Mutton Dressed as Lamb?

Youthful puffed sleeves, McCall’s pattern 4547 circa 1975.

Last month, I received a letter which posed some interesting questions about fashion and age:

“I would like to ask you a question: In which era did the idea develop
that women after a certain age are not supposed to wear very feminine
designs such as puffed sleeves, slim waists, lots of lace, pastel
colours or patterns with flowers? As far as I know, there have almost in
every era been ideas about what women are supposed to wear at which age.
I know designs from the 1930s and 1940s showing dresses for different
ages, with wider waists for elder ladies. But I guess this just
corresponds to larger sizes, and probably a slim lady of 70 years could
then have worn dresses with slim waists.

“Anyway, it must have been an era when feminine designs were considered
attractive and youthful – perhaps the 1950s?

“I am 39 years old and I cannot imagine myself not wanting to wear these
designs anymore, when I will be older….”

Well, I can start by noting that men have been making fun of older women who didn’t dress their age for a long time.

Padded bottoms from Pinterest. 18th c. cartoon.

Historically, and in cartoons and literature (mostly made by men,) older women who dress as if they were sexy young things are ridiculed. The British expression (going back at least 200 years) for such a woman is “Mutton dressed as lamb.”

(A mutton is a fully mature sheep. Mutton chops have a strong, gamy taste and smell that lamb chops do not have. On the day when Lizzie Borden did or did not murder her parents, her breakfast was cold mutton soup….)

I.e., mutton dressed as lamb is not a good thing to be.

The old woman at left is ridiculed for attempting to dress as a young woman. Note the old man with a young beauty at far right….

The blog “Americanagefashion” is devoted to the topic of clothing for American women over 55.

“Dressing your age” is a thorny problem. The goal of using makeup and dressing to express your personality is always to look like your current self at your best. If we cling to the fashions and hair and makeup styles that made us look our best when we were 18 or 25, eventually we will look ridiculous to people who are actually that age.

Do Adjust Your Makeup

The idea is NOT to look like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Maybelline ad, April 1929. My Aunt Dot still had a marcel wave in 1980.

In the 1980s, I used to see women on the bus who were still applying their makeup as they did in 1929.

Maybelline ad, December 1929.

Thinly penciled dark eyebrows (unrelated to hair color,) coal black eyeliner and tons of mascara (often applied badly, because they couldn’t see well without glasses [I now have this problem, myself,] dark red lips in a Cupid’s bow (extending far above their upper lip line) — these were women who were living in the past, and sadly oblivious to the changes in their faces and to the fact that “the fashion in faces” changes, too.

After teaching so many actors how to do an “age makeup” (including one actor in his 60s who was playing a 90 year old man,) I’m all too aware of the changes that come with age.  Cartilage continues to grow, so old people’s noses are often larger than they once were. Our lips tend to turn in with age, making them appear thinner. The space between the nose and upper lip may seem longer, and our eyebrows get closer to our eyes. The flesh above the eyes gets puffy and sometimes sags until it touches our eyelashes. In some cases, it impairs our vision. Some of us get under-eye bags or dark areas. Uneven skin tones and blotches may appear. (And I haven’t even mentioned how hard it is to apply eye makeup to wrinkled skin….) At 75, I currently need a 15X magnifying mirror to see what I’m doing, and that means I won’t see both eyes at the same time until I finish and put on my glasses. Often, I have to do some correcting to make both eyes look symmetrical!)

In short, we have to take a fresh look at ourselves every few years, and learn to apply makeup to the face we have now, not the face we remember.

Do Rethink Your Wardrobe Occasionally

As for dressing at sixty as you dressed at 27, well, if you always preferred classic styles and modest hemlines, you’ll probably be fine. (And I do consider jeans and shirts or knit tops to be as classic as suits and dresses.) However, extreme fashions don’t always age well.

Really wide padded shoulders from Givenchy. Vogue 2303, 1989.

I had some really flattering clothes in the 1980s & early 90s. But I gained 12 lbs one year, and by the time those clothes fit again, their huge shoulder pads were laughable. I could not possibly wear them to work — not when my job was telling other people —  actors — what to wear!

