Welcome to HOW RETRO, which is all about the 20th century - films, fashion, TV, people, popular culture and more.
Like Lot's Wife, we just can't help looking back...
Daddy Who? Daddy Cool?
According to Australian rock legend, what began as a tongue-in-cheek rock band in Melbourne in the early seventies, turned almost overnight into a serious success story. Harking back to the hip Beatnik lingo of a decade and a half earlier, the band was named, with affectionate humour, after The Rays, 1957 song, Daddy Cool.
Their first single, Eagle Rock was released in 1971, shooting to No 1 on the Aus. music charts and remaining there for ten solid weeks. Further successes followed with Come Back Again, Lollipop, and Hi Honey Ho. Most of the songs were written by lead vocalist, Ross Wilson, though a couple of 50s cover songs, Baby Let Me Bang Your Box and Sixty Minute Man appeared on the album Sex, Dope, Rock'n'Roll; Teenage Heaven.
One lump or two Mrs. Nesbit..?
Few things are as evocative of a female childhood as a children's tea set. It conjures up images of summery days under shady trees and old-fashioned tea parties with dolls and teddies. Children of course, love to emulate the adult world and imitative play is an important part of the learning process. What a pity that when we grow up the innocent pleasure of pouring out cups of tea and coffee has to wear off...especially if we work in a cafe.
Strangely, in the post-feminine world, adult tea parties have made a comeback. Perhaps it's a recognition of the civilizing influence of a cup of tea in a decorative china cup, a cake and polite conversation. There's something to be said for it.
For very young kids of course, the appeal of tea sets never went away. Little girls (and boys too occasionally) have been playing with miniature porcelain tea sets since the 1700s. Perhaps in the ancient world, little Mesopotamian and Egyptian children enacted a similar ritual with tiny clay drinking goblets. I wouldn't be at all surprised.
The early 20th century penchant for highly stylized, arched eyebrows began in Hollywood in the 1930s. Brows were plucked into fine, high arched feminine lines and definition was pencilled in. 1920s brows had also been thinly plucked but were markedly straighter in design.
The fine, high arch was a dramatic look, designed to emphasize the plains of a woman's face, even if at times, it did give the wearer a rather startled, unnatural appearance.
In the 40s the trend veered toward medium thickness and a more understated look -red lips, heavy on the schtick, rather than brows, were the defining facial characteristic of that era.
A young Joan Crawford in the 1930s
Getting Thicker
Joan Crawford's look reveals a change of brow fashion
The cult of the arched eyebrow returned with a force in the mid 20th century, only this time with a dark heaviness reminiscent of the Egyptian Queens. However, while the fineness had disappeared, the high drama remained and the brows became strong personality statements, indicating feminine power and sexuality in a new way.
The change of styles can be seen clearly in actress Joan Crawford, who in the late 40s/50s chose a distinctly heavy, dark eyebrow arch - it certainly drew the eye, even threatening to overwhelm her facial features. In the 30s however, Joan had worn the classic Hollywood fine arches of the day.
In the 60s and 70s a more natural look was beginning to predominate. Interestingly, a 2007 study revealed that younger people prefer lower placed eyebrows with a subtle arch, while those over fifty favour a high arch.
If a man really wants to stand out from the crowd, then sporting a large handlebar moustache is one way to do it. This is the kind of facial accessory for men who want to wear their testosterone on their sleeve..or rather their upper lip. Although the style dates back at least to the 18th century, when it was a favourite with soldiers and Wild West types, the handlebar moustache still has its fans in the 21st century. Over the decades, it has been worn to effect by philosophers, artists, actors, adventurers and Colonel Blimp prototypes.
Actor David Suchet as Hercule Poirot
Often but not always accompanied by a pair of bushy side burns, the handlebar is so-called for its obvious similarity in shape to bicycle handlebars and is defined by an upward trajectory at the sides. Some like their handlebar natural and wild, others slick and controlled and occasionally waxed and curled on the ends.
Although the classic handlebar is generous and bushy, there are some famous, stylized variations that fit the criteria in shape, if not in density. Fictional detective Hercule Poirot for example, wears a petit, waxy and controlled version of the style, while Salvadore Dali's iconic upper lip hair is a kind of interesting cross between a pencil-thin moustache and a handlebar.
Artist, Salvador Dali
The Handlebar Moustache Club
To join the handlebar moustache club, potential members must have an"hirsute appendage of the upper lip, with graspable extremities" and no beard. Founded in the UK just after World War II, the club has members all over the world, who are rightfully proud of their hirsute pursuit. There are some real beauties in the club line-up but beware, having a handlebar is not all beer and hairy conversation - the excessive moustache has its hazards, notably an incompatibility with cigarette lighters, soup and candy-floss. Handlebar Moustache Club
Hair brings one's self-image into focus; it is vanity's proving ground. Hair is terribly personal, a tangle of mysterious prejudices. ~Shana Alexander
Adolf Hitler
When I look at old black and white film clips, of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, I'm struck, not only by the intense light eyes and animated histrionics but also by his hair and moustache - features which ultimately became the defining physical characteristics of modern history's most notorious political figure. Anyone wishing to portray Hitler need only don the distinctive short, fat moustache and flickable asymmetrical dark hair and everyone will get it.
It's a very stylized look he cultivated and I can't help wondering what was behind it. Physically, Hitler was fairly unremarkable, apart from the intense eyes which hinted at disturbances beneath the surface. Did he feel an egotistical need to develop a recognizable, designer identity through the plainness? If so, it was a look he clung to.
The whole Nazi propaganda machine was notable for its bold, Art Deco-influenced design features - the striking uniforms, boots, black leather Gestapo coats, the red and black emblems of eagles and swastikas (the latter borrowed from Indian culture) - and it wasn't merely the uniforms. Nazi architecture, which melded Neo-classicism and Art Deco, was all designed to foster a cult like worship of perverted German idealism.
As seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into years, years into decades...well, you get the picture.
Time has a way of slipping away from us - styles change, even in timepieces, as metal replaced wood and stone, bakelite replaced metal, plastic replaced bakelite - mechanical replaced the sundial, digital replaced analogue and so on.
Yet many people still prefer the friendly face of an analogue clock...for one thing the moving hands crawling across divided spaces gives us a tangible view of the passage of time. For another, there is more opportunity for stylistic elements.
Starburst clocks, suggestive of sun dials were very popular in the Art Deco period and again in the 1950s and came in space age metals or bright colours to compliment the modern ranch house kitchens of the era. Also very popular were plain, round clocks faces in light green or black frames.
The only reason for time is so everything doesn't happen at once~ Albert Einstein
Retro charm can be captured in novelty clocks - find an iconic piece of popular culture in a clock designed as mid century gas pump or a 1930s style black Kit-Kat clock.
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. ~ George Bernard Shaw
Nothing says mid-twentieth century more than a retro robot. The first toy robot, Liliput was created in the 1930s/40s by a Japanese toy company called KT but it wasn't until the 1950s that robot toys were reproduced in the thousands, becoming, in the process, an emblem of the atomic age.
These very cool robot clocks combine function and nostalgia into one desirable object for retro fans.
8 piece tea set 
tin tea set
There's something to be said for it.
robot alarm clock
