I like that the girl's outfit is $2.00 cheaper. I remember my mother wearing something like that when I was little. I also remember, a few years later, finding the top in her closet and trying it on myself. She often wore it with the collar up in the back, and I still do that myself sometimes.
When this ad was published, I was -0.50 years old! Given the ad date of 1953, such a post war 'Macho' era; the male character has a strangely androgynous quality, as both characters have the same feminine hip curves. If the man character had just the right shadowing under the 'breast line', they would have identical figures! I suspect this symbolic androgyny was inserted deliberately into the ad, for some sort of sales inducement on a subconscious level. There are many books on the use of 'subconscious/subliminal cues in print and video advertising, discussed in the book: "The Clam Plate Orgy" among many similar books. This type/style of clothing would not have been available or even marketed in a working class area where we lived. This Jantzen brand clothing would have been made in USA, and NOT CHEAP, costing MANY hours of working class paid labor per garment. Poor working class persons need not apply. In a similar vein, as from the earlier blog, I recalled seeing the ads for the kit radios when I was a kid, (yes, I am a 'ham radio/electronics' geek too!), thinking that there was no way in hell I would ever be able to afford such, even though the prices were small dollars. It is crazy and strange that re-visiting those ads brought back those long ago pangs of want and pining for something that would be virtually unobtainable. I was really surprised that your school in Va. had courses on beginning electronics, ect... No so much in NC. If both states had simply placed a mere PENNY a pack on a then 25 cent pack of cigarettes, given the BILLIONS of packs produced annually, for decades, a real, available, affordable, progressive education would have been easy, BUT, then again, where would the OWNERS of the cotton mills and tobacco farms find a cheap expendable (as in dying young of 'brown lung' cotton dust disease)labor source. During interludes of honest,wine induced reverie, both myself and my wife recall the common high school pang of 'standing on the outside, looking in', while those with greater financial means went on to participate in various school activities, instead of having to find a job...... Velma
I like that the girl's outfit is $2.00 cheaper. I remember my mother wearing something like that when I was little. I also remember, a few years later, finding the top in her closet and trying it on myself. She often wore it with the collar up in the back, and I still do that myself sometimes.
ReplyDeleteWhen this ad was published, I was -0.50 years old!
ReplyDeleteGiven the ad date of 1953, such a post war 'Macho' era; the male character has a strangely androgynous quality, as both characters have the same feminine hip curves. If the man character had just the right shadowing under the 'breast line', they would have identical figures!
I suspect this symbolic androgyny was inserted deliberately into the ad, for some sort of sales inducement on a subconscious level. There are many books on the use of 'subconscious/subliminal cues in print and video advertising, discussed in the book: "The Clam Plate Orgy" among many similar books.
This type/style of clothing would not have been available or even marketed in a working class area where we lived. This Jantzen brand clothing would have been made in USA, and NOT CHEAP, costing MANY hours of working class paid labor per garment.
Poor working class persons need not apply. In a similar vein, as from the earlier blog, I recalled seeing the ads for the kit radios when I was a kid, (yes, I am a 'ham radio/electronics' geek too!), thinking that there was no way in hell I would ever be able to afford such, even though the prices were small dollars. It is crazy and strange that re-visiting those ads brought back those long ago pangs of want and pining for something that would be virtually unobtainable.
I was really surprised that your school in Va. had courses on beginning electronics, ect... No so much in NC. If both states had simply placed a mere PENNY a pack on a then 25 cent pack of cigarettes, given the BILLIONS of packs produced annually, for decades, a real, available, affordable, progressive education would have been easy, BUT, then again, where would the OWNERS of the cotton mills and tobacco farms find a cheap expendable (as in dying young of 'brown lung' cotton dust disease)labor source.
During interludes of honest,wine induced reverie, both myself and my wife recall the common high school pang of 'standing on the outside, looking in', while those with greater financial means went on to participate in various school activities, instead of having to find a job......
Velma