Kayser boys

The marketing of women’s stockings has taken interesting turns and twists (or runs and ladders) over the years. The sexual connotation angle is the most utilised. Women sat almost demurely but flashing a length of leg in silk and satin underwear in the 1920s. Burlesque-esque women posed and pouted in the 1940s and 1950s. Close-ups of legs in stockings ran from the 1960s and 70s right through to today, really. Perhaps only the gratuity of the reveal on body parts has increased.

But some stockings have had more unusual mascots holding them up. These two angelic characters were used to sell Kayser Bondor stockings as early as the 1940s. Sometimes they interacted with the lady – flitting and flying around ankles with a tape measure in magazine adverts. Sometimes they held their own as the small die-cut point of sale sign here shows.

The two characters are, I suppose, some sort of angelic bellboy or tailor or waiter. I can’t think of what else they might represent in those outfits. Kayser seems to be an American company, made and sold under license in England and other countries. So these two might have originated under an American pen. The distinctive deco Kayser logo is almost A. M. Cassandre’s 1929 Bifur font but not quite.

This card was a present from a friend who found it in Norfolk – along with a nice Patons & Baldwins sign, that which I was also given. I like to think these two cards were old stock from a small local lingerie and dress shop. This one might have sat on a worn oak counter letting the customers know fully-fashioned fripperies were back in stock at last.

Ms Jones

If Shelf Appeal were going to sit down for an illustrator’s tea party, as well as Mr Bawden and Mr Ravilious – I’d invite Ms Barbara Jones. She has appeared in these hallowed pages of code before and before that. And doubtless will again.

Today’s appearance was triggered by the small exhibition of her work currently on show at The Whitechapel Art Gallery. More specifically the 1951 Festival of Britain exhibition she curated there: Black Eyes and Lemonade. That gorgeous title apparently came from a line in a Thomas Moore poem and was chosen by Jones as it: ‘seems to express the vigour, sparkle and colour of popular art rather better than the words ‘popular art’.

A small room off the Whitechapel library has been given over to original plans for exhibition content, photos of the exhibition itself and some few perfectly formed exhibits that had been on show in 1951, many leant by Jones herself. Others by friends. The Whitechapel show is not nearly enough yet more than I’ve ever seen before on Jones. There are some of her book jackets on show too. Most of which I have already. Although I might deny I collect her work. Stupidly. Might deny – stupidly.

A super Airedale Terrier shaped fireplace is the largest survivor on show from Black Eyes and Lemonade. Closely followed by a fairground horse head. But more satisfying even are a pair of plump blue paper parrots joined by a piece of poignant old cotton thread. And some old plastic windmills of the child-running-on-the-beach variety.

Black Eyes and Lemonade had only previously been real to me through the catalogue that lists and lists lots of wonderful sounding exhibits. I looked for the parrots and windmills but think they must have come under more generic names like ‘Fairings and Swag’. But what is super nice about my catalogue are the neatly penned erudite notes at front and back from someone who must have visited the exhibition in 1951.

I got this catalogue years and years ago. But it is still one of my favourite (ever) graphic illustrations. I saw in the Whitechapel book shop that another of my favourite Jones things, her book Unsophisticated Arts, has just been reprinted in nearly all its glory. That I have a copy of in its original glory. But gosh would I like one of those small bits of ephemeral whatnottage that Jones collected herself and put on show back in 1951.

The small show of the show at the Whitechapel suggests the original exhibition was more wonderful than I had imagined. Jones was a peoples’ popular art folklorist of the first order. Nothing, it seems, was left off her shelves.

Jane

Jane goes to the Wars – as told on her typewriter, with sketches by a comrade in the A.T.S. is a little ditty about a well-to-do woman who joins the A.T.S. or Auxiliary Territorial Service. On joining-up Jane proceeds to fancy all her drill Sergeant-Majors and moves quickly up the ranks to Sergeant herself. Via eating very well in the mess (see illustration) and tobogganing on tin trays. Spiffing fun had by all.

