This next article includes plenty of scantily clad pictures of Lucille Ball and Marie Wilson (as Irma, the dumbest blonde on TV). Irma in the “My Friend Irma” show, especially, is mentioned as stretching television’s strict Code with risque outfits and comedic innuendos. Lucille Ball is mentioned as being the pretty woman with brains and wit behind the top ten rated show “I Love Lucy”.
Women’s changing fashions and shapes thru the 1900s! This first page quotes a skit about womens’ changing fashions from 1903-1953 written by Lois Long of the New Yorker and performed on “The American Road” by Mary Martin. Following that are production stills of Miss Martin performing her skit in various outfits representing the major fashion trends of the first half of the 20th century. Doesn’t it seem like every era declares itsself the one of the “emancipated clear eyed career girl”?
Then… and article about women in television commercials and television advertising (“bringing glamor to household appliances”).
“The Bust Line May be Best Line in TV”. This article explores how television was currently reshaping the Pinup phenomenon, remarking on Faye Emerson’s low cut gowns in the late 40s, but then turning again away from excess by raising bustlines and hemlines (referencing the Breen office’s revision in 1951, that apparently included a ban against showing intimate apparel on a moving figure). However, these restrictions had the result of making the female form more enticing, “A whisper echoes more than a shout”.
