Surfing

Once more, whoever chose the page mates is playing an excellent match game.  Lovely use of black and white on both sides.    Page details:

This is the third lacy dress in a row.  Roxane Kamenstein, sister of the better known designer Karen Stark (whom I find myself pretending to have heard of, when I really have not),  was the in-house designer for Samuel Winston from 1952.  In 1960, she won a Coty (do you win those?) for her work in evening wear.   In this article from 1965, the startling idea of the Seventh Avenue designer is broached.  Women don't just want an afternoon dress -- whatever that is -- they want a "Samuel Winston."  Just like they don't want a painting, they want a Rauschenberg.  Who would not really be a Seventh Avenue artist. . .

I can find no reference to "Samuel Winston," except as a dress manufacturer.  Am suspecting it was a "classy name" to put on the label and there was no such person.  Dunno.

This is from Dresses on the Fifth floor of Saks, so probably not a "Sophie" design of the Third Floor.  I remember lamenting last time -- the October 15 issue -- that a single name like "Sophie" is unsearchable on Google, thus lost to history.  Not true.  Found her.   But she has nothing to do with this page.

Car upholstery was apparently very chic in 1959 for suits.

This ad makes no sense.  She is "checking in" for "shore leave," but isn't she going the wrong way?     And what was the man on the left supposed to add?

This would cost more than $1,200.00 today, and I would pass it up then and now.

This week's movie, by odd coincidence, was Gidget.  Cliff Robertson, the Kahuna, died this week.

No trailer to be found:

This clip contains one of the best scenes in the movie -- the surfers with torches.  Very cool.  But very brief.

*  Sixteen-year-old girl eschews "man hunts" with her rather slutty-minded friends, yet ends up as mascot of a brotherhood of surfers, led by disaffected Korean War vet.  The foregoing is perfectly true, yet somehow doesn't sum it up all that accurately.

*  Knew nothing about the history of Gidget - the girl, the book -- but was expecting better.  Thought it would be a bit more like Pillow Talk -- silly, but with some actual human beings in it.  No.  Also, Sandra Dee was fine in Imitation of Life, so was surprised at how excruciating to watch she was here.  Cliff Robertson seemed embarrassed; James Darren came out the best, manfully plodding through.  Apparently no one thought a decent screenplay was important here.

*  Bored, so found myself focusing on the Indian print bedspread in the Kahuna's shack.  I remember stacks and stacks of them in stores in The Haight in 1967, and then in the hippy stores that turned up in the early malls in the early 1970's, but where would you buy such a thing in 1959?