these photos are from Life magazine’s archives: Teenage Music – The Beachboys, The Righteous Brothers, ABC’s “Shindig” … i’m assuming it’s one of those american tv specials from the late fifties / early sixties where a bunch of kids would gather in a studio & dance wildly to a hip band (think Grease). oh yes, it looks like a ton of fun.
i don’t ever feature contemporary men’s fashion because (a) i have no interest in it and (b) 99% of the time it’s too metro looking for my liking. do people still use that term, metrosexual? well i hope you understand what i mean. it’s more about aesthetics really – i appreciate men who don’t wear their pants down their bums, who steer clear of t-shirts with arbitrary slogans (or anything made by ed hardy), who wear clean shoes, who tuck in their shirts, who don’t undo their buttons all the way down to their chests, who don’t wear jewellery – things that are just supposed to come naturally. other than that i don’t really group men and fashion in the same category.
that doesn’t mean that snappy dressers don’t make my head turn.
bethany obrecht‘s work is so well styled & photographed, for a second i thought they were genuine vintage photos. i think mad men should hire her. you can see the entire series at her flickr.
a book of fairy tales from the fifties, beautifully illustrated by russian born artist hélène guertik. from maptitefabrique
the fleetwoods – come softly to me (1959)
i’m not sure where i heard this song the first time, perhaps in the background of a video on youtube. but i LOVE it. sometimes doo-wop can be slightly annoying, but this is just right – would perfectly accompanying a scene in mad men.
i discovered this rad little gem hidden in the depths of a bookcase at my parent’s house (as you do). it was printed in paarl in 1959. the entire thing is illustrated by roman waher, who i unfortunately can’t find any more information on (sometimes the internet doesn’t have all the answers, who knew?). after a bit of digging around all i could i could find out was that he contributed to a number of other africana books.
if you’re a fan of mid century illustration, be sure to check out this flickr group as well as the mid-century modernist.
i’ve watched this advert a multitude of times, but decided to share anyway for those of you who might not have seen it yet – it’s been all over the sa blogosphere (for good reason). it’s an ad for the south african investment firm, allan gray. read the background story & making of over at king james and pay close attention when the dust clears at the end of the ad, that’s actual james dean right there : )
“he devoured life, swallowing large chunks of it whole”
yoh – what a dish, right?
Hastings Park, 16 July 1955 (2008) is from Stan Douglas’s project Humor, Irony, and the Law, in which the artist re-stages historic moments of unrest in his native Vancouver. This particular image recreates a scene at a Vancouver horse track in 1955 using models dressed in period clothing selected to match the look of color film at that time. The models were photographed between takes while they were off guard. This image is composed of 30 separate shots.
Another from the series: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971 (2008)
read more about the project here (hasting park photo from pdn photo of the day)
wouldn’t it be cool if they still did covers like this, instead of just plonking a celeb on the cover? i understand that’s what you need to sell a magazine these days (look at US Vogue), but still. go check out their cover gallery
