The Beauty of Retrospect: Leap Day Post!

And here they are, four gorgeous women who have been featured on my blog repeatedly and are here once again, together: from left, Rosie Vela, Patti Hansen, Rene Russo (below) and Beverly Johnson.

If this lineup looks vaguely familiar, that's because I earlier posted a picture of the same models (posing in the same order) that was taken years after this one.  This photo is from an editorial in the June 1978 issue of the American edition of Vogue, when all four women were at the peak of their modeling careers; the previous photo was an ad from Revlon's "Unforgettable Women" campaign of the 1980s.  By the eighties, Rosie Vela had become a singer and Rene Russo had become an actress; Patti Hansen and Beverly Johnson were still at their modeling peaks. :-)

I posted the 1980s ad back in 2008 . . . to be precise, on February 29, 2008.  Some things never change around here. :-)

Want to see the "Unforgettable Women" ad again?  Just click here. 

I come in like a lion for March with a brand-new A-Z round of fresh subjects.      

The Beauty of Retrospect: Catherine Roberts Week, Part Five

Catherine Roberts remains as beautiful as ever, as this recent black-and-white photo makes clear.

Now based in Los Angeles, she continues to be popular with advertisers and with magazines, particularly for photos to illustrate articles.  She shows no signs of slowing down. :-)

That's it for my retrospective looks at famous models I've featured here before, one woman per week over four weeks.  But my retrospectives for February aren't done yet; after showing four women over the course of month, I will be marking February 29 - a date that occurs only quadrennially - with four women simultaneously. :-D  Check back then to see who they are.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Catherine Roberts Week, Part Four

I mentioned that Catherine Roberts has appeared in TV ads, and you may have already visited her YouTube channel, a link to which is provided to the right on this blog's main page.  Here is a still from one of those ads, specifically from . . . an Aqua Velva commercial?

Well, yes.  In the commercial, Ms. Roberts plays the beautiful girlfriend of the gentleman using the product, the obvious point being that men who use Aqua Velva attract the most desirable women.

There may be something about Aqua Velva men, to paraphrase the old slogan, but there's also something about the women who love them. :-)   

P.S.  If you've seen this commercial . . . no, that's not her actual voice.  

The Beauty of Retrospect: Catherine Roberts Week, Part Three

Here's Catherine Roberts at her most glamorous!

The photo is taken from a Max factor catalog.  A frequent spokesmodel of the Max Factor company, Ms. Roberts also did a television commercial for the cosmetics brand.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Catherine Roberts Week, Part Two

Catherine Roberts' versatility as a model is reflected in this photo from a late-seventies lipstick and nail polish ad.

 

The soft expression in her face and the gentle subtlety in her magnificent eyes convey a sense of sweet, romantic innocence. :-)

The brand is L'Oreal, by the way, and the photo is from one of the those "L'Oreal Colors Your World" ads for lipstick and nail polish in colors named to represent different nationalities.  This is from an ad for the "England" collection.  I thought that "international" gambit L'Oreal went for in the late seventies was silly, and I said I wouldn't show photos from that series, but Ms. Roberts looks so ethereal here, I'm making an exception in this case.  :-)

The Beauty of Retrospect: Catherine Roberts Week, Part One

Who's that wearing those fashionable eyeglasses?

It's Catherine Roberts, of course, fashion and beauty model extraordinaire, and my exclusive subject for this last full week of February, not to mention a perennial subject on this blog since I first featured her in December 2009.

Catherine Roberts is mostly known for modeling beauty products, but she also has a special knack for modeling mundane products like eyeglasses, as in this ad for Silhouette glasses (made by Avant-Garde Optics) from 1977, and making them look interesting. :-) 

In fact, her portfolio includes ads for cars, alcoholic beverages and frozen dinners.  Yeah, I'm still looking for those . . . :-) 

The Beauty of Retrospect: Maria Hanson Week, Part Five

The Maidenform Woman isn't turning up here.

I've long maintained that those Maidenform ads - five of which you've just seen - weren't all of what Maria Hanson was as a model, and I thought I'd underscore that point by closing my week devoted to Ms. Hanson with a picture of her as . . . herself.   

This photo is a picture of the lovely Ms. Hanson from a fashion editorial in the March 1977 issue of Harper's Bazaar.  Bob Stone was the photographer.

