Cybill Shepherd & Cover Girl Clean Make-up 1969

Posted April 19, 2013 by finnfemme & filed under Beauty, Fashion, Vintage.

I really love this Cover Girl Medicated Make-up ad from the September 1969 issue of ‘TEEN magazine. Featuring a fresh-faced Cybill Shepherd, after her win of the 1968 “Model of the Year” show. I can remember watching that Model of the Year broadcast (I was babysitting), and thinking how incredibly beautiful Cybill was. She just stood out glowingly from all the other contestants. It was a novel show for its time, not being a beauty pageant per se, but based strictly on looks and photogenic qualities. Of course now we have America’s Next Top Model that has run for years, but at the time it was kind of thrilling to pick a woman solely to start a career and MAKE MONEY!

I love this photo because it’s at the very start of Cybill’s career, before she went on to acting and having famous boyfriends (Peter Bogdanovich, Elvis Presley). It was a time when she was strictly a model, and you can see her perfectly balanced, wide-eyed, All-American features. Cover Girl showed a very American version of makeup that countered the very British Yardley of London version of makeup, that was so hot at the time. And even though cool Yardley of London had me completely obsessed, I was rather taken with the clean Cover Girl American approach as well. I’ve always liked dichotomy!

~Marilyn

Romeo and Juliet’s Olivia Hussey for Sheffield Watches 1968

Posted April 14, 2013 by finnfemme & filed under Beauty, Fashion, Vintage.

I finally found an ad where the ravishing Olivia Hussey is not hawking Yardley of London makeup. This 1968 advertisement both advertises the Franco Zeffirelli film, Romeo and Juliet, and Sheffield watches. The antiqued-look watches “capture the Renaissance mood of Romeo and Juliet”. I guess more than one company was able to bank off the success of the film, and the beauty of Olivia.

The watches are actually quite lovely and unique, being an assortment of pendant, ring and wrist watches. The picture of Olivia as Juliet looks like it is a still from the movie. Wow, SCORE, Olivia; you didn’t even have to do a separate modeling session for the ad!

I know I’ve said it many times, but I really adore the romantic, mysterious era of the late 60s. I think we are long-overdue for a resurgence!

~Marilyn

Slicker Lip Polish Phone Dial by Yardley 1968

Posted April 10, 2013 by finnfemme & filed under Beauty, Fashion, Vintage.

This “colorful, gaily decorated, whimsey of a dialing disc” seems to be in keeping with all things groovy that Yardley of London wanted to perpetuate in the late 60s. Packaged with the six different Slicker Lip Polishes, this rather fabulous-looking dial was meant to slip on your phone for decoration. Of course, the only phones back then were your standard-issue Ma Bell dial landlines.

I do like the white phone in the ad, it’s very pretty. Of course when I was growing up, we had one phone for the entire family and it was beige. I think I may have even gotten this Yardley dial, along with the lip slicker, but I doubt it would have lasted 10 seconds if I would have put it on our phone!

I don’t recognize the model, but her Princess-Leia ear wrap hairstyle is rather unique. Love her Victorian lace blouse, mod eye makeup, and pretty pink fingernails. The last thing I notice is what they are supposed to be advertising; her Slicker Lip Polish.

I love the names of the lip polishes, which harken back to the day when we all had land-lines: ‘Hot-line’, ‘Long Distance’, ‘Frosted’, ‘Good Night’, ‘Person-to-Person’, and ‘Basic’. All in keeping with the social networking era of 1968. 🙂

~Marilyn

Twiggy and the Olivetti Typewriter 1969

Posted April 8, 2013 by finnfemme & filed under Fashion, Vintage.

I finally found an ad featuring Twiggy! I’ve been searching amongst my magazines for a glimpse of one of my favorite ’60s model, Twiggy, to no avail until now. I think, perhaps, it’s because my personal fashion/teen magazine collection is from about 1968 onward, and Twiggy had her modeling heyday in 1966 and 1967.