On the Other Hand

We’re probably lucky to be in an almost-anything-goes fashion era now, when hem length is not rigidly fixed, and mixing vintage and new is OK. Also, a woman with confidence and joie de vivre can often break the rules and look fabulous.

Twenty years ago, I was was waiting for a light to change when I saw a man and a woman walking together with their backs to me. She was wearing a black, brimmed hat (maybe crocheted?) with a black mini-dress, black hose, and knee high black suede boots. Her shining platinum blonde hair hung half-way to her waist. She was the embodiment of prosperous Hippie chic, circa 1967 -68. Suddenly she took a few dance steps, flung out her arms and twirled around. When I saw her face, I realized that her hair was not platinum. It was silver-white. She was a happy, smiling woman in her sixties. She was lively, flirtatious, and beautiful. She was breaking some of the “rules:” ‘dress your age, not younger’ and ‘don’t wear the styles that you wore when you were young.’ She was very attractive — because she was confident and joyous. Ari Seth Cohen would have photographed her if he saw her.

When and Why Dress in Black?

But to get back to the “when” part of the question, I have a lot of conjectures, and allowance for different cultural attitudes must be made. (E.g., are widows allowed to remarry in your culture? Is wearing trousers modest or immodest behavior in your country? Etc.) Also, many people are uncomfortable thinking of their parents and grandparents as sexually active….

Discouraging older women from wearing pastel colors or brightly flowered textiles may go back to Victorian/Edwardian mourning customs. By the time a woman was fifty, there was a very good chance that someone in her immediate family had died within the year. Grandparents, parents, aunt & uncles, possibly her husband…. Since wearing plain, black clothing for a year after the death of a close relative was customary, some women never got out of mourning. First a grandparent, then a parent, perhaps a sister or a child, …. Consequently, many older women just wore black all the time. I attended a church-sponsored Greek Picnic in the 1960s, and all the older women were wearing black. So were some teenagers.

[Lavender was the one pastel worn by Victorians and Edwardians while transitioning from black mourning to normal dress. But “lavender and old lace” were associated with age.]

Poor women don’t have a lot of clothing, so once they dyed all their clothes black after a death, they wore them until they wore out.

As for slim waists, I don’t think older women ever padded them! However, our bodies do change, and a thickening of the waist and loss of height are common. Multiple childbirths will also change a woman’s figure. Lynn Mally at Americanagefashion.com has written a lot about “half sizes” for aging female bodies.

When you’re older and you lose weight, it may come off in unexpected places. Even though I dropped many pounds a few years ago, my formerly hourglass waist is now bigger in relation to my hips and bust than it ever was before age 60 — but I had to alter some sagging trousers in back because my butt had disappeared!

Short puffy sleeves from Woman’s Home Companion, March 1936.

As for sleeves, many older women are self-conscious about our “bat wings:” just read a bit of this blog and you’ll know why older women prefer longer sleeves to sleeves that show our upper arms. When I lost 40 pounds at age 13, my skin shrank to fit immediately. Ditto when I lost weight at 40. But after a lifetime of gaining and losing weight, we can’t expect that automatic skin shrinkage in our 60s and 70s.  Now, if I want to fill out the loose skin on my arms, I need to build some muscles! So — short puffy sleeves lose their appeal. And elbow length puffy sleeves just remind me of the 1980s….

Laura Ashley pattern 8432 for McCall’s, dated 1983.  Been there, done that….

Of course, sex appeal comes into this problem. I’m old, now; but I have never consciously dressed with the hope of picking up a stranger and having sex with him that night. In fact, whenever a clearly intoxicated man “hit on me” at a party or in public, I usually wondered what I had done to send the wrong signal. (I usually concluded that he must have been wearing “Beer Goggles,” because I generally wore clothes that were entirely appropriate for office work or teaching school. My rare low-cut dress was strictly for parties at friends’ houses.)  So, how does a woman in her 60s or 70s dress “sexy” without seeming ridiculous? Well, I didn’t try to dress sexy in my 20s, so I’m not qualified to tell you how to do it at 75!  That said, good grooming, a positive attitude, and a sincere interest in the other person are always attractive…. but those qualities attract friends. Sexual attraction may be a different problem.