She may be the Maidenform Woman to some, but to me, she'll always be Maria Hanson, a beautiful model and a wonderful woman. :-) 

Next up - a week of Catherine Roberts, another beautiful model who's a wonderful woman.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Maria Hanson Week, Part Four - The "Maidenform Woman"

Up, up and away!

The Maidenform Woman considers the golden age of ballooning in an ad from the early eighties, a time when women like the Maidenform Woman herself - her real name is Maria Hanson - epitomized the golden age of modeling. 

And the Madienform Woman shone brightly, like neon. ;-)
  

Longtime followers of this blog may remember that when I first featured Ms. Hanson back in 2013, I resisted showing any of her Maidenform ads because I thought they were silly.  Well, they are, really.  But they're supposed to be silly, or at least absurd.  But I decided to show some of them here, now, largely due to popular demand.  Folks who found Ms. Hanson on my blog didn't just want to see any ads from her portfolio . . . they wanted to see these ads!

Sometimes it's about giving the people what they want.

Anyway,  you probably knew I was going to do this sooner or later, especially after I depicted one of Margrit Ramme's lingerie-ad shots.   And I know that showing such ads is going to displease a lot of folks, just like the Maidenform Woman ads did back in the 1980s.  Feminist groups railed against them, finding them distasteful.  Although Maidenform denied caving to public pressure, the company dropped this "You'll never know where she'll turn up" campaign, and the Maidenform Woman never turned up again, at least not in hot-air balloons and nightclubs.  

As noted, I am friends with Maria Hanson on Facebook, and the fact that I'm showing these ads here should give you an idea of her opinion of them.  I wouldn't show them here if she didn't like them, right?      

The Beauty of Retrospect: Maria Hanson Week, Part Three - The "Maidenform Woman"

Some people would suggest that lingerie ads aren't art. So, here's one with art in it!

The Maidenform Woman has turned up in a sculpting studio to make a likeness of the very handsome man in the background.  Considering that the Maidenform Woman (concealing only her true identity, Maria Hanson) is in the room, he's doing a very good job at holding his neutral expression. :-D    

The Beauty of Retrospect: Maria Hanson Week, Part Two - The "Maidenform Woman"

All present and accounted for?

Here, the Madienform Woman - also known as Maria Hanson - reviews a line of military men, and it's obvious that she thinks they've passed inspection. 

 Not one of them is blinking. ;-)

The Beauty of Retrospect: Maria Hanson Week, Part One - The "Maidenform Woman"

Sometimes clothes transform and change a person's identity, as when members of Kiss suit up and become the Star Child or the Cat Man. But model Maria Hanson assumed a different identity when she took her clothes off down to her undergarments.  She became . . . the Maidenform Woman. :-D 

But of course - you remember the Madienform ads from the early eighties, which featured the stunningly beautiful Ms. Hanson in straight poses in mundane locales but wearing little more than the Maidenform ladies' undergarments being advertised.  The idea was to poke fun at ads for women's lingerie by highlighting the absurdity of a Maidenform model in mundane and unlikely places like, well, as baseball field, as seen above.  Here, the Maidenform Woman is a broadcast reporter covering training camp, the ball player completely oblivious to her presence.

That anyone wouldn't notice a woman in her underclothes on a ball field is sort of absurd. 

Announcement: Reversion of Blog Policy

I'll be getting to my week-long look back at Maria Hanson soon enough, but first, an announcement involving my criteria for this blog is in order.

In February 2015, I decided to change the raise the minimum age for women who appear on this blog from eighteen years of age to twenty, explaining my reason as follows: "It has come to my attention that some people may be uncomfortable with eighteen years as the minimum age of women who are chosen for this blog, and even though eighteen years of age is the age at which legal adulthood is conferred, I've concluded that that's too young."  This recently inspired one Caitlin S., a visitor to this blog, to leave the following comment on the post announcing that change: 

"With all due respect, why do you need an age-limit of any kind, let alone to raise it to twenty? Why can't you celebrate the beauty of women of all ages? Some people may indeed be 'uncomfortable' with celebrating the beauty of eighteen and nineteen-year-olds  . . . but some people are anal imbeciles. Aesthetic appreciation of beauty is not necessarily sexual, for one thing, and even if it is -- are we supposed to pretend that people under twenty or eighteen are asexual?"