Anyway, this is a very striking, if odd, ad. It’s from the August 1969 issue of Seventeen magazine, “The Biggest Fashion Issue Ever!”. Back in the day, we all looked forward to getting the huge August issue in the mail. Seventeen was especially huge because the pages measured.10.5″ by 13″ and this issue had 480 pages. It is impossible to get the whole page in my scanner, so I had to break it up into two parts.

This ad is perhaps on the out side of Twiggy’s modeling career. Photographed by boyfriend, Justin de Villeneuve, she has the 1969 romantic hippie thing going with long tendrils, poet-sleeved mini dress and tall suede boots. She looks incredible, of course, albeit slightly awkward with one finger tentatively poised on the typewriter carriage and the other on a key. The ad is for Olivetti’s Studio 45: The Brightwriter, with the tag line: “Twiggy loves our new blue-green portable! (wouldn’t you if you got it for free?).

Which is weird. Or not.

I guess Olivetti perhaps knew that the only way to explain the strange juxtaposition of Twiggy hawking a typewriter, was to say that the only way she loves it was that she got it for free. And, of course a massive modeling fee. I’m pretty sure that Twiggy’s relationship with a typewriter started and ended with this modeling session. But it is a really groovy typewriter; one that certain hipsters today would kill for.

~Marilyn

Jean Shrimpton, Yardley of London & The Age of Aquarius 1969

Posted April 6, 2013 by finnfemme & filed under Beauty, Fashion, Vintage.

Once again I have found myself in the stacks of my old ’60s Seventeen magazines, looking for groovy ads. Here is another fab one from one of my favorite ’60s companies, Yardley of London. Gawd, I loved their mod, hip makeup ads using such British beauties as Olivia Hussey and Jean Shrimpton.

This one is from the September, 1969 issue of Seventeen. Featuring the drop-dead gorgeous Jean Shrimpton, it is advertising the Yardley Slicker Lip Polishes, er, the Super-Magical New Slicker. With colorful cosmic astrological artwork, it’s really fitting in with the whole Age of Aquarius vibe that was rocking the era. The lipstick colors are really pretty pinks and corals; this was definitely not the time for dark red lipstick! And with it you also got your free horoscope! Astrology was very big back then.

I remember saving my babysitting money and buying Yardley of London makeup in the ’60s and ’70s. I loved the packaging, the scent, the advertising, and just the whole cool, mod British Beat experience that it evoked. I think that’s what started me on the love of all things British, and on to becoming a full-fledged Anglophile!

~Marilyn

It’s Clothesline Season Again: Beware the Bird!

Posted March 28, 2013 by finnfemme & filed under Daily Life, Frugal Living, Vintage.

After six long months of damp, rainy, cold weather, Spring seems to finally have begun to sprung here in Seattle. Of course, to me as a laundry air-drier, this opens up the possibility to finally give the indoor drying racks a rest and take it outside. Time to put Mother Nature to work!

Monday was a really nice day; a warm 60 degrees, partly sunny, with a gentle breeze. Perfect for hanging out the load of heavy bath towels that take so long to dry. It felt great (and a bit weird) to actually hang stuff outside again. It was neat to see the laundry gently waving in the breeze; for some reason this is always poignant for me. I guess it harkens back to the generations upon generations of people that dried their laundry the very same way.

After several hours of drying, I went out to check it. I did a double-take, WHA? There was a big streak of something on one of the towels. It could only be attributed to one thing: the myriad of birds that inhabit my yard. Probably a crow. Anyway I was a bit shocked, as in my seven plus years of air-drying I’ve never had a bird poop on my laundry. I’ve heard the rumors that this could happen, of course, but it had never happened to me. The thing that made me the most irritated, however, was that the towel was almost dry! I snapped the towel off the line, washed out the poop with Dawn dish liquid and ran it through the wash again. It got really clean, but by this time the sun was going down and I had to dry it inside. All alone on the drying rack.

Even though it’s nice to dry outside once again, it alerted me to the foibles that can happen when you do laundry tasks out in nature. But I’ll continue to take the risk…that spring clothesline-dried scent cannot be duplicated!

Happy Drying 🙂