Love Love the latest accessories collection from Jacques Fath.
 
 
So....have you ever looked at advertisements from your Birth Year??
Do it. Really. Do it. I'd love to hear about it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

37 comments:

  1. These were all brilliant! I just love how marketers made cancer sticks so sexy. I've seen so many other ads around that era that were so chauvinist I could barely look at them.

    Happy birthday dear lady!

    bisous
    Suzanne

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  2. I'm trying so hard not to laugh out loud. {I'm supposed to be angry at my husband and he's in the room with me.} But really, this is so funny! And to think, it wasn't funny at all back in 1954. And to think I used to want to have a girdle like Mom did, LOL.

    Ah my dear....sending you the very brightest birthday blessings! Hope you had a good one!

    xo

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  3. Happy Birthday! You are only getting better with age, my dear.

    I'm only a couple of years behind you, so I imagine the ads didn't change that much. I've noticed in old films how thin everyone is, but also they don't have much muscle tone. Guess that's from the booze and cigs. I do sort of wish some women wore girdles now - muffin tops are a plague in more ways than one.

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  4. Happy birthday, Connie! To celebrate might I suggest a round on that contraption being straddled by the woman in the exercise room? Wonder why she has a funny look on her face - hold on tight! And I think they put the wrong head on that pablum baby. I'll have to find a magazine for my birth year. Of course we are much more sophisticated than we used to be - butt implants have replaced girdles.

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  5. Happy birthday! Lets agree that we all just get better with age. I'm trying very hard to find aging a positive thing
    (a big birthday coming up in a few months...) so I'm looking for positive influence snd attitude, like you... I hope you had a big party.

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  6. Birthday wishes dear Connie, Hope you had a blast. Love the pole in the kitchen advert claiming it's fun to clean the modern way - the mind boggles xx

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  7. Happy Birthday to you!! Unlike those crazy ads, you're still bang up-to-date and fabulous. xxx

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  8. Hello Connie,

    We have no need to look up the advertisements for you have already done it for us. One of us was also born in 1954....... a great year, indeed.

    It is so intriguing looking at these cuttings and realising how much has changed, and, mainly, for the better one has to say. However, it is also amusing to note the ways in which some things, or attitudes at least, change little or not at all. The lengths women still go to in the name of looking good.......the spirit remains very much the same even if the methods look different.

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  9. Oh Connie ... you make me laugh ... HAPPY BIRTHDAY :0)
    xx

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  10. This is a great idea Connie. I have to find mine. I still have some magazines from the 90s. During that time only models were in the cover. Now,mit is all celebrities. I wonder what ever happened to Arabella Churchill? Belated Happy Birthday to you! All the best to you.

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  11. What pretty images. You're only two years older than me, so in my view you're not old!

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  12. Happy Bday!!!! Those ads are so great! lolzzzz

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  13. Connie, this is brilliant! I'm a 1964 baby, and I suspect any magazines for that year wouldn't look so very different from the 1954 versions, apart from the fashions; ads for cleaning products, kitchens, cigarettes and underwear, and articles aimed at making women feel inadequate and/or fat... 'Twas ever thus.
    I'm going to try taking a rolling pin to my arse, see if that helps to address the Plague of Overweight, or does that sound like something out of Fifty Shades of Self-Hatred? Failing that, I'll install a stripper's pole in the kitchen, and do a routine to Pour Some Sugar On Me while I whip up a batch of scones. Oh yes, I'm a domestic goddess alright...
    I'll be on the look out for a 1964 publication now! xxx

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  14. What about those of us born a few years prior, eh? You calling us O.L.D.? Well, it's the truth, innit? I have an old Life magazine somewhere. Or I did, documented it in one of my still life/ interior paintings. It was nice to have escaped some things, like girdles. And have panty hose coming out just in time, not to mention birth control pills. And the Beatles. sigh. Happy Birthday to you, Connie. I needn't do the how old are you part.

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  15. This is such a great idea!!! I was just thinking about needing some sort of blog inspiration cause it's been almost a month since I've posted. I just collected a bunch of pictures for my birth year and I'll post tomorrow. yay!

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  16. Happy Birthday Connie! Hope you had a lovely day. These adverts are just wonderful. It looks not only like a different time, but almost like a different planet. I think that lady with the stripper pole might actually be two ladies, one on the others shoulders, and *who* is the doll in the black leggings with the incredible legs?! Makes me think Cyd Charisse. I still haven't seen Mad Men. Really want to. I'm a 1966 baby, must look out. xxxx

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  17. Happy Birthday Beautiful!! I hope you had a wonderful birthday!
    I loved the advertising so much!! I do like a girdle however I lack a pole in the kitchen, clearly I'm a failure!!!!! and I even gave up smoking, I'll never be able to sing, le sigh. Nevermind I must find advertising from 1969, I do like to tell people I was born in the summer of love! x x x

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  18. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday,Connie and thanks for sharing a look back at the 1950's.I am a late 1953 baby so it all applies.I remember my mothers girdles as torture contraptions, how times have changed.