After some self-deliberation, I have decided that Caitlin S. is partly right.  I think it's inappropriate to feature here anyone under the age of eighteen, because . . . well, it just is.  A lot of people would find that creepy, and, quite frankly so would I.  But featuring young women aged eighteen and nineteen seems appropriate enough, provided it's in the proper context:  take, for example,  my use of a picture of an 18-year-old Mariel Hemingway in September 2015.  As noted then, I'm four years younger than Ms. Hemingway, so a picture of her at eighteen is still a picture of an older female from my original, fourteen-year-old male perspective. And yes, there are some young women from generations that have come after mine whose pictures I could certainly post pictures of here, if only because people of those generations who might want to check out this blog have an interest in these younger women, just as Generation Xers like myself and Baby Boomers have an interest in the older women I feature here.  

(You're probably wondering why I raised the minimum age to twenty rather than, say, twenty-one.  That's because I had once featured a picture of a twenty-year-old Kim Alexis - who's five years older than I am - and I wanted the rule to cover that.)

So, after a couple of days of consideration, I've decided to go back to a minimum age of eighteen in my criteria.  I know I can't please everyone, and Caitlin S. might not be entirely happy with the fact that I have an age limit at all . . . but there you are.  At least this change back will allow me to feature pictures of women who are older than I am when they were eighteen, and without apology. 

Right, a week of Maria Hanson photos is coming up . . .             

The Beauty of Retrospect: Juli Foster Week, Part Five

Juli Foster continued to model into the 1980s. Here she is from a fashion editorial from the British edition of Vogue, specifically the February 1982 issue. Eric Boman is the photographer.

As I indicated earlier on this blog, Juli Foster rarely cracked a smile.  Even a simple grin from her is rare.  You might say she smiled as often in the seventies and eighties as President Calvin Coolidge spoke back in the twenties.  

Come to think of it, most people know Juli Foster by her print work, and unless there's an old commercial of hers floating out there on YouTube, her admirers have never heard her speak, either.  Most models are known for their print ads, of course, so the fact that you rarely hear the sounds of their voices adds to their mystique.  But by keeping a straight (but beautiful) face, Juli Foster enlarged her own mystique even more.

She's a genius. :-) 

Next up - a week of Maria Hanson, portraying her most famous role as a model. Can you guess what I mean? ;-)        

The Beauty of Retrospect: Juli Foster Week, Part Four

A penny for your thoughts, Juli! :-D

This photo by the great Irving Penn (maybe you've seen his brother Arthur;s movies!) shows our heroine lost in thought and looking out into space.  It's a perfect pose for such a gorgeous sundress.

Which is actually very unfortunate, for the April 1979 U.S. Vogue editorial this picture was taken from is about skin care.

But Juli Foster does have great skin. :-)     

The Beauty of Retrospect: Juli Foster Week, Part Three

I mentioned that my original post devoted to Juli Foster, from May 2011, featured a photo from the U.S. Vogue editorial "The Look of the Year -- New York, Paris, Milan" from it January 1978 issue.  Here is another photo from that same editorial.

The look of 1978, apparently, involved loose jackets and rolled-up sleeves on one arm.  But Juli Foster can make any look seem cool. :-)

Albert Watson was the photographer, and fashion hairdresser Harry King - full disclosure, he's a friend of mine on Facebook, and I have met him in person - did the hair. 

The Beauty of Retrospect: Juli Foster Week, Part Two

Here's Juli Foster again, looking very intense in this picture from an editorial from the January 1978 issue of the American issue of Vogue.

The editorial was for the "Florida look," emphasizing clean colors and lots of suede.  For fashion-minded women freezing in the Northeastern January, it was a soft sell. 

Juli Foster is the only model in this editorial, which was photographed by Stan Malinowski.  I featured a photo from a different editorial, "The Look of the Year -- New York, Paris, Milan," in this same issue of Vogue in my original post for Ms. Foster (second one from top) back in May 2011.   

The Beauty of Retrospect: Juli Foster Week, Part One

Juli Foster, like most models of the profession's golden age, was active in the 1970s and 1980s.