I’m not one for collecting items with my name on them. I know what my name is. This booklet snuck in to my collection by virtue of its wartime niceness. Almost in spite of the title containing my name. It was printed by Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd and is set in a typewritery typeface apropos of the title. The illustrations are lovely Vogue-ish things.

Written in the first person, it’s a piece of propaganda. Part of the drive to get women in to war work out of their (in this case) somewhat pampered lives. The A.T.S. was one of several auxiliary services that called up women from December 1941.  And this red volume looks to be part of that particular recruitment drive. The famous Jane cartoon that ran in The Daily Mirror throughout the war must be the Jane reference here. But it doesn’t look like the same cartoonist drew our Jane. She also isn’t half as saucy as their Jane.

My favourite bit of this book is part of the title page illustration. A wrapped parcel is labeled ‘Pre-war glamour’ and Jane steps past it in her uniform – all curls, lipstick, kit bag and attitude.

Burberry weather

Liverpool in 1955 was doubtless (in terms of weather) as Liverpool in 2013. Ergo, if you were living there then you might have needed a decent rainproof covering. And you might have wanted something with a little something about it. Say a plaid lining.

Burberry was one of the brands to go to for a decent rainproof covering in 1955. Not as ubiquitous and ‘fashion’ as they are these days, Burberry was a sensible brand then. They made serious items of clothing of quality for people who did outdoors things on and with animals. And for people in cities who wanted to look as though they did.

This rather nice giveaway booklet, stamped with compliments of Harold R Fox of Smithdown Road, Liverpool was: ‘The Burberry Diary – a Chronological Calendar of the Important Sporting and Social Events of the Year. The Months divertingly illustrated with Many Rare Prints.’

Jolly and nice hand-coloured prints by Gilray and others illustrate the vagaries of the weather month by month. They are accompanied by a small line drawing of the months’ coat. And in unsubtle acknowledgement of the vagaries of British weather, each page of the booklet carries the legend: ‘It’s always Burberry weather.’ The comprehensive events listed would have ensured your new Burberry got plenty of outings.

There was a very similar giveaway booklet in 1956. And perhaps more after that. The Google tells me modern Burberry dug this (or a similar) booklet out of their archives and used it as a t-shirt and scarf design – and perhaps on other things, too. But I like it best in its original paper booklet form.

Zigzag

On first glance this is a jolly nice deco-ish story book cover. On second glance this is a piece of corporate literature. It is the jolly nice cover that sold this to me, of course. Ever the shallow book buyer.

Published in 1931-2 by the Marshalsea Press, London, this book seems to have been issued as a souvenir of the opening of the new Dorchester Hotel. The title story ‘A Young Man Comes to London’ is a flowery but badly written (if not boring) short story about, erm, a young man coming to London. What makes it a bit more interesting are the line drawings by Cecil Beaton. Not the world’s best illustrator but his drawings are identifiable and nice because of whom he was.

The author of said story, Michael Arlen, has an interesting Wikipedia. An Armenian émigré, he was, it tells us, a bit of a dandy, writer and man about London town in the 1920s. Known particularly for driving a ‘fashionable yellow Rolls Royce’ and ‘engaging in all kinds of luxurious activities.’ Whatever that means. But perhaps some of those activities were played out in hotel rooms. And perhaps the Dorchester paid him in kind.

The rest of the book belies its interesting cover. A bit drier than you might hope. There is an essay on the thinking behind building the new hotel, then ‘An architect’s problem-how it was solved’. And worse: ‘Some facts and figures about the Dorchester’. Such as the fact that it took over 160 miles of electric cable to ‘satisfy requirements’ in the new building. Actually that is quite interesting. Then there are some foldout colour illustrations of the new hotel interiors. All looking implausibly spacious and actually lot less than deco than they should have been.

But back to that selling cover. No credit is given for illustrator of the tasty little stuck on label, which makes London look all New York. But the grand pink and grey zigzags are repeated on the endpapers and title page, where they are unfaded and joyous in their deco zinginess.