Mensday: Bowled Over

aquascutum, Illustrations, Mensday, menswear, telegraph magazine

In my teenage years, I developed a bit of a weird thing for cricketers. It was much ridiculed by my peers, but there was just something about the smart trousers, jumpers and lazy, peculiarly English feel of a cricket match which was like some kind of catnip to me.

It has lessened dramatically over the years, but I definitely think it was some kind of reaction to how horridly many men dressed in the town where I grew up. As I met more well-dressed men, I realised I was simply craving smartness, an effort, something ‘different’. So I’m very taken with the snazzy Seventies take on the look in the Aquascutum advert above. The beautiful illustration doesn’t hurt either…

Scanned from the Sunday Telegraph Magazine, May 1977.

Mensday: It’s amazing what vodka can do for you…

booze, Mensday, smirnoff, Vintage Adverts

“…now I’m a very furry film director with a drink problem. Right on!”

Vodka as career advisor and facilitator? I had no idea!

Vodka was my student tipple of choice, but I can’t stand it now. It’s a pretty bizarre advert, but also very evocative. The days when alcohol and tobacco could change your life for the better, if you believed the hype.

Mensday: Proto-Zoolander

1960s, Mensday, menswear, Models, petticoat magazine

Come on Nick Wilson, Andrew Jackson, Jess Down, Jason Paul and Mark Ridge, what are you up to these days?

Quotes I love:

“I have quite a library of faces, you know … cool faces, aware faces, quizzical faces”

“As a model, one’s body, of course, is the main feature, but there are some creative thoughts necessary as well. For instance, I can be standing posing and the photographer’s clicking away, but meanwhile my mind is working on what would be best for the shot and for the photographer.”

“But from what people say about me and the way I work, I know that I will be a success, there’s no doubt about that. I’m not being big-headed. I never really speak about what I’ve done or what I’m doing, but people always ask me. I’m very much a dark horse, you know.”

“And knitting patterns – where would we all be without knitting patterns?”

Where indeed, Mark Ridge, where indeed?

Mensday: Pinning down pin-ups

1960s, david warner, Honey Magazine, Mensday, micky dolenz, oliver reed, steve marriott, steve mcqueen, terence stamp, the monkees, the small faces

If you have already looked through the pictures in this feature, picked out your idol, or dwelt lovingly on the reckonable men there, THEN . . . it‘s very likely you‘re immature. 

Thats the psychiatrists opinion, anyway. They state the facts, saying that most girls outgrow their attachments to film or pop stars when they become mature, and that these attachments are safety-valves for pent-up emotions.

This is stating facts without criticising. But it‘s worth taking a closer, critical look at just what these attachments can do to one’s life. Basically, we feel, it‘s fun to sigh or scream over a pop star, and harmless to take a fancy to a film star. But a lot of girls don’t leave it at that. 

Very soon, the pinning-up and pining becomes an obsession with them. They find it increasingly hard to construct real life doings, because they’re in a glorious never-never world of mental communication with an unattainable, transcendental man. This doesn‘t call for any effort on their part, whereas carving out a real life, and real relationships, does. So they take the soft option. Though, if they stopped to think about it, they’d see which turns up the thumping great bonuses in terms of personality-enrichment, and which keeps one simmering away in a state of negative-thinking infantilism.

So, beware. lf you spend any more than the occasional minute thinking about lover-boy, not only may you be tending dangerously towards obsession, but also you‘re wasting a lot of time, which you might spend making life interesting in reality, instead of only in imagination. ln just one half-hour of idle dreaming, you could be doing, learning, enjoying things, even if they‘re as un-strenuous as Capable-Kating a dress, or experimenting with Meringues Chantilly. 

This doesn’t mean we suggest you all take vows never to go near a discothéque or cinema again. Just that you get the pin-up scene in proportion. Pop records and films are meant as an adjunct to life. If you start thinking of them as life itself, then you are, in effect, drugging yourself, distorting reality.

But if you can realise all this and say: okay, but my thinking David Warner is fabulous only adds another interest to an already interest-packed life, then that’s fine. Go ahead. Ahead to our Pick of the Pin-Ups.