A book that helped me adjust to my changing role was Ari Seth Cohen’s Advanced Style. I loved the first book he did, although by the time he made the film, some of his favorites (women with plenty of money) became stars who started to overshadow the many women who looked fabulous on a limited budget. Wearing fabulous and massive jewelry isn’t an option for most of us.

But a positive attitude doesn’t cost a cent.

 

Fun in the Snow, 1921

A group of office workers from the Southern Pacific Railroad headquarters in San Francisco on a weekend trip to the snow; taken in Truckee, California, February, 1921. That’s the base of the Donner Party monument behind them.

I’ve spent many hours of the past two weeks scanning and sorting my Aunt Dorothy’s huge accumulation of photographs. It’s taking even longer than I expected because, thanks to modern computer technology, I can now see details that would only have been visible with a magnifying glass a few years ago. I end up trying to revive faded or underexposed prints that were tiny to begin with, and saving faces and clothing details. Also, I am trying to put names to as many faces as possible. So, while I am time-traveling through thousands of images, I will share a few “postcards from a time-traveler.”

Dot Barton (my Aunt Dorothy,) with Jen, Spurr, and Dot Robinson at Truckee, 1921.

Dot B. is wearing a very hairy sweater, and she’s borrowed a huge Tam-o-Shanter from her friend Dottie Biggs.

Dottie Biggs and Dorothy Barton in Truckee, 1921.

It was only by enlarging this section of the photo that I saw the shawl and huge tam on the woman standing behind them.

The woman in the middle is Dottie Biggs, wearing a long, thick sweater. 1921.

Dot Barton and Lloyd Muller in 1921. She is wearing the full-legged knickers that many women wore for sports. Her sweater is not too different from those of 1917. He’s wearing his cloth cap turned backwards…. like a baseball cap in the nineties.

Gladys Spurr and Dot Robinson in 1922.

My Aunt Dorothy, nicknamed Dot, worked in an office with Dot Robertson, Dot Robinson, and Dottie Biggs. It must have been a relief when Adeline and Gladys were hired!

For those who live where snow is a normal event, I should explain that it only snows in San Francisco a couple of times per century.  Some people “go to the snow” on the mountainous eastern side of the state every winter — just to see snow. It seems odd today to think a sweater would be enough protection when the snow is falling, but that’s what all these women are wearing, along with knickers or riding pants.

Gladys Spurr and Dot Robinson face the cold in sweaters and wool twill riding pants. 1921.

Dot Barton’s long sweater has pockets big enough to hold her gloves. She has probably laced gaiters over her legs, with turned-down socks.

Dottie Biggs in a sweater vest over a dark shirt, plus a long, thick sweater. And that wonderful hat…. 1921.

I can’t get enough of that Tam-O-Shanter — and her attitude.

A giant Tam-o-Shanter — very chic in the late teens and early twenties. Notice that she’s wearing earrings and … is that lipstick?

It’s lovely to see the fun they had — almost a hundred years ago.

Why did they want to sit on the roof? Probably because it was there.  Donner Lake, 1921.

Because these young people worked for the SP railroad, they probably took advantage of cheap tickets for weekends at Russian River (in the summer) and at Truckee or Lake Tahoe in the winter. The train from San Francisco through the Sierra Nevada mountains still goes through Truckee on its way to Reno, Nevada and points east.

The “gang” from the SP office may be thinking of some liquid refreshment….  Especially that guy wearing just a shirt and bow tie over his sweater. Sadly for them, Prohibition went into effect in January of 1920. But the sign on the rock was still there in 1921.

A Wedding Party in the 1920s

The bride and groom sit informally on the grass in front of a home, surrounded by a group of young men and women in late-1920’s clothing. (It does look like the bride was trying to avoid grass stains on her light dress.)

While sorting my Aunt Dorothy’s huge collection of photos, I found these charming pictures of an informal wedding in the nineteen twenties. The skirt lengths suggest 1927-28 to me.

Happy faces (for the most part) and real-people hairstyles and clothing from the late 1920s. Left side of group photo. The men’s hair looks natural, not slick or oily.

More wedding guests, this time from the right side of the photo.

