Look what arrived in the mail this week!
It is a beautiful white blouse from the 1950s in perfect condition! I bought it on Etsy from Aya, the woman behind Strawberrykoi.com, one of my favourite websites around. On her blog, I saw the picture of this blouse and I immediately knew it should be mine. It's my first piece from the 1950s and I love it. Too bad the season for wearing short sleeved blouses is over, but I think it would look great with a nice cardigan as well. Stay tuned and you might see it more often on this weblog.
I am still browsing Etsy for great finds all the time; I have currently fallen in love with a 1960s wool coat and 1940s oxford shoes and might order some other items along. Whatever it'll be, you'll see it appear on this site sooner or later.
And that's not the only thing that's new! I also created a layout that satisfies me for this blog, and have officially finished it today, now the header is up too. I've been working for several days on this particular header, and it just didn't look right until today. I know it's rather simple, but I love it nevertheless, especially because it is quite an achievement for someone with photoshop skills as poor as mine.
After searching for quite a while on google for the right pictures, I finally chose Marilyn Monroe (before she was the way we usually her - blond and possibly the biggest sex symbol of all time) and Bette Davis, whose left arm had to be made invisible, because it looked rather awkward without the original black background.
I hope you like it!
Do you know Bettie Page?
She was the most famous (or should we rather say infamous?) pin up model from the 1950s.
Bettie Mae Page was born in the Nashville, Tenessee on April 22, 1923. Her parents had three sons and three daughters and the family was very poor; they would divorce when Bettie was 10 years old. Her father molested all three of his daughters and ended up in jail after stealing a police car.
At high school, Bettie was a very good student and had roles in many of the school plays. After graduating, she left Tenessee for New York, where her career as a pinup model took off, when an amateur photographer asked her to pose, while she was on a break from her job as a secretary. She got more and more popular, resulting in being the centerfold of Playboy magazine in January 1955.
A picture of Bettie taken by Irvin Klaw
From 1951 onwards, she started posing for the photographer Irving Klaw, a photographer who specialized in S&M, and Bettie became known as the Queen of Bondage. Irving took thousands of pictures of Bettie; and Bettie also appeared in more than 50 burlesque films, Teaserama being the most famous one.
Back in the days, however, the prudish American society did not allow pictures like Klaw's and he was arrested for "conspiracy to distribute obscene material". Bettie was not arrested, but was asked to testify in the case and the senator of Tennessee launched a congressional investigation against her.
Bettie in Teaserama
After the cause with Klaw, Bettie retreated from public view and moved to Florida in 1957. Before the start of her career, she had been married and divorced and in the years after her career, the same scenario happened twice again.
The salvation of her misery was in 1959, when she saw a church with a neon cross on top and entered this building. This was the moment that would change Bettie's life forever, since it made her dedicate her life to Jesus Christ.
Quite an unexpected move from someone who used to be a pin up and S&M model, isn't it? Bettie had always been a christian, though. The reason why she had no problems with being portrayed (partially) nude, was because Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden were nude too.
Ever since the end of the 1950s, Bettie hasn't appeared in the public view anymore and led a rather quiet life, with the exception of being treated for schizophrenia for 8 years throughout the 1980s. Bettie died in December 2008, at the age of 85.
Bettie competing against a gorilla
Bettie had been practically forgotten until her pictures and movies were rediscovered by a large audience during the 1990s. People were fascinated by this woman, who seemed to be the innocent girl next door gone wild - a superstar whose success was demolished by the government and who practically disappeared afterwards.
This must have been the reason for director Mary Harron to film Bettie's past, her career and the way she vanished from the public view. The movie she made is named The Notorious Bettie Page and features Gretchen Mol as Bettie.
The trailer of The Notorious Bettie Page
I personally really enjoyed this movie. The ambiance is wonderful, the acting is good and the funniest part is that it shows how incredibly innocent the photo shoots actually were compared to what we are used to today. Bettie also did it purely because she enjoyed it, but didn't think of the possible consequences and the fact that it was not as innocent as she thought it was.
The real Bettie Page was positive about the movie too, but wasn't very pleased with the title of the movie.
"Notorious? That's not flattering at all. They should have used another word."
Bettie just did what she loved to do, that was all.
"I was not trying to be shocking, or to be a pioneer. I wasn't trying to change society, or to be ahead of my time. I didn't think of myself as liberated, and I don't believe that I did anything important. I was just myself. I didn't know any other way to be, or any other way to live."
Don't we all love looking at nostalgic pictures of old superstars?
Well, I most certainly do! But what do we actually know about them?
I will tell you the stories behind these faces on my blog in this article as well as in some of my future articles named "1960s Superstars".
Today's entry will be all about Twiggy!
Ah, Twiggy!
You may have recognized her in the top banner of my page. Twiggy was one of the best known models of the 1960s and her appearance has simply become iconic for this decade. Her androgynous looks, thin posture (which is the reason she was called Twiggy) and large eyes were some of her famous trade marks and her haircut is still copied by girls all over the world and although fashion has changed, she is still a fashion icon to many.
Okay, we all know that. But what about her personal life?
Twiggy, was born as Lesley Hornby on September 19, 1949. Her father, a carpenter and mother, who worked for a printing firm lived in London. Twiggy was their third daughter; her two sisters are 15 and 7 years older.
In 1966, 16 years old Leslie bunked off school for a day to be one of the models whom the popular hairdresser Leonard tried his new short haircut on and her pictures decorated the House Of Leonard soon afterwards. Once one of Daily Express' fashion journalists, Deidre McSharry entered the salon, she was impressed by Twiggy's pictures and wanted to meet her. McSharry decided to feature her in one of articles and called her The Face of 66. Twiggy's career had started.
Twiggy in 1967.
But what happened next?
Although she was only 5"6 (168 cms) tall, Twiggy was enormously popular as a model. She appeared on the covers of many leading fashion magazines (she did 13 Vogue photoshoots within the first year of her career) and even launched her own clothing line, Twiggy Dresses, in 1967.
From 1967 onwards, Twiggy become an international sensation; the New Yorker even devoted almost 100 pages to her when she arrived in New York that year.
Twiggy however, did not know why she was so hyped all of a sudden. "I hated what I looked like," she said once, "so I thought everyone had gone stark raving mad." She was not the only one whose opinion was negative. A fashion correspondent of the London Daily Mail wrote: "Twiggy came along at a time when teen-age spending power was never greater. With that underdeveloped, boyish figure, she is an idol to the 14- and 15-year-old kids. She makes virtue of all the terrible things of gawky, miserable, adolescence."
President of the Leeds women's shop, Mark Cohen, was even more negative and said: "Her legs remind me of two painted worms."
She was quite successful as model, wasn't she?
Yes, she definitely was. However, she retired as a model in 1970, claming "You can't be a clothes hanger for your entire life!"
Throughout the seventies, she concentrated on her singing and acting career in stead. Her singing career is still what occupies her and she has been an actress until the late 1990s. She's still in the spotlights and has even been a judge in America's Next Top Model for four seasons. And although she officially quit modelling in 1970, she has done some modelling in her later life too and has appeared in several modern campaigns.
1960s Superstars. Part 1: Edie Sedgwick can be found here.
Sources
Wikipedia.com
Guardian.co.uk
Twiggylawson.co.uk
