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Comments blog comments powered by DisqusThis short film, made in 1939, predicts what fashions will be like in the year 2000. Electric weather-control belts, aluminum clothes, and menswear with “pockets for candy for cuties” are all in the running! (via Vintage Fashions Youtube)
Vintage Future Fashion…
X-Ray Art
According to artist Nick Veasey, these days everything’s about image. Our society is completely obsessed with it. Whether it’s how we look, where we live, or how we dress, image is all that matters. “I like to challenge this automatic way that we react to just physical appearance by highlighting the, often surprising, inner beauty,” he says. This explains the essence of his striking X-ray photographs.
In the image above of passengers sitting on a bus, it’s interesting, if slightly morbid, to learn that everyone on the bus is actually the same person – and that person is a dead body, moved around and posed by an undertaker.
Yet they are captivating images that highlight the inner beauty and details often overlooked during daily routine activities. The bus image proved so mesmerizing that it had to be removed from billboards, where it was used as part of an advertising campaign, because it proved too distracting for drivers.
(Source: nickveasey.com)
Vintage Animal Photographer Harry Whittier Frees
Harry Whittier Frees (1879–1953) was an American photographer who created novelty postcards and children’s books based on his photographs of animals. He dressed the animals and posed them in human situations with props, often with captions. These were famously popular as postcards and posters at the turn of the century. The books and postcards are both highly collectible today.
These comical images are from his 1915 book, The Little Folks of Animal Land. He created images with animals, mostly kittens recreating everyday life scenarios. The images were titled:
- “Lily Bufkins Cuts a Wisdom Tooth”
- “Barker was Busy in the Kitchen”
- “Mrs. Bufkins Takes Barker’s Place”
- “Purra Plays a Joke on Prowler”
- “Mrs. Bufkins had a Busy Day”
- “Rosie was a patient model”
- “Prowler and Purra Try the Jam”
Unlike many of Frees contemporaries, he used live animals and not taxidermy. This allows guilt-free enjoyment of the pictures without the “yuck” factor of knowing that you are looking at something dead.
(Source: abcnews.go.com)
Sue Lillian Brown, better known as Betty Broadbent, was only 18 years old in 1927 when she joined the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus as the youngest professional tattooed woman in the U.S.
Strange Vintage Listerine Ads, 1912-1950
These ads are not the way we currently think of Listerine. It seems that the product had trouble finding the right use for years. Listerine was invented 134 years ago, first as a surgical antiseptic, but also as a cure for gonorrhea. An article from 1888 recommends Listerine “for sweaty feet, and soft corns, developing between the toes.” Over the course of the next century, it was marketed as a refreshing additive to cigarettes, a product for feminine hygiene, a cure for the common cold, an antiseptic for wounds and as a dandruff treatment. But it was in the 1940s that the powerful, germ-killing liquid finally found its most lucrative use as a cure for bad breath.
(Source: vintage-ads.livejournal.com)
Bone Flowers
All of these flowers are made from real bones of mice and rats. Japanese artist Hideki Tokushige states that the collection, called “Honebana” (bone flower), is the result of a ceremonial process that honors the cycle of death, decay, and rebirth, even as modern society becomes increasingly detached from this spiritual reality.
(Source: honebana.com)
Newton’s Cradle
Newton’s cradle, named after Sir Isaac Newton, is a device that demonstrates conservation of momentum and energy via a series of swinging spheres. When one on the end is lifted and released, the resulting force travels through the line and pushes the last one upward.
(Source: techgraffiti.com)
Basket Jim does his thing in Covent Garden, London in 1930.
(Source: vintagephoto.livejournal.com)
Extremely Realistic Pencil Art
The following look like photos but they aren’t. All three of these pictures were drawn with a pencil. The attention to detail, hair, shading, features, everything perfectly proportioned. I think even Ray Bradbury would think he was looking at a picture of himself. The artist, Franco Clun from Italy, says “Unfortunately I did not study art, and everything I know I learned from experience and from reading some drawing manuals.”
(Source: unfinishedman.com)
