CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953 - Page 2 of 2 - VintageReveries

Art Studies 100 Years Ago Were as Daring as Today’s

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

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!

History of the influence of burlesque on pinup

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

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.

How World War I and World War II influenced womens fashions

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

Pictures of women in World War I and World War II. How early feminism and wars influenced women’s fashions.

How Politics shaped womens fashions in the early 20th century

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

This is a very interesting article in the 1950s pinup magazine about the history of how politics and politicians shaped women’s fashions during the first half of the 20th century. The early feminist movement asked for many changes, among them suffrage, easy divorce, property laws, and equal education. This resulted in a fashion trends that were mannish, including the no-curves, flat chested, flapper girl of the 1920s. This article goes on to call Victoria Claflin Woodhull a “political freak” (who ran for presidency in 1872), and pacifist Jeanette Rankin whose only winning two terms in congress corresponded with declarations of war (1917 and 1941). The caption under Woodhull says that she ran on a free love ticket.

Women’s Fashion Trends in the first half of the 20th Century changed drastically

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

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”).

Marilyn Monroe’s appearance on the Jack Benny Show, and Ed Sullivan’s Toastettes

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

Here’s a scan from CheeseCake – An American Phenomenon. It’s a spread with Ed Sullivan’s Toastettes and film snaps of Marilyn Monroe’s appearance on the Jack Benny show. “It was wonderful,” said MM, “You know, Mr. Benny at 39 has all the charm and poise of an older man.” When Marilyn Monroe agreed to be on the Jack Benny Show, finally television had come of age and could compete with the movies. Cheesecake Pinups on the new medium of television!

Making fun of cheesecake Pinup

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

When Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar took aim at 1950s cheesecake pinup culture on their groundbreaking show Your Show of Shows, they created comedy gold that doubled as cultural commentary. Through hilarious sketches featuring Coca as Cleopatra, satirical beefcake parodies, and pointed jabs at ballet photography’s “legs as art” phenomenon, these comedy pioneers exposed the absurdity behind the glamour photography that dominated the era.

Explore how television’s most fearless comedians used satire to challenge beauty standards and gender norms in 1953, revealing the fascinating intersection between comedy, pinup culture, and social critique during television’s golden age.

Television reshaped the 1950s Pinup Phenomenon

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

“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”.

Bustlines and Derriers in Pinup History

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

From Jane Russell’s legendary bustline in The Outlaw to the 1950s fixation on the derrière, this article traces how pinup art has cycled through busts, legs, backs, and bottoms. Discover the origins of cheesecake pinups, the role of humor, and how early television reshaped our ideas of feminine allure.

To Man, Woman is Basically Funny – history of pinups in humor

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

hoopskirts to bathing suits, this Cheesecake Pinup magazine takes a look at the history of sexual innuendo in humor and media.

One of the first cartoons is from the 1860s, showing the wind blowing up a dress to reveal the hoopskirt underneath and (gasp) the sexyness of the woman’s ankels! Then came the peepshows in the Kinetoscopes of the 1890s (as examples are The Bedroom Farce, and a womens’ wrestling). Then, the late 1890s cinema came along, and in the early 1900s, Hollywood and the Keystone comedies and the scantily clad “big names wearing too little” and sensual Femme Fatale Movie Stars of the 1920s…

How the term cheesecake pinup originated

CheeseCake Pinup Magazine 1953, Old Magazine Scans

How did the term “cheesecake” pinup originate? Origins of cheesecake, and the first pinup model and cheesecake photograph. An article about the history of American pinup.