Although my aunt knew a great many women called “Dot,” — and she herself was called Dot — I haven’t been able to match “Dot the Bride” to any other photos, so I can’t find her last name, or date her wedding exactly.

Dot Richardson and Dot Robinson, on an office outing to Monte Rio, California, circa 1921.

Dot was the usual nickname for women called Dorothy.

There’s a good chance that like my aunt, the bride or her groom and most of the wedding guests worked at the Southern Pacific Railroad Headquarters in San Francisco. They all seem to be in their twenties or thirties.

Dot and her husband. I love his pocket square. Like the bride, many of the female guests are wearing their Marcelle-waved hair loose, longish, and full. Dot wears dark lipstick, too.

The bride and groom have a sense of humor, judging by the toy bulldog on a leash in the foreground.

Her pale, short dress, worn with almost opaque white silk stockings, has a lace “bolero” jacket and lace flounces. Her feet are swollen; brides don’t get to sit down much at weddings. [When their feet hurt, people used to say, “My dogs are barking.”]

Here the newlyweds pose with the honeymoon car, decorated with a “Just Married” sign and several big, tin cans to make noise as they drive away.

Their friends have tied several cans tied to the bumper to ensure that everyone notices the “Just Married” sign on newlyweds car as it clatters down the road.

Her huge corsage must mean “Maid of Honor.” She wears a light coat over a knee-baring print silk dress; big bows trim her shoes. As sometimes happens with informal weddings, not everyone got the “not too casual” message. (Yes, I mean you, Mister Sweater and No Necktie.) His boutonniere says he’s part of the wedding party.

Even this guest caught in the background wears a dress with a graceful, curving pleated flounce:

I wish we could see more of this dress on a Bette Midler look-alike….

Whether she’s gaining a son or a daughter, this mother looks happy.

The mother of the bride (or groom) looks very up-to-date in her short dress, worn with dark stockings and low shoes. The bride’s dress appears to be waistless, possibly a princess style with a bow and drape at her left side.

The white-haired lady’s dress has a V-shaped lace insert in the bodice, and a two-tiered skirt that just covers her knees. She hasn’t bobbed her hair, however.

I hope this bunch of pleasant-looking young people had very happy lives, and many equally pleasant celebrations.

It’s easy to imagine enjoying their company.

Skirts and Blouses, July 1917

Delineator, July 1917, top of page 51. Butterick patterns.

I’ve been collecting images of women’s blouses from 1917; this particular page shows such a variety of skirts, blouses and hats that it deserves a closer look.

Butterick Blouse-Waist 9203, Delineator, July 1917.

This blouse was also featured in a color illustration in June:

Left, Butterick Blouse-Waist 9203, Delineator, June 1917.

And in a different version in August:

Butterick 9203, as illustrated in August 1917.

The same blouse, trimmed with filet crochet lace. July 1917. in 1917 a blouse could be called a “waist,” a “blouse,” a “blouse-waist,” or a “shirt-waist.”

Butterick 9203 was shown with a relatively simple stitched-down pleat skirt (No. 9276) , but the skirt was enhanced with a checked cotton belt and matching checked border:

Butterick skirt 9276 and bag 10625. July 1917.

Blouse 9203 could be made with a high-necked insert; the blouse has a sailor collar in back. The posture of 1917 is very high-waisted in back — caused by the shape of the corset.

Four “blouse-waists” and one “shirt-waist,” Butterick 9153. July 1917.

I’ve spent hours trying to figure out the difference between a blouse, a blouse-waist, and a shirtwaist. I haven’t found any consistency yet. Sometimes a “blouse” is pulled on over the head, and sometimes a “shirt-waist” has a button front, but — not always. More about that on another day.

Butterick blouse-waist 9280. Delineator, July 1917. The blouse is trimmed with smocking. That interesting belt/pocket is part of the skirt pattern.

Butterick skirt 9281, July 1917.

This view shows blouse 9280 in a single breasted version, with an optional high neck and the popular sailor collar in back. Skirt 9281.

Shirt-waist 9513 and blouse-waist 9116. Butterick’s Delineator magazine, July 1917. No. 9116 has “the new collarless neck.” The hat at right looks very much like a flower pot.

