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.
