1940s Yardley English Lavender Flower Child

With Yardley of London hitting its heyday in the 1960s and ’70s British Mod explosion, it’s easy to forget that Yardley has been around for a long time. We are talking a really loooong time; since 1770. Yardley’s signature scent – English Lavender – was launched in 1873, and is still popular today.

This is such a lovely ad from the August 1946 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal magazine. The delicate English Rose model is dressed in pastel green and is posing in a carriage. The thing that struck me the most is the lovely wreath of flowers circling her head. It seems very ahead of its time, kind of like the hippie boho “flower child” advertising that Yardley did in the early 1970s. More unusual in that England was suffering from postwar hardship in 1946. It paints a rather surreal portrait, but advertising was never meant to be realistic.

Yardley has had a long association with the British Royal Family, and supplied several British monarchs with toiletries. At this time it had “By Appointment-Perfumers to H. M. Queen Mary-Yardley London” seal. Long Live the Queen! And long live Yardley’s English Lavender!

~Marilyn