Mille Baisers

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

In the Moonlight

Postcards of lovers and the moon.

personal collection

Of course, with these cards, even moonlight isn't necessarily subdued:

personal collection

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Today, a bit of a strange trend-- painting blank backgrounds bright red. This never seems to have been a popular variation-- I've only ever seen four examples, and all published by the same house, ARS. Two of mine are from the same photoshoot, and the other one seems to feature the same models. Honestly I think it looks terrible, but it's interesting that at some point, someone thought it would be cool, and some people bought them, agreeing.

personal collection

This card was sent in 1938, but it's an outlier--the look of romance postcards in general had totally changed by the mid-1930s, the date on the other dated postcard in this post is 1924, and as this red background seems never to have become popular, it probably didn't last very long in the first place.

personal collection

In this one, from the same photoshoot as the last (and with the same number), the woman's dress gets silver tinting, one of a couple examples I have where images from the same photoshoot have just slight variations-- I suspect this might mean they weren't made at exactly the same time/place, but I don't know.

personal collection

Dated 1924.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Les Animaux

A couple postcards with animals (as in this post, horses seem to have been the most popular choice when animals were thrown in, even pre 1920s).

personal collection

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

The Male Model

If you've spent any amount of time on this blog (or with this kind of postcard elsewhere), you no doubt will have noticed the models have a very strong "type," especially the men. I've always been humoured by this, even as I've paid more attention and started to see the same few men over and over. However, upon finally deciding to take a very serious look at this question, I discovered something pretty surprising and very interesting-- while there is certainly a "type", it's less strong than I thought... because a very large number of the models fitting that type are in fact the same man. I'm surprised how long it took me to realize this-- for the longest time, in fact, I thought he was two different models, until I looked more closely and realized no, that's him with different expressions.

It's surprisingly hard to pick out photographs of the same person when you've never seen that person in real life or in motion (like an actor)-- if you've always seen him in profile with his eyes lowered, it's hard to recognize his opened eyes and smile. These postcards make it harder-- the variety of colours are an obstacle, especially the dye-toned ones that aren't sharp; the hair and clothes change frequently (his hair can range from slicked back and kept straight with a ton of product to quite puffy and wavy without any product, or anywhere in between); and often the men are wearing make-up (not to mention plucked eyebrows!). Also, unlike most other kinds of portraits (including snapshots and photojournalism) no one is trying to capture what this specific person looks like, only what he represents. However, the more I looked at him (not a difficult task, I'll admit) the more I started to get a strong idea of what he actually looks like, and the easier it became to recognize him no matter the context. Anyway, as well as now being totally in love with him, I feel pretty sure I can now pick him out of the 1920s postcard model crowd (how many people can say that?).

I know almost nothing about him, and have almost no idea where I could possibly find out more (perhaps in some French archive, with a research grant and a ton of luck!, except that he made a career out of being a postcard model in the 1920s (which admittedly is pretty interesting). In fact, he appears in at least one-third of my postcards dated 1923-1933, and possibly more-- the dye toning, outdoor light, and/or poses make clear looks at the fellows impossible on a number of the cards. He obviously has quite delicate, feminine features, even without make-up, which was totally the "in" look for men in the 1920s (think of Rudolph Valentino, the fundamental period hearthrob).

The postcards in which he appears come from a variety of different publishers, which is worthwhile to know-- clearly the models weren't in any sort of exclusive contract with publishers. I would love to know if the photographers were, and/or the relationship between the photographers and the models.... but if I'm ever able to, that's down the line.

For now, let's celebrate the career of our mystery model, the Romantic Lover of 1920s fantasy!

All images cropped from postcards in my collection, most of which have appeared or will appear elsewhere in this blog.

His extreme specialty was posing in profile with lowered eyes:

Occasionally you could catch him in three-quarter profile:

Or even staight on:

He did also open his eyes sometimes as well:

Or catch him squinting into the sun:

(gosh those are both such bad pictures!)

He'd even smile on rare occasions:

(and his smile is pretty great)

He could even totally rock the clown look:

(Pierrot)

(Harlequin)

Personally I think he just knocks the socks of any male model today!

Friday, January 3, 2014

Crazy Colour Photoshoot

Continuing along with some of the postcards so colourful as to be blinding...

I love this set for combining the look of having been coloured with highlighters with the look of detailed stenciling on the woman's dress, and I love the way the lack of tinting on the woman's face, legs, and hands and the entirety of the man gives them a surreal sense of unreality, like they are bright pink ghosts. I love the really long stems on the flowers that stick out oddly in almost every picture. I love how they are all sent from the same man to his fiancee on the 20th, 21st, and 24th of July (1929), and I love how he always notes the time he wrote (this is not uncommon in the period, but I always love it). I love how all the messages cut off mid-sentence-- he must have continued on in a longer letter or on other cards. I just love this set.