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  19. I love this! So much fun and I always say ads are the pulse of people desires and fears! And outmoded notions of course. I saw ads even from the 80's and they looked so dated but must look up my birth year in the 70's! Happy belated xx

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  20. Oh Connie this is hilarious! I'm so sorry I missed your day, but very happy belated birthday! I hooe you had some mad fun and was well enough to really enjoy it. xo Jazzy Jack

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  21. happy birthday!
    and yes - i will look for the old ads - this will be fun!
    fantastic post!!!!
    xxx

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  22. Joyeux anniversaire chère Constance!
    Love those pics, will have to dig mine for my birthday 1960!

    Love

    Ariane

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  23. Belated birthday wishes, Connie. Fascinating to look back at the fifties which now looks a world away. Those corsets, what a nightmare! I was born during the 2nd World War so magazines were not much in evidence but I've looked online for magazine adverts and found the following;
    "How does she keep so slim and lovely?
    By taking nightly bile beans."
    or
    "Women in uniform need Mum.
    Nobody wants to be with a girl who is careless about underarm odour." Riveting stuff!

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  24. Well happy birthday gorgeous and you are not old, I am only 8 years your junior and I know that I am not old yet, which means you are not either!! I am so going to try and find a mag from 1962 now. Wish me luck!!

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  25. I think it's fascinating to take a trip back in time. Very nostalgic. My my has the world changed. I was born in 1966 and boy were those turbulent years.

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  26. I am in love with your recent posts, Connie!! Your personality makes your blog great, and this post confirms it! It is surprising to see how much the world has changed in a few years...funny, very funny the rolling pin!
    Best wishes for your birthday dear, and ... 100 of these posts!! :-)

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  27. Haha I love this! Isn't it amazing how much the world has changed.. and keeps on changing. It does my head in!! Love the ads from my year too (1974) The cigarette ads are always particularly entertaining! Love your blog! (My comments form doesn't allow replies for some reason, but thanks for the comments re the plaster for Stan's cheeks... We have tried so many different things, poor chap. They are just so sensitive. We have found an amazing oil that we use on the cheek that isn't covered, as we have to change the nostril/cheek side every 3 days when the skin packs up... Not much fun!!!)

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  28. Happy birthday, beauty! So, you're an Aquarian? Me, too. 1956. Now I know why I smoke: my doctor probably told me to.

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  29. You infant. Happy Birthday, baby. I'm 1950 ... and I need to do this. What great stuff. You hold you years gloriously ...so impressed you, Snow, every time I come by! I will buy you drinks someday, I swear! Lovely girl ... enjoy your B-Day!!!

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  30. Happy Birthday!
    I bought my sister (born '57) a Life magazine from the week she was born, some years ago and her then, young children were aghast at the ads and articles. That reducing machine the lady is straddling? You only sat that way to work your thighs. You could also bend over it on your knees to work your belly fat. I know this because for my 10th birthday my mother bought me a membership to a "Reducing salon" where those contraptions (and other equally horrifying ones) were still in use.

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  31. These are absolutely brilliant, Connie, thank you so much for sharing. Happy birthday! I was born in 1956 so this is close to the time I was born and I remember seeing some old magazines when I was a child. Love this post! :)

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  32. These are absolutely brilliant, Connie, thank you so much for sharing. Happy birthday! I was born in 1956 so this is close to the time I was born and I remember seeing some old magazines when I was a child. Love this post! :)

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  33. Rolling pins for all types of buns! Hahahaha! :))) Connie, this is wonderful. As I mentioned at Joni's post (who was inspired by you), I did buy a few brochures for me, my brother and a friend - you might have seen them too, they tell you what happened in history the year you were born. They do have a few ads in them too. I of course was born in a very, very, very, super different country to begin with. Not too many women stayed at home and cleaned houses in the USSR. Feminism took over right after the October Revolution in 1917 - women were declared to be equals to men (there was even somewhat a bit of a sexual revolution in the 1920s, which was over pretty soon though). Women worked and THEN cooked and cleaned houses. It was the world of working people, and our ads were mostly of a social/political matters. They were great as art though - graphics, colors, I would love to find them. maybe even in a paper form some day.

    ps Thank you so much for your kind comments! My skin is not as perfect as it might look on some photos - it's all about light I think. But it's pretty good, and I thank you for such a wonderful compliment! :)

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  34. Aren't they wonderful? I do love old ads. I'm going to check 1966 now...hurrah for Google.
    My gran had a girdle like that and as for the rolling pin, I might have to give that a go!
    Hope you had a fab birthday.xx

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  35. These are just fantastic, so cool :))) Xxx

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  36. Happy Birthday, my dear, dear friend.I never thought about it.
    Instagram is also saving my life in hospital
    I do hope i can meet and hug you one day. I really do
    tons of love

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