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~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

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Tag Archives: advertising

Aspirational Shopping

11 Saturday May 2013

Posted by kittycalash in History

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18th century, 18th century clothes, advertising, common dress, consumer culture, historical myths, history, newspapers, Providence, Research, resources, Rhode

So, I always thought that window shopping was a product of the late 19th or early 20th century, the plate glass windows of the Bon Ton, and The Lady’s Paradise.

Providence Gazette and Country Journal, 4-18-1772

Providence Gazette and Country Journal, 4-18-1772

I was wrong.  Check out the last line in this ad from the Providence Gazette and Country Journal of April, 1772:

“Any Person not wanting to purchase, but having a Mind to see the greatest Pennyworths, shall be waited on with great Chearfulness, by their very humble Servant, PAUL ALLEN.”

In case we forget, the past is there to remind us that the consumer culture started much, much earlier than we think it did. Stop blaming Don Draper: I give you Paul Allen.

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Chintz? Check!

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by kittycalash in 1763 Project, Clothing, History, Research

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

18th century, 18th century clothes, advertising, fabric, newspapers, Providence, Rhode Island

Les Fleur d' Inde

Les Fleur d’ Inde: delicious!

Because I am prey to a pretty print as much as the next princess costume blogger tenant farmer’s wife, I thought I should go  looking for evidence before I launch into any cotton sacques, and to justify the use of the print remnant I’m stitching up into a jacket. (Apologies in advance to my friend who bought enough for a gown, because you know we’ll wear them to the same event…)

Providence Gazette and Country Journal, March 16, 1765

Providence Gazette and Country Journal, March 16, 1765

American Historical Newspapers to the rescue, once again. Here’s an ad for Alexander Black and Archibald Stewart, from the Providence Gazette and Country Journal of March 16, 1765.  Chintz and calico: it’s here in Providence in 1765. I knew there were merchants selling calicoes and chintzes in Providence in 1768 (including Samuel Young, who printed his broadside in red).

Chintz and chip hatsThree years later, Joseph and Wm. Russell at the sign of the Golden Eagle are selling (lately imported from London and Bristol) “A neat and genteel assortment of dark ground calicoes and chintz.” This ad runs to four columns in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, 1768, April 9. It’s a tantalizing list, and no, I did not miss those chip hats and bonnets!

forks!

Digression: I was attracted to this bit about forks as I recall being told by a historic house tour guide once that “forks were not in common use until the Civil War.” It’s an early house, maybe he meant the English Civil War, but I think forks were here to stay and be bought for a variety of prices long before the American Civil War. How else to explain those archaeological finds that show forks of some kind at Rev War forts and camp sites? /Digression. New digression: OMG, knitting needles! /New digression.

William Eliot

Back to chintz: Here, in 1771, is William Eliot, selling chintzes in Providence, and advertising in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal of June 1, 1771. He also has “flowered and sprigged lawn in aprons,” and Kenting and check handkerchiefs.  (Kenting was a fine linen fabric)

In the limited search I ran (1754-1783 newspapers), plenty of references to chintz appear in Providence alone (there were 166 hits, but the ads repeat). This completely unscientific approach in which I stopped looking in 1771*, has turned up 5 merchants, if you count the RIHS Library’s broadside for Samuel Young. Chintzes and calicoes were everywhere. Dark grounds were “genteel,” checks and spots and stripes are popular and common.

Paul Sandby, London Cries: Black Heart cherries... ca. 1759. YCBA,  B1975.3.206

Paul Sandby, London Cries: Black Heart cherries… ca. 1759. YCBA, B1975.3.206

I begin to see 18th century Providence, if not all of the Colonies, as a variegated, kaleidoscopic place of pattern and color. I think there was more than we realize, even if only in small amounts.

Look again at the cherry seller: her petticoat is yellow and blue, if not yellow, blue, and white striped,  her apron is blue, her stockings brown or faded reddish, her cap is affixed with a pink or red ribbon, and she wears a checked kerchief. She’s poor and sort of faded, but she’s colorful–more colorful, perhaps, than we have credited.

*I do have to head out to work, but I can search again.

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Holy time piece, Batman!

27 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by kittycalash in Art Rant

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

advertising, auctions, Chanel, commodities, copy writing, fashion, Museums, rant, Sotheby's, watches

From Sotheby's Preview magazine

From Sotheby’s Preview magazine

We had some fun with this at work on Thursday. The slightly awful truth is that these catalogs and publications for the super-rich and fabulously fat-walleted arrive with regularity at the historical-cultural complexes that comprise the workplaces of under-paid and over-educated aesthetes, fueling their impotent rage about the eroding American dream. We had several performances of the Reading of the Watch Ad, appreciating the high craft and art of the copy and design.

I’m a Mad Men addict for all the wrong reasons (management tips! vicarious vices!) but long-time fan of advertising, copy writing, and graphic design. As a child, I launched, wrote and self-published F.U.S.S., the members’ newsletter of the Felix Unger Sympatico Society, for which my mother served as managing editor and my father the sole subscriber. This was really direct marketing, or taunting, as the case may be.

But we made a kind of cult of design in my household, so I knew as a kid what Y&R stood for, or DMBB. Mad Men sucked me right in, so when this turned up, I was ready.

This ad is the inside front cover and first page of the Sotheby’s Preview magazine which features Jeff Koons’ vacuum cleaner sculpture for $15M or so. This is serious walking around money, and if you are going to recline in your Manhattan penthouse (hope it’s pre-war) admiring the Koons while your maid vacuums before a party, this is the watch to time her with.

Copy Writer's dream, or nightmare?

The copy combines naughtiness with auction catalog sentence structure, like a sexed-up museum label.

High feminine complication, this flying tourbillon decorated with the motif of the camellia, a tribute to Mademoiselle Chanel’s favorite flower, beats away discreetly and almost secretly at the heart of the Première watch.

That last clause screams affair. When I read, all I can think of is Roger Sterling in a hotel room with his mistress. A colleague said this kind of watch was only given to rapper’s girlfriends—the serious ones—but at $286,814 (last year’s price), perhaps it’s a “don’t divorce me and take half my empire” celebrity wife present. Tisch and the Winklevoss twins were in the event pictures of this Preview, and this watch does scream nouveau riche, not Astor money (that was a fur trade fortune, originally).

Where it gets really fun, I think, is when the text takes on the style of an auction catalog lot description:

Having no upper bridge, the carriage decorated with a camellia appears to be rotating in a weightless state. Limited edition of 20 numbered pieces. 18-carat white gold, set with 228 diamonds (~7.7 carats).

“Having no upper bridge” is a technical description that reminds me of the dentally challenged with poor memories and no mirrors. Note that camellia is repeated here—perhaps to help you recognize the motif, because I’m not sure it reads very clearly.

There it is, the quarter-of-a-million-dollar watch, advertised in a magazine promoting artwork for tens of millions of dollars, pieces that a colleague noted would be displayed in the penthouse for a party and then put into storage as an investment until the art advisor said it was time to sell for a profit. Art as commodity, produced like commodities now, from Warhol to Koons to Hirst.

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