Blouse-waist 9116 with skirt 9290. Women who were not comfortable wearing the relatively new bare necklines could make the blouse with a high collar instead.

Both skirts have interesting details. The medieval-influenced belt at right isn’t included.

Butterick skirt patterns 9266, left; and 9290, right. This was the era of the “barrel” skirt; wide hips were in style.

Shirt-waist 9513 and blouse-waist 9116. Butterick’s Delineator magazine, July 1917.

Another sailor collar.

Not related to these patterns — except for its sailor collar — is this vintage embroidered lace waist.

This vintage “waist,” which literally ends at the waist, reflects the custom of selling dress patterns as separate waist and skirt patterns. This gave the buyer more style options.

Butterick blouse-waist 9289 and a skirt (9286) with a [“paper-bag”] waist that tried to come back into style quite recently. July 1917.

Butterick skirt 9286,from 1917. 100 years later, this paper bag waist was back.

Another high-necked blouse option, sailor collar, and a back view of the skirt with gathers above its waist.

And the “most unusual hat” award goes to….

Summer hat, 1917. She also has “bee-stung” lips, usually associated with the 1920s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charm After Fifty, July 1937

Charm after Fifty is illustrated in these three dresses made from one pattern: Companion-Butterick 7458. Woman’s Home Companion, July 1937.

This Companion-Butterick triad dress pattern from the summer of 1937 is illustrated on three mature women, none of whom has a conspicuously middle-aged figure.

This illustration by Ernst shows pattern 7458 as it might look on three tall, slim-hipped women. None of them seems to have a single gray hair, never mind a sagging chin or a “menopot.”

However, the size range went all the way to bust size 52.

The three dresses have similar skirts, but bodice and sleeve variations range from casual to dressy. [I imagine that the floral print version was made more often in navy or brown rayon than in yellow chiffon, but it’s nice that women over fifty were encouraged to wear bright colors.

From simple to fancy: Pattern 7458 in striped cotton with short sleeves, in a turquoise print with broad shoulders and 3/4 sleeves, and in a soft yellow chiffon floral print with a V-neck and flounces cascading down the front. WHC, July 1937.

White, perforated summer shoes were not just for “old ladies,” and the heels at right are certainly high.

Perforated shoes for summer. 1937.

Ad for Walk-Over Shoes, with prices, from WHC, June 1937.

“Puncho” shoes. Walk-Over, June 1937. These are white kid suede, but the same shoe was available in blue, black or gray.

“Cabana” shoes from Walk-Over also came in white calf, tan, blue, black or red earth calf, or gray sueded kid. 1937.

Sporty “Lariat” shoes from Walkover. Also in brown or gray. The heel is stacked leather. 1937.

The “Mohawk” oxford shoe from Walk-Over could be purchased in all white calf, or white suede with tan calf, as pictured. 1937.

Shoes weren’t the only things that were perforated in the 193o’s:

Ad for a Perfolastic reducing girdle, WHC, February 1936. That’s “lastic” as in latex: a rubber garment designed to help you sweat off the pounds and inches. Did women have polka-dotted skin when they took it off?

Perfolastic reducing girdle and brassiere ad; WHC, Nov. 1937.

Text, Perfolastic reducing girdle and brassiere, WHC, Nov. 1937. “You appear inches smaller at once.”

Perhaps that’s how these women over fifty maintained their impossibly tall, willowy shapes.

Women over fifty: WHC, July 1937. Elongated fashion figures with suspiciously rosy cheeks.

Top of ad for Louis Philippe’s Angelus Rouge Incarnat lip and cheek rouge, Delineator, June 1934.

Text of ad for Louis Philippe’s Angelus Rouge Incarnat lip and cheek rouge, Delineator, June 1934. “In its allure, it is typically, wickedly of Paris. In its virginal modesty, as natural as a jeune fille….” “You use either on both the lips and the cheeks.”

These women over fifty may have also used another product: Brownatone. It had been in use since the 1920’s — possibly earlier.

Ad for Brownatone gray hair coloring, WHC, February 1937. There seem to be only two color choices.

For another “After Fifty” triad pattern, click here.

