Monday, August 09, 2010

Advertising Age

I love looking through vintage magazines and papers, and I especially love browsing the old ads--fustily composed, epic-length come-ons for corn flakes and cigarettes, lavishly illustrated pages promoting remedies for ague and the grippe...and then there is this one, from a 1926 copy of MacLean's magazine I picked up in a quaint museum gift shop in the quaint town of Aggasiz:

In keeping with the purpose of this blog, I will force myself to point out that the phrase "the only pouch in the world which opens with a single sliding movement" assails my ear as a miscast restrictive use of the word which. (I know the Brits do it, but they drink weak tea with milk and kill each other over soccer games, too, so do we really need to take our lead from them?)  Anyway, I really just wanted to share this slice of life from a time when a zipper was considered the height of hi-tech wizardry.

And then there is this inventive re-imagining of modern social media, as portrayed in Mad Men-era ad style.


Again, I could get picky and point out that leasure should be leisure and that enchantment is not an adjective. But these faux ads were designed in Brazil so let's give them a pass on the English spelling and grammar and just enjoy the way they so deftly applied yesterday's advertising sensibilities to today's cultural touchstones.