VINTAGE: The Bride and Homemaker

These wonderful advertisements were printed inside The Bride and Homemaker of Detroit, a 1953 booklet filled with page after page of advice for the soon to be bride. Articles denote just what the groom pays for on the big day (the rings, clergyman's fees, wedding licence, gloves and buttonnaires, bachelor dinner, a gift for the bride to the honeymoon). While the feminist in me fall queasy at the thought of recipes to find "the way to a man's heart" or that helping your husband have a spanking smart and clean suit will help him to success the semiologist is always looking for the hidden meanings to femininity representations and the like.

Nevertheless vintage advertisements have an art and are a joy in and of themselves. Upon my kitchen walls hang a couple of 1950's food product advertisements, they are bold, eye catching and go into immense detail which certainly lacks in contemporary airbrushed adverts. While these adverts certainly won't be getting ripped from their booklet any time soon, a bit of brightening through fotofuze and they look as good as new.

Don't you just love them?!

1960's Housing Advertisements

 

Going around estate sales if a perfect pastime if you love being nosey when it comes to houses and their interiors. Most of the houses are 1950's built, sometimes they haven't been changed in years - the same shag pile carpet, sometimes really old fridges and appliances. They are a great social history step back in time adventure. It always amuses me the amount of fully stocked and serviced bars people have/had in their basements with vintage cocktail glasses and bar stools.  A lot of the houses still do look like this advertisement feature that someone had cut out and kept within a pattern I found which dates to 1962 - the walls of glass, perfectly designed kitchen and walk in closets and bathrooms. They certainly give you great ideas for when we get our own place - I could certainly do with that amount of storage in my kitchen. 

Of course using my sociological head the women are all shown in their domains - the kitchen, in the bathroom applying make up and greeting guests. She is first and foremost a housewife. The man is in his territory - the basement, the man cave. But of course that is apt and fitting for the time. 

VINTAGE: Singer Adverts

Through inheriting my Singer Sewing Machine (see previous post) I thought I'd use it as the main inspiration for searching around the internet (via the good old google search) to look for anything random to do with singer machines, then I stumbled upon the following advertisements;

1936 black and white advisement for a "modern" electric machine, one allowing the modern women the perfect way to make her own wardrobe.

1959 and the introduction of the family into the frame alongside the advertisements for portable sewing machines, especially designed to aid the function and needs of young and growing families.