Honey Magazine, July 1967

I’m sorry, what were you saying unnamed Honey staff writer? I was too distracted by Terence Stamp’s eyes and Oliver Reed’s exquisitely sexy scars to pay much attention to you…

Mensday: The Real Appeal of the Heel

19 magazine, 1970s, haute naffness, Illustrations, Mensday, menswear, mild sauce, peter wyngarde, philip castle

Philip Castle. The Real Appeal of the Heel. 19 Magazine, May 1972

I adore the illustration from this article in 19 Magazine, May 1972. The article itself is a bit wordy and I decided it wasn’t worth scanning or OCR-ing, but the illustration can’t be missed and there’s a great little vignette at the bottom of the article.

Do we think illustrator Philip Castle was somewhat *ahem* inspired by the great Peter Wyngarde? He of Jason King fame and When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head. An album which has to be heard to be believed. (Please don’t click the links if you are of a sensitive nature. Or haven’t taken any mind-altering substances so far today.)

Guy Day: Getting shirty

1960s, granny takes a trip, Honey Magazine, Illustrations, Mensday, menswear, wendy buttrose

Illustrations by Wendy Buttrose. Honey magazine, September 1966

In lieu of Mensday, here’s my occasional Whoops-I-forgot-Mensday feature, Guy Day. Especially appropriate since one of the shirts comes from a shop called ‘Guy’. Amazing illustrations by none other than Wendy Buttrose*, and what I wouldn’t give to get hold of some of those incredible shirts!

Wendy, if you ever come across this blog please do email me and let me know more about you. Your illustrations are wonderful!

Mensday: The Loves of Laurence Harvey

brian duffy, cosmopolitan, laurence harvey, Mensday, menswear, paulene stone

The timings of my acquisitions are most bizarre sometimes. For instance, last week I bought a copy of ‘Everywoman’ in my aforementioned Snooper’s Paradise session in Brighton. Contained within was an interview with Laurence Harvey about his failed marriage to Margaret Leighton. I knew I had to scan it for Mensday; his look was far too awesome not to show you. But then barely a week later, I received a copy of Cosmopolitan from July 1972, and lo! who should be on the cover but Lawrence Harvey. This time photographed (rather more sexily than before, I might add) with his new fiancée, Paulene Stone.


Everywoman, July 1965

So I go to look him up on Wikipedia, to see how long that one lasted, and I find out that he died a year later in 1973. Which has made me feel rather sad. I mean, he squeezed a lot into his 45 years (married three times, there was even one fitted in between Margaret Leighton and Paulene Stone!) but still….

Interesting fact, Harvey and Stone had a daughter called Domino in 1969. She became a bounty hunter and died of a drugs overdose in 2005, the same year a film about her life (starring Keira *yawn* Knightley) was released.

Mensday: The Spring Sweater

knitwear, Mensday, menswear, seventies fashion, Vogue

I love a guy who can pull-off the Seventies knitwear look; these are particularly incredible.

Vogue, March 1973

Mensday: Rave on the Ocean Wave

1960s, Mensday, menswear, six, sunday times magazine, terylene, Vintage Adverts


I’m not entirely sure where to start with this image, so I’m not going to. The copy doesn’t even really make sense, but it certainly makes me laugh. Poor Diana; that can’t be a comfortable pose for being towed, and she’s surrounded by twerps!

Scanned from The Sunday Times Magazine, September 1966

Mensday: Rockangel Michael

glam rock, Mensday, mick ronson, picture spam


I feel my spirit fly, only after dark
I kiss the world goodbye, only after dark
Nights with the city lights, only after dark

Run like the wonder way, only after dark

Won’t you disappear into midnight again
Why don’t you come, why won’t you come

Why won’t you fly, fly, fly with me
Sweet elusive fate will be our company

Ring out the vamp in me, only after dark
Moon sinful as can be, only after dark
It’s wrong to feel so free, only after dark
Only you do it to me, only after dark

Won’t you disappear into midnight again
Why don’t you come, why won’t you come
Why won’t you fly, fly, fly with me
Sweet elusive fate will be our company

Only After Dark by Mick Ronson