The Marketing of the American Beauty
The unprecedented success of the "Gibson Girl" in the 1890s
unleashed a visual barrage of American beauties which lasted
throughout the Golden Age of American Illustration and continues
to this very day. The different types of women presented in
this exhibition demonstrate not only a nationally evolving
ideal of beauty, but also a concentrated effort on the part
of publishers, advertisers, and the artists themselves to develop
an easily identifiable, aesthetically pleasing product. It
is no wonder the marketers increasingly turned to the allure
of the American female; in the early part of the twentieth
century women were thought to control 80 percent or more of
the consumer dollars expended in the United States. Accordingly,
advertisers turned to images of feminine mystique to which
consumers could aspire (and hopefully emulate) through the
purchase of goods and services. Men were also charmed by these
images, however, and magazine publishers used the attraction
of pretty faces on their covers to boost impulse buying for
their all-important newsstand sales.
But the ideal of beauty that was being sold in the ads and
on these covers was quite narrowly focused. It is not by coincidence
that most of the works in this exhibition, from the Gibson
Girl to Fabry's Cinema Arts cover of Katherine Hepburn
portray women of the upper or upper-middle class. Women of
color or of the working classes did not have the disposable
income to be targeted, and so are rarely, if ever, seen in
these illustrations. Advertisers instead used various tableaux
of wealth and modernity, which the middle-class consumer could
then enter through purchase of a given product. Visual repetition
also played a part in these scenarios: the trappings of the "Holeproof
Hosiery Girl" (whom Coles Phillips helped to create) and the
aloof style of McClelland Barclay's "Fisher Body Girl" could
be recognized at a single glance. In the advertisement shown
on the previous page (lower), the consumer is invited to share
the risqué modernity of Edward Penfield's beauty, shown
wearing a man's overcoat at what appears to be the breakfast
table, with the familiar Hart, Schaffner, & Marx emblem
on the wall behind her.
Magazine publishers were also quick to see how the American
beauty could enhance their packaging. But beyond the aesthetic
attraction of the pretty faces, art editors used these images
to establish an instantly recognizable product that would attract
a particular demographic to a given magazine. The sophisticated
dress and elongated lines of the women portrayed on Vanity
Fair covers directly appealed to the modern taste of that
magazine's urban, upper-class patrons, while the exotic appeal
of the "Benda Girl" proved a better fit with the middle-class
masses who read Hearst's International. Repetition
served its purpose in covers as it did in ads--in what became
the predecessor to today's "Cosmo girl," William Randolph Hearst
used Harrison Fisher's drawings on virtually every cover of
his Cosmopolitan magazine from 1912 until the artist's
death in 1934. Likewise, a mere glance at a John Held flapper
alerted the readers of the 1920s that they were probably looking
at an issue of either Life or Judge magazine.
As advertisers and art editors turned to various styles of
female imagery to define their look, the "Pretty Girl" artists
themselves also carved out stylistic niches that would guarantee
them a steady stream of commissions and royalties. Following
the remarkable success of Charles Dana Gibson's stylishly rendered "Gibson
Girl," marketed in magazines, books, prints, wallpaper, and
even silverware, a number of illustrators began to turn their
talents to the portrayal of American beauty. Each of these
artists developed a highly recognizable style suitable for
a variety of merchandise. Fisher created his colorfully drawn
upper-class women to be used on not only a myriad of magazine
covers, but art prints and postcards as well. Wladyslaw Benda's
almond-eyed "Benda Girl," with her soft gauzy look of layered
charcoal, watercolor and pastels, was seen in covers, advertisements,
and story illustrations. John Held disseminated his flappers
more widely any model since the Gibson Girl; they were printed
in books, magazines, and ads, and used on cocktail glasses,
card games, puzzles and more.
All of these illustrators (and many more) became famous by
creating a recognizable brand that served them well for many
years. But fashion is nothing if not fickle; the concept of
beauty soon evolved, and these images became outdated. Thus
we see the pen-and-ink drawings of the confident Gibson Girl
being replaced by Fisher's brightly colored "American Girls" or
Phillips's fadeaways. These in turn give way to Held's stick-figure
flappers, which then fall out of favor by the 1930s. But although
the ideal of beauty has proven fleeting, the allure of a pretty
face is timeless, and marketers will continue to sell feminine
beauty as long as the American public is buying.
Richard Kelly, founder of the Kelly Collection of American
Illustration, has worked extensively with the collections
of graphic art in the Library's Prints and Photographs Division.
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