The ensemble she sports in the photo below is clearly from the former decade. ;-) 

Just look at the size of that collar! :-D

I believe this photo is from a catalog. No clue on the exact year, but the photographer is Ian Miles.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Pat Cleveland Week, Part Five

Here's Pat Cleveland in more recent times - specifically, July 2012, attending a New York screening of the fashion-model documentary About Face, in which she was interviewed.  She poses just as beautifully for candid shots as she does for fashion assignments. 

It was at the May 2012 screening of the same documentary at the film festival in Montclair, New Jersey, by the way, where I met her . . . and had my picture taken with her.  Her husband took our picture together.

Her husband, by the way, is Dutch-born photographer Paul Van Ravenstein, whose sister Apollonia Van Ravenstein is also a famous model.  Paul Van Ravenstein and Pat Cleveland also have a daughter, Anna, who's a rapidly raising star in the modeling world herself.  Quite an interesting family, indeed. :-)   

While I've never featured Pat Cleveland's sister-in-law or daughter on this blog, I certainly intend to feature both down the road.  In the meantime, though, it's on to my next week-long retrospective, a look back at . . . Juli Foster. :-)  

The Beauty of Retrospect: Pat Cleveland Week, Part Four

You still don't think Pat Cleveland is a model like no other? Well, take a look at this!

With a mane of long flowing hair to match her long flowing physique, it's obvious that Ms. Cleveland can strike a unique pose with even minimal enthusiasm.  But, the thing is, Pat Cleveland never, ever does anything unenthusiastically. ;-)  

The Beauty of Retrospect: Pat Cleveland Week, Part Three

Now this is a plunging neckline.

And Pat Cleveland has the ability to make it look tastefully stunning while also displaying her infectious vivaciousness. That smile! :-D

If there's any woman who can pull off a look like this, I haven't seen her . . . and I haven't met her.  But, remember, I have met Pat Cleveland. ;-)  

The Beauty of Retrospect: Pat Cleveland Week, Part Two

For a woman of such imposing physical statue and magnetic presence - ask someone who's met her! - Pat Cleveland has an incredible ability to project a softer look.

This 1977 photo of Ms. Cleveland is a fine example of her more demure side.

But she still manages to project the unique, mesmerizing persona that made her a legend. :-)

The Beauty of Retrospect: Pat Cleveland Week, Part One

I've often said that to merely call Pat Cleveland a fashion model and leaving it at that is like calling the Vatican a neighborhood church in Rome.  

And here's the proof - in one stunning photo.

And if you need any more proof,  there are plenty more photos of Ms. Cleveland to come this week!

Another model would merely look spectacularly stunning - or stunningly spectacular - in a pink frilled evening dress like this one.  To describe Pat Cleveland in such terms would be making a huge understatement.

The dress designer?  You know, I sort of forgot that detail! :-D       

February 2016: Model Retrospectives

Back in March 2015,  I devoted each week in the month to a different woman, each one a fashion model, with five posts for each one.  I had so much fun doing that, I thought I'd do it again this month.  How about that? :-)

The reason I'm doing this is because I thought I'd give myself a breather and a little extra time to come up with more subjects as I approach the one thousand mark in September - just in time for this blog's tenth anniversary.  As this is the month in this quadrennial leap year that includes an extra day, I plan to cap off the month on February 29 with a single picture of four high-profile fashion models that I have featured on this blog before individually. . . and together. ;-)

Who will those four models be?  Well, you'll have to wait until the end of the month to find out.  But I am going to identify the four models I'm devoting a week to this month.  I start, in alphabetical order as I always do, with Pat Cleveland, who defies classification because she is in a class by herself.  I follow her with Juli Foster, who's known for her ethereal beauty but not for her ethereal smile.

Third comes Swedish model Maria Hanson . . . though not as herself but as a famous character in advertising.  Can you guess whom I'm talking about? ;-)

I then conclude the month with a whole week devoted to Catherine Roberts, whom I actually devoted a week to when I first featured her here in December 2009.  She's about to become only the second model I've twice devoted a week to, after Karen Graham.

Full disclosure requires me to state that I know three of these women through Facebook, and I have also personally met Catherine Roberts and consider her a good friend, just as I consider the other two to be good friends.  The exception is Pat Cleveland; while I have met her, as I noted earlier on this blog, I can't really say I know her.

I start this series of retrospectives tomorrow, so please check back then! :-)