Hairstyles for April 1937

Illustration of “Six New Hairdressings for Gadabout,” Woman’s Home Companion, April 1937. Ben-Hur Baz, illustrator.

The Womans’ Home Companion had hairstyles from leading salons illustrated in April of 1937.

Text for “Six Hairdressings” article, WHC, April 1937. The letters next to each head are the call numbers for radio stations, where readers could listen to fashion reports..

These hairdos look very fussy to me — would a lover would ever dare run fingers through them? –and they were probably full of hidden hairpins.

On the theory that product advertisements use models that women can identify with, I browsed through advertisements from 1936 and 1937 in the same magazine, looking for photographs, rather than drawings. Some hairstyles in ads did have this tightly curled and controlled look.

Tight, sculptured curls in an ad for Ipana toothpaste. WHC, Oct. 1936.

Here, the hair seems to reflect the models’ state of digestion….

Woman to woman advice in a Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia ad, WHC, Dec. 1936.

One of the models in this ad for Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia [a laxative] is definitely curled “up tight” (constipated hair?)

And so is the mother in this article about hairstyles for mother and daughter:

Supposedly, this is how the daughter wished her mother would update her hair style. WHC, May, 1937.

I get the impression that tightly controlled hair styles were aimed at the sophisticated or “mature” reader.  But not necessarily; there’s not a sculptured curl to be seen on these women who are pictured in an ad for Brownatone Hair Dye.

Women in an ad for hair dye show a range of styles, from a late 1920’s Marcel with tiny bun (lower left), to loose, almost collar- length waves. February 1937.

This chic sophisticate has far-from-casual hair…

Ad for Dorothy Gray cosmetics, March 1937. WHC.

… compared to this model in the same issue:

Soft, loosely waved hair on a model in an ad for Colgate toothpaste, March 1937.WHC.

Another off-the-face style from later in 1937:

Natural looking off-the-face waves in an ad for Doggett and Ramsdell cleansing cream. WHC, Dec. 1937. The asymmetrical hairstyle leaves room for an off-center hat.

Below, on the right, a group of models as “career girls.”

Top left, thick, loose curls from an ad for Dodge cars; right, shorter hair for “career girls;” and bottom left, a mother in an ad for Lux laundry soap. 1936-1937, WHC.

The Ponds face cream ads showed a series of lovely women; both the debutante and the duchess have loose, fluffy hairstyles:

Miss Phyllis Konta, New York debutante, in an ad for Ponds cold cream, WHC, March 1937.

The Duchess of Leinster’s hair had to accommodate a tiara. June, 1937, WHC. Ad for Ponds cold cream.

Colgate ran a series of toothpaste ads featuring women who looked lovely until they smiled.

Toothpaste ad, May 1937.

Toothpaste ad, September 1937.

This Bayer Aspirin ad shows two views of the same headache-sufferer. Did taking an aspirin relax her hair?

Before and after in an ad for Bayer Aspirin. WHC, Dec. 1936.

As in the ad for Milk of Magnesia, relief and comfort are symbolized by a more natural hairstyle.

Of course, in 1937, a woman’s hairstyle was dictated by the need to wear a hat while shopping or dining in restaurants, so a curl-free area was usual in daytime hairdos.

Women in a color ad for Dodge, Dec. 1937

Women in an ad for Ponds cold cream, Oct. 1937. The hostess is the only one without a hat, and the crown of her head is smooth — and hat-ready..

Two women wearing hats; Kotex ad, Nov. 1937.

With the exception of motion picture actresses, the hair is usually worn rather close to the head.

Movie starlets in an ad for Richard Hudnut makeup, April 1937.

Actress Merle Oberon in an ad for Richard Hudnut makeup, December 1937. Her hair softly frames her face. Her plucked and penciled eyebrows look more 1920’s than 1930’s. (Compare them with the other models from 1937.)

The brushed-back hair of this model could almost pass for a 1950’s style — but it’s from February, 1937, before the “Six Hairdressings” article was written.

A brushed, almost casual hairstyle from an ad for Dorothy Gray cosmetics, February, 1937. Cartier supplied the jewels.

