Paper dolls - Fashion educators & Advertising tool

In your childhood, have you ever played paper dolls with pictures of clothes? Well, I did. Women's nature hasn't really changes since centauries. We simply like pretty things. I was actually searching the net for a blog post idea that is coming up next this week, when I found this paper dolls hint and started digging it. First manufactured paper doll, two-dimensional Little Fanny figure printed on paper for which accompanying clothing, was produced in London, in 1810.

Through whole Victorian era children were receiving toys at birthdays and Christmas but fortunatelly paper dolls were affordable. When they became popular as toys, manufacturers of all kinds of household goods took advantage of their popularity by using them to promote their products.

This is how paper dolls appeared as an effecting mass advertising tool. A few of the products advertised with paper dolls were Pillsbury flour, Baker's chocolate, Singer sewing machines, Clark's threads, and Hood's Sarsaparilla (medicine). Imagine that little girls bagging their mothers for buying another Pillsbury flour so they could get the whole clothing collection:). How much fun they had to had putting fancy paper cloths on their dolls.

In the early 1920s the J. & P. Coats company offered unique mechanical paper dolls with moving head through their dealers when purchasing Spool and Crochet Cotton.

Later, from the 1930s to the 1950s, companies put paper dolls into their magazine advertisements to sell such goods as nail polish, underwear, Ford cars, Carter's clothing, Barbie dolls and more.
First fashion educators.

Source: The Original Paper Doll Artists Guild web site.

Friday Inspiration - You can

World's Most Glamorous Clubs

I need some excitement. I wish I could glam my day a bit tonight. I wish I sparkled again. Dancing. Feeling fabulous. Feeling like the world is mine... Instead I'm at home with my laptop, covered with blanket, googling for clubs I should've been heading to by now. Check out this upmarket venues I wish I could escape to once: 

My House is a Los Angeles nightclub designed by Dodd Mitchell. The club’s décor remind you of an upscale house party held in someone’s private home. This place must make you feel special. I love the idea of a nightclub where guests feel comfortable, sitting on nice soft sofas, surrounded by luxurious designers' objects.

San Francisco’s Gitane is an eclectic club designed by Mr. Important, the interior design firm specializing in creating indelible restaurant, nightclub, retail and nightlife experiences. Mr.Important derived their inspiration from the complexity of art, music and design of gypsy culture. It manifest itself in an extensive palette of colours, textures and objects and constructs an "ordered" chaos atmosphere. The ambient is full of emotions, of nostalgia, romantism and passion.

Fabulous Vanity Club, also by Mr. Important, is located in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Luxurious design, plentitude of fine textures, surfaces and colours brings to my mind an adults-only amusement park. It’s theatrical and fabulous.

Absolut Icebar London is the world’s second permanent icebar (afer Stockholm's). The bar located on vibrant Heddon Street, has become one of the London's coolest hot spots with the temperature -5°C all year round. Entire interior is built by natural frozen Swedish Torne River ice – from the walls, bar, stools, to the artwork and the ‘glasses’ in which the drinks are served “in the rocks”. The ice design is changed annually and leading designers are invited to create experimental ice interiors.

Fabryka Trzciny Art Center is located in an 1916 old brick marmalade factory, on the right bank of Vistula river in Warsaw, Poland. It’s one of the oldest post-industrial buildings in Warsaw and it merges tradition with avant-garde architecture and modern surroundings. It consists of a performance hall, bar and nigh club, theatre and a restaurant. The architects were Bogdan Kulczyński. It's like piece of New York in Central Europe. Slightly edgy yet fabulous. Fabryka is not blinking and shining but surprisingly it seduces you too.

I believe in pink...

Shopping in eco-style

Seriously, We Are What We Do… Drives me crazy we don’t show proper respect to nature, don’t recycle enough… Plastic bags for example: According to statistics from different countries around the world, each person uses from 167 (UK) to 500 (USA) plastic bags a year. That gives us over 1 trillion plastic bags on our earth every year. It takes 1000 years for 1 bag to decompose! There is something that can be done! Shopping in eco-style! As an eco friendly consumers we go shopping with stylish reusable bags.

Most of these bags are available in many colors and patterns an can be rolled up and fit in a glove box or other handbag and they can hold more than regular plastics bags.

Top handbag designer Anya Hindmarch created a re-usable shopping bag. The bags "I'm not a plastic Bag" were launched at London Fashion Week 2007 and became a desirable accessory. In 2009 Hindmarch designed 6 new canvas shopping totes, with illustrations inspired by the markets of Provence.

Milan Design Week 2010. London designer Oscar Diaz presented a shopping bag made from canvas straps.

American design brand Artecnica have launched a bag made from 100% colorful advertising campaign billboards, a clever die cut, no glue, no stitch shoulder bag is Inspired by the strength and symmetry found in nature. The minimal 2-D design stretches into 3-D to form the biggest bag with the smallest amount of waste.

Apparently Chanel has it’s own idea of eco-shopping in style. Modeled after the iconic shopping bags of their 31, Rue Cambon flagship location in Paris, this leather bag indeed looks like a paper shopping bag, with one difference - this one costs $2525.

Another American design brand BlueQ has a line of bags that are made of 95% recycled woven polypropylene. Stylish and sensible.

BUILT designs iconic neoprene totes that make everyday life more enjoyable. Their reusable shopping bag stretches to fit everything on your shopping list. And if you’re traveling, it’s perfect for carrying snacks and magazines for the plane or car ride.

Reisenthel products are extremely functional, light and able to transform quickly into a convenient, sleek carry-all. Eye-catching prints.

The philosophy of Envirosax® is to help create a better future for our planet by spreading the environmental message through colour and script using the Envirosax® eco-friendly reusable bag as the vehicle.

Polaroid's FAILURE

Polaroid founded in 1937 is one of the great iconic 20th century brands. Thanks to photos developed in your hands a while after the photo was taken, the Polaroid personality became “live for the moment” sort of brand. Unfortunately it’s also known as a failure band. Polaroid lose in touch with their customer and its market since the technology were shifting more rapidly than ever before. Other day I read “Polaroid could have been a major force in digital photography today... They just never went there.”
In 2001 Polaroid bankrupted and in 2008 closed their instant film factory. This spring the Polaroid Corporation is about to sell their unique collection of nearly 1300 photographs (out of 16,000) most of them taken by Andy Warhol and Chuck Close.

There are hundred thousands of Polaroid cameras still in use, stored on garage shelves, or put on sale on eBay, that could’ve never been used again. Fortunately a group called The Impossible Project decided to restart production of the actual film at a factory in Amsterdam. They re-engineered from the beginning the expensive instant film. Each piece of film is its own dark room. It has 6 distinct layers and it’s made up of 6 to 10 components, each of which must be used very precisely. It was indeed the Impossible Project.

View online Andy Warhol's Polaroids at the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York. In this post you find a selection of my personal favorites.
If you like this post check the previous one -> Polaroid LOVE