Thought I’d treat you all to my new favourite in the legendary series of Smirnoff adverts. As today is my birthday, and we’re still in lockdown, a recreation of this will have to take place at home tonight rather than on holiday as I’d hoped. Cheers!
Scanned from Cosmopolitan, July 1974.
Another in the stylish but bizarre series of Smirnoff adverts.
Scanned from 19 Magazine, September 1974.
Scanned by Miss Peelpants from 19 Magazine, October 1972
Scanned by Miss Peelpants from Cosmopolitan, November 1973
Scanned by Miss Peelpants from 19 Magazine, October 1974
Combining two of my favourite blog threads, this is yet another in the series of eccentric Smirnoff adverts but is also a clear example of Random Ossies in Adverts.
I am never sure whether Ossie was actually used more in adverts at the time, or if it just feels like it because I am more attuned to Ossie and Celia’s distinctive styles than other designers. Much like in Cabaret, where Liza Minnelli wears a contemporary Ossie piece amongst her other costumes, here the Ossie is a seamless (metaphorically, obviously) inclusion for a Thirties-inspired aesthetic.
Another one in the brilliantly bizarre series of Smirnoff adverts.
Scanned by Miss Peelpants from Honey, November 1971
So today, I went to pick up an enormous job lot of magazines I bought on eBay. It’s a very mixed bag, but included some early Cosmopolitans (which always get me rather excitable…). Flicking through a few tonight, what should fall out of the October 1972 copy, but bloody junk advertising. Pah! Typical! But, wait, Seventies junk advertising is no ordinary advertising. It was the specially made Smirnoff guide to seduction (Complete and unabridged!) – “Elements of all the best seductions as discovered by Cosmopolitan for Smirnoff” with six top models who “reveal their personal approaches to the art“. Isn’t it glorious? Best of all, this is the kind of ephemera which falls out of a magazine and we just throw away, but somehow this survived…
Photographer and garments uncredited. Scanned by Miss Peelpants. Believed to date from October 1972.
Greta Norris
Paulene Stone
Alexandra Bastedo (in Biba, I think)
Mercedes
Ann Turkel
Randall Lawrence
… until I discovered Smirnoff
Everyone was drunk on the job in the Seventies…
Scanned by Miss Peelpants from Cosmopolitan, November 1975
“…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.
