Explore the fascinating world of 1950s pinup culture with CheeseCake Pinup Magazine – 1953, a historical treasure capturing the golden era of glamorous models, risqué advertising, and shifting societal norms. These detailed scans shed light on the evolution of pinup art, burlesque influences, and the cultural forces shaping beauty standards during the mid-20th century. Painstakingly scanned with a DSLR, these magazine pages offer a rare opportunity to witness how the pinup phenomenon unfolded in a pivotal moment in history — when this art form was at its peak.
These scans provide an invaluable window into the mid-century zeitgeist. The articles and images featured highlight how pinup culture influenced advertising, fashion, and entertainment in an era of transformation. Whether you’re a history enthusiast, a vintage fashion lover, or simply someone fascinated by cultural trends, this collection offers plenty to explore and admire.
Each page holds stories that span beyond the surface, celebrating the artistry and audacity of a bygone era. So, sit back, enjoy these scans, and revel in the beautiful complexity of history captured through the playful, provocative lens of the 1950s pinup craze. Vintage never goes out of style!
Marilyn Monroe wasn’t just a movie star—she was the all‑American pinup girl who helped define mid‑century beauty and advertising. This post explores how WWII pinup culture, postwar prosperity, and Hollywood glamour turned Marilyn into an enduring advertising icon and a symbol of the American dream.
Discover the ideal female measurements of the 1950s, a decade that set distinct beauty standards through beauty contests and societal expectations. This article delves into the historical context and cultural significance of the 1950s beauty ideals, offering insights into how these standards influenced fashion and shaped the perception of female beauty during the era.
Where was modeling going in the 1950s, and what would future fashion trends hold? The main point of this article seemed to point out the sheer diversity of pinup models and beautiful women. An interesting picture was one of Rita Hayworth without makeup, and then made up. One of her movies, “An Affair in Trinidad”, was chosen by the National Photographers Association as “the sexiest and most provocative motion picture still ever made”.
By the early 1950s, beauty and publicity had become almost ridiculous, as evidenced by the crowning of Potato Queens (Marilyn Monroe), National Soybean Queen (and Miss Missouri), Sourkraut Queen, Queen Pickle.
This first article about the history of women in sports seems to claim that women are 2 inches taller (in 1953) than they were in 1850 because they’re free to exercise and play sports!
Wow. What a cool series of pinup and burlesque star history!
I’m not sure if there’s much of a point to the words in these pages, but the pictures show the history of fashion and burlesque with pictures including
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”.
This article claims that Annette Kellerman was groundbreaking in making more practical swimwear acceptable… and did you know that shorts for women were invented in the 1930s?
The article covers women’s baseball with interesting pictures showing women’s baseball teams from World War I and the 1950s (including pictures of Ruth Engle and Doris Sams), and also pictures of figure skaters and golfers to contrast fashion trends of the first part of the 20th century.
These next few pages of old pictures are a history of chorus girls and showing skin on stage, from Can Can girls, to to Mae West, to the Zigfield Follies, and the Rockettes.
Here’s an interesting history of pinups in advertising! Showing pictures of billboards from the 1800s-1950s, with a focus on pretty girls in beer advertisements.
The next page shows samples of pretty women used to advertise books and, the latest thing, record album covers. Even classical music “moves off the shelves” faster when an attractive woman is pictured on it!
Here’s an intriguing look into the history of how tobacco advertisements used glamorous pinup models and women to market cigarettes. From the rise of Turkish cigarettes in the early 1900s to the post-war pinup culture of the 1950s, cigarette brands cleverly broke societal taboos and redefined smoking as glamorous and sophisticated. Discover how Chesterfield, Marlboro, and Camel pioneered strategies that linked cigarettes with freedom, beauty, and modernity, capturing the cultural shifts of each era.
Here is illustrated how two marketing companies used cheesecake pinup, double entendre, and sexual innuendo to sell mens shirts and bed sheets.
Here are shown some lingerie and shapewear ads from the 1800s-1950s. The chemise replaced the corset cover by 1918, although shape wear was still worn in the 1920s to achieve that stylish “boyish” form. The inflatable bra of the 1950s replaced the “Victoria” bosom pad of 1879… such changes in lingerie styles and advertisements!
Advertising to women, often by showcasing attractive women, has always been a fascinating part of history. Explore the evolution of corset and shapewear ads, from Warner Brothers Coraline Corsets in the 1880s, Gilda Grey’s 1923 fat-reducing cream, and Gypsy Rose Lee’s electric shaver endorsement, to the sleek 1950s girdles designed to create a flawless silhouette. These vintage ads showcase cultural shifts in beauty standards and women’s fashion through time.
Pinups thru out history have been used to sell everything from cosmetics to real estate. Sometimes, they had their origins in the scandalous worlds of peepshows and erotica. The scandalous Gilda Grey, famous for popularizing The Shimmy with her signature song The Shimmy Shewabble, helped sell a reducing cream in 1923. In 1925 she did the shimmy after a meeting to interest buyers in buying Coral Gables properties in Florida. The Shimmy, for which Gilda Grey was famous for, reportedly could be danced properly only with great difficulty and was considered primarily an exhibition dance. Similarly, the Cat Dance by Lilly Christine, had its origins in the realms of peepshows, but she crossed over into mainstream pinup model popularity and helped sell products.
“Today’s musical comedy stars replace the Grecian bend of The Florodora Girls with abandon, and little else” reads the headline. It mentioned the famous gals who have come from the anonymity of chorus lines, including: Eva Tanguay, Ann Held, Bebe Daniels, Ruby Keeler, Barbara Stanwyck, and Lucille Ball.
This article discusses how Hollywood press agents can create a national pinup sensation thru posting daringly sensual photos in select magazines. As examples, they point out Theda Bara in the first part of the 20th century, and the “modern” sensation Roberta Haynes.
Take a fascinating look back at the daring evolution of art and nude photography, as highlighted in a 1953 Cheesecake Pinup Magazine. With insights on Louis Daguerre’s pioneering work from 1839, provocative photos from the 1870s, and Jules Alexander’s surreal modern masterpieces of the 1950s, this post explores how figure photography blended tradition with innovation over the decades. Discover the rich history connecting 19th-century figure studies to mid-20th-century cheesecake art!
Burlesque has provided men with a variety of entertaining pinups. Notably, Ida Bayton’s white violin act in “The Taxi Girls” in 1914, and Lili St. Cyr’s bubble bath striptease that helped land her in 3D movies.
In World War I, Mary Pickford became the favorite pinup of soldiers when she dressed in uniform and toured the nation selling Liberty Bonds. In World War II, “demand for it [pictures of Betty Grable”] ran as high as 20,000 per week…”. “Able Grable”‘s legs appear in Army topographic maps designed to teach recruits how to hit their mark.
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