The model is far from girlish (and the jewels are from Cartier), but she seems much more “timeless” than Merle Oberon, and miles away from this:

Suggested “Hairdressings” from April, 1937. Woman’s Home Companion.

Maybe the ad agencies were more in touch with popular fashion than the editors of Woman’s Home Companion?

Added consideration: One disadvantage of close-to-the-head hairstyles is that, without a hat or fuller hair to balance the width of shoulders and hips, a normal woman can’t come close to the long, lean 1930’s fashion silhouette; this fashion photo from Woman’s Home Companion shows how small the head can look in relation to the figure. [Hair — and shoulders — got much bigger by the forties!]

A photo of “styles in stores;” WHC, March 1936.

In the mid-thirties, as photography replaced fashion illustrations in the “women’s magazines,” women had a more realistic image of what was possible.

Instead of adjusting our idea of beauty, the magazines and designers eventually adjusted the height and weight of the models they used.

Tangee Lipstick & Maybelline Mascara: A Pre-teen’s Makeup in the Fifties

Full page Tangee lipstick ad, Vogue, August 1943.

Tangee for the lips: This advertisement for Tangee color-changing lipstick is from Vogue’s college issue – August 15, 1943. You can see the patriotic “Buy Bonds” text at right.

Tangee Natural lipstick, right, and Tangee Theatrical Red, left. Vogue, Aug. 1943.

“Orange in the stick, it changes to produce your own most becoming shade of blush-rose.” Body heat transformed the translucent orange Tangee Natural lipstick to a light salmon pink when I tested it on the back of my hand.

My First Cosmetic: Tangee

Tangee was the “entry level drug” of cosmetics for me and my friends, growing up in the 1950’s. In the late fifties, lipstick colors were often a frankly artificial red, but Tangee’s promise to adjust to your own lip color and give your lips a natural – but enhanced – hue, meant that I could justify “Tangee Natural” to my father. Rubbed on my hand, it was light pink and almost transparent; I could say, “See, it’s hardly any color at all!” (On your lips, it became darker.)

In this ad, the tube of Tangee lipstick looks completely colorless. Woman’s Home Companion, Feb. 1937.

My friends’ parents also gave their grudging approval for us – aged 13 or so – to wear “natural” Tangee. You could even get away with wearing it to a Catholic girl’s school – usually — if you blotted it…. I don’t know why I wanted to wear lipstick, except that my friends wanted to do it. I wasn’t interested in boys — but applying lipstick was one of those things that adult women did. (Like smoking cigarettes….)

Ad Detail for “Fire and Ice”,  a vivid red lipstick from Revlon, Elegance magazine, 1962-63.

This series of Revlon ads targeted grown women, not teens.

Dime Store Makeup in the Fifties

Tangee color-changing lipstick ad, Delineator, Nov. 1934.

We didn’t have a Woolworth’s Five and Dime store, so we bought our Tangee at the local Ben Franklin Variety Store. It wasn’t an expensive brand; perhaps Tangee still came in both small and large sizes.  In 1958, young teenagers (Junior High age) didn’t usually wear any other makeup. We did eventually move on to mascara in high school; Maybelline, then as now, was available in drugstores and affordable even on a very small allowance.

Top of Maybelline Mascara ad, Delineator, Feb. 1924.

However, I have no memory of Maybelline in a liquid form.

Detail from Maybelline ad, 1929. Waterproof liquid Mascara at right.

The Maybelline I knew came in a very small, red plastic case, with a sliding lid,  and inside was a tray of hard black or brown mascara and a small brush with one row of black bristles. I regret to say that everyone I knew, including my mother, used spit, not tap water, to activate the mascara. (Don’t! Very bad idea!)

Detail, Ad for Maybellline Mascara. Vogue, August 1943.

Maybelline Mascara: A Family Tradition
The Maybelline product and packaging were familiar to me from my early childhood, because my mother had used it for her entire adult life. This ad is from a 1943 magazine. . .

Maybelline Mascara ad, Vogue, Aug. 1943.

. . . and this is from a 1924 magazine:

Maybelline Mascara Ad, Delineator, May 1924.

Maybelline Mascara was an old friend to my mother, a would-be “glamor girl” in the 1920’s.

