Maybelline founder Tom Lyle Williams

Showing posts with label Vamp Louise Brooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vamp Louise Brooks. Show all posts

VINTAGE FASHIONISTAS CREATED THROUGH ADVERTISING.

The horrors of the Great War lead people to want to ''let loose'' in the 1920's and advertisers capitalized on it.



The 1920's were the beginning, of liberation for women, from being thought of as child-bearers and homemakers. to co-equals with men in society.




It was the first decade to emphasize youth culture over the older generations.





Young people began testing their new boundaries with more and more outrageous forms of behavior, as fast cars, short skirts and free thinking changed the rules of the game. 




Bathing suits in 1929, were made for board-thin, young figured women, who wanted total liberation, for their body as well as their mind.



Here is a photo, of my great aunt Bunny at 25, showing off, the art of looking feminine yet liberated, in 1929.  All these wonderful, vintage photos are from her, 83 year old album. I was lucky enough to get copies, before she died at 90 years of age.  




The Jazz Age represented, restlessness, idolization of youth, and dissatisfaction with the status quo.



My great aunt Bunny, on the right, (Nana's younger sister,) was 25 in this photo, and was beginning to develop a more womanly figure.  Fashion in the 1920's, was especially designed for girls with no breasts, hips or body fat.  Girls began to look like boys and boys like girls.




"[The flapper] symbolized an age anxious to enjoy itself, anxious to forget the past, anxious to ignore the future." (from Jacques Chastenet, "Europe in the Twenties" in Purnell's History of the Twentieth Century)


Young women in the 1920s, didn't want the drudgery of social conventions and routine of daily life.  Of Course, the Film industry and Maybelline helped shape this idea.




Fashion and Maybelline, in the late 1920's appealed to the modern woman who wanted liberation from a repressive Victorian  past.






Single and married women in the cities and the country came to enjoy the comfort and ease, of the new relaxed style in fashion and eye make-up, that were once considered, for Flappers only. 

     

Advertising helped shape a new identity for the Jazz Age, generation - making it sexy, for both men and women to smoke, drink out of a flask and have the power to spend on anything they wanted, even if they didn't need it

Tom Lyle Williams shaped the new image, for a liberated woman in the 1920s, when he contracted Clara Bow and Louise Brooks, to infuse glamour into
Maybelline advertisements. 

Sharrie Williams on Good Morning Arizona
Vintage Maybelline, Fashion Week, ends tomorrow, so don't miss it!!!

VINTAGE FASHION WEEK - on the Maybelline Blog

Fashion Week may be over, but I'm still reminded of how designers pulled some of their stunning creations, from the 1920s.  
Designers showed their 2012 creations last week.
Designer, Marc Jacobs added a splash of 1920s flavor to his collection at Fashion Week and this collection reminded me of my fashionable grandmother, Evelyn Boecher Williams, and her two sisters, Verona and Bunny.  


My great aunt, 19 year old Bunny Boecher, bobbed her hair, shortened her skirt and kicked up her heals after women got the vote...Prohibition was in full swing, the Jazz age exploded and "The Vamp" was born.
Maybelline mascara was available for girls, ready to hop on the band wagon and flirt with boys.
 Girls rolled up their skirts, rolled down their stockings and made up their eyes in rebellion of the Victorian age.
Tight fitting clothes gave way to loose fitting chemise dresses inching higher by 1922. 

By the Spring of 1922, aunt-Bunny wore eye make-up, lipstick, rough, earrings and a curled up Bob.
The Boucher Sister's, were never shy to say the least and caught onto the latest fad... including this new style bathing suit made for the brave fashionista.
All three sisters had beautiful legs and ready for any photo-op to show them off.
Fall of 1922 meant fur, fur and more fur in Chicago and Bunny and her sisters had a closet full.
The Bocher sisters were known as spoiled rotten daddy's girls, clothes horse's and born with a silver spoon in their mouth, around Chicago.  Here is my grandmother Evelyn, on the left with Verona and Bunny, wearing basic black accessorized from top to bottom.
 
While most young ladies were still wearing their skirts mid-calf, the Boucher sisters turned heads with their early Flapper silhouettes.
Compare Bunny's short skirt with the pictures of fashion in 1922, just click for images of ladies fashion.

My grandmother Evelyn and her sister's, Verona and Bunny, play a big part in my book, The Maybelline Story. I hope you'll buy a copy today.  I guarantee,  you won't be able to but it down.


Maybeline New York, getting hair and make up ready for Fashion Week.  Click on video.

Stay tuned for more Fashion Week tomorrow, as I take you through the 1920s with the Ladies from the, Maybelline Story.

A new image of the the American woman in 1924..... brought to you by Maybelline.



    1924 Vogue cover, with a beautifully made-up face.


Illustration of "IT GIRL"  Clara Bow.

MGM, formed in 1924, becoming the dominant studio during Hollywood's Golden Age and influencing images of girls around the world. 


Maybelline's Illustration of Vamp, Louise Brooks
.

Tom Lyle Williams, contributed to the Hollywood Star System by featuring Stars in Maybelline ads, in movie and fashion magazines, newspapers and radio shows.


Mabel with her brother-in-law, Chester Arthur Haines, at his wedding to her sister Eva, in 1924.  


Mabel may have put  the "M" in Maybelline, but, she had no interest in being just another "It Girl," or "Vamp."  She was a traditional, 32 year old, Southern Lady, waiting for her man to come along.  

Unbeknownst to her, Chester Randolph Hewes, was living in Chicago and working at Montgomery Wards, in the automotive, advertising department.

At the time Chester, was involved with an English girl he'd met in England, while in the Navy, during
WW l.  He had said goodbye to her and her family after his stint was over and headed back to the US, got a job and was busy working.  When all of a sudden, Connie, her mother and several grown brothers showed up on his doorstep.

He told her he did not want to marry her, but being a gentleman, arranged for an apartment for the family and  jobs for her brothers.  After awhile she realized Chester, just wasn't that into her, so, packed up her family and sadly, headed back to England.

Mabel met Chester, through his sister Bonnie when he came to pick up Bonnie at a bridal shower given at the home of Chester's then girlfriend.  Mabel was also a guest and after Chester met her, he told a friend, Mabel was the girl he was going to marry.

Story by Chet and Mabel's daughter, Shirley Hughes, who passed away recently at 95 years if age.