Taste

Pleasing geometric layout.  Too bad the Tiffany ad isn't in color.  Were they being cheap?  Or was there some subtle message that color might only cheapen the Tiffany experience?   The ads for real jewelry are usually in black and white - the costume jewelry in glorious color.  Mostly.

The daisy chain bracelet made of rubies and diamonds would be about $325,000.00 today.  It was $14,800.00 in 1959, which seems plenty expensive to me.  The flower pin, which I like the best, was $5,500.00 in 1959.  There is no need to see what it costs today.  Just looking, thank you.

In 1959, Tiffany was four years into the regime of Walter Hoving, a Swedish immigrant who became what must be described as a legendary merchandiser -- Montgomery Ward, Lord & Taylor, Bonwit Teller.  In his obit, he was remembered mostly for his strong ideas about what Tiffany should be  -- no plastic, no scotch tape on the Tiffany boxes, no charge cards given to rude customers, no diamond rings for men.   Here he is:

About the jewels:  the designer is probably Schlumberger, but we're not actually told here.  I suspect we'll be visiting Tiffany again this issue.    And, fearlessly exhibiting more ignorance:  Walter Hoving is the father of Thomas Hoving, a name I did vaguely associate with New York museums.  I thought it was because he had been appointed something recently, but he died in 2009 and was best known for bringing the King Tut thing to America.  I think.  We have to keep going, so:

Voila! The Masthead.  See all those name? This could get very long indeed.  This is how I know I'm not insane:  We'll stick to Editor-in-Chief Jessica Daves.

If we can find her.  Nothing like The September Issue for Miss Daves.  Not a household name like Diana Vreeland, from whom we are a long three years or so away.  She doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry.  You can't get more obscure than that.

But she does have an obit with a small side view photo from 1948.  She is unkindly described in the piece as being portly, having no fashion sense and having a face like a baked apple.  Couture looked like crap on her (paraphrasing).  She is also described as a crack copy editor; I don't agree, if the October 15, 1959 issue is any indication.  She saw Vogue as a way to educate the taste of the American woman and as a way to promote the American ready-to-wear industry.  I think it requires a bit of thought to reconcile the two - somehow and somewhere they must meet.  No - Baby Phat.  Commerce won.

Jessica Daves was also the author of two books that I possess at the moment:  The Vogue Book of Menus and Recipes, which I found in my kitchen, and  Ready-Made Miracle, a history of Seventh Avenue, which I hope to finish before I owe even more money to the Berkeley Public Library.  Something on both of those in later posts.

Her husband, Robert Allerton Parker, wrote about religious movements in the U.S.  He seems more interesting than his wife and came from just down the street:  Alameda.   Cal grad.   Maybe more on him later.

Here is a glimpse of Miss Daves from a British Pathe newsreel from 1957.  (A fascinating site -  britishpathe.com, but I can't get it to load directly here.)

And now for something completely different, this week's trip to the movies:

*  Pretty funny Roger Corman satire of the beatnik scene, with jokes about hydrogenated fat, wheat germ and organic guava juice.

*  Uh, no - nebbishy busboy murders his way to artistic renown.

*  Warm-up for the far superior Little Shop of Horrors.

Jessica Daves, I suspect, would be rather annoyed to awake on the Internet just to find herself paired with a tasteless, murdering beatnik busboy.  And I actually dreaded A Bucket of Blood, having confused Roger Corman with Russ Meyer (who had his first movie out that year - The Immoral Mr. Teas -- a film that I have actually seen, but that didn't appear in the Wiki list of 1959 cinema, so I am unaccountably, but thankfully,  saved from having to see it again.)