My mother. Office worker in makeup, circa 1929. In addition to applying mascara to her lashes, she has powdered over her natural lip line and created a dark red “cupid’s bow” or “beestung” lips. She’s obviously not a fan of subtle Tangee lipstick!

Maybelline also made eyebrow pencils, of course, but young teenagers I knew in the 1950’s did not use them to line their eyelids, at least not until we were in high school, and usually not while attending classes before 1960 or so. We tried to be subtle. The nuns had sharp eyes. So did our parents.

Dime Store Daze

Ad for Revlon lipstick, Elegance magazine, 1962-63 issue.

I don’t think I knew there were any other manufacturers of eye makeup products until the 1960’s! The magazine ads for Revlon’s Fire & Ice lipstick (above) were memorable, but aimed at grown women. When I spoke of mascara, I said “Maybelline.”
As a working class kid in the late 1950’s, shopping for cosmetics at a department store never occurred to me. For one thing, the only department store in town was Montgomery Ward, (which we, and the adults we knew, always referred to as “Monkey Ward’s.”) I associated Ward’s with January White Sales and my uncle’s overalls, but not with cosmetics. And for another, we had very little pocket money, so we did our furtive Tangee shopping at the “Ben Frank’s.”

White Lipstick and Black Eyeliner: The Sixties.
Once our parents got used to the sight of us in our Tangee lipstick, it was time to move on to a relatively light colored Revlon lipstick called “Persian Melon.” (It was more coral than red.) Then came the mid-1960’s – the Beatles, Mary Quant in Vidal Sassoon Haircuts, the Mod Look, supermodels Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy, the glorification of all things British – and Yardley (of London!) cosmetics, which targeted the new youth market with white lipstick, tons of eye makeup, and eyeshadows in a rainbow of colors.  But I still bought Maybelline mascara in a little red box.

Mom and Dad Get the Last Laugh

“Make up your lips for kisses!” Tangee lipstick ad, 1934

We 12-year-olds thought that Tangee was a secret passed down to teen girls from their older sisters. I didn’t know until recently that our parents knew all about Tangee cosmetics:  Tangee had been around since the early 1920’s, and advertised heavily in women’s magazines in the 1930’s. According to an excellent history from the Collecting Vintage Compacts website, Tangee was the best selling lipstick in America in 1940! (That site has many vintage Tangee ads in color, too.)

Here are some black and white Tangee ads from the 1930’s, when my parents got married. Sometimes the ads were pitched to women who were still worried that wearing obvious makeup would make them look “fast.” There must have been plenty of women in small-town America whose menfolk disapproved of cosmetics (at least, on their own wives and daughters….)

“Wins man who said: ‘I want unpainted kisses.’ ” Tangee ad, Delineator, March 1934.

Tangee ad, Delineator, March 1934. “It was her own brother who guessed what was wrong … and told her the truth: … Men don’t like paint.”

For some small-town women, there was the problem of competing with younger women for the available bachelors:

Tangee lipstick ad, May 1934. “They called her ‘Old Maid…’ She’s Mrs. Now!”

Text of Tangee ad, May 1934. “Like all fastidious women, she refused to look painted. But for a while, she made the mistake of using no lipstick… with the result that her lips were colorless, old-maidish.”

Even conservative older women wanted to look more youthful — although the wife of a small-town mayor or local businessman couldn’t risk scandal by looking like a “painted woman.”

“For lips that never look old.” Tangee lipstick ad, March 1937. Woman’s Home Companion. “Watch the blush-rose shade of youth appear.” “Tangee isn’t paint and cannot give you a ‘painted look.’ “

Tangee lipstick ads from 1934, left, and 1937, right. “Simply emphasize the natural color in your lips!” Notice that the lipstick appears colorless in this ad, although the model’s lips look fashionably dark.

Eventually Tangee branched out into more vividly colored products. Tangee Natural lipstick is still available – with delightful testimonials – from Vermont Country Store.  If you wonder how lipstick was made, Glamourdaze reprinted a story,”Inside the Tangee Lipstick Factory,” from 1947, when 190 million individual tubes of lipstick  — from all brands — were sold!