Stop all the clocks: Empire Exhibition 1938 postcards

We're almost at the last glimpse of the British Empire here in the summer of 1938. Apparently it rained almost throughout the exhibition's life and the 300-foot Observation Tower was frequently rendered useless due to being encased by cloud. Oh, allegory.  With huge slabs of Europe infected with fascism the exhibition seems to me to have been a final flash of optimism at a time when all eyes were on the Beast of Berlin. We didn't exhibit again until the 1951 Festival Of Britain by which time Britain wasn't so willing or able to brag about empires and dominions.

I find these images rather dreamy. As a child in the 1960s I was very taken with the notion of 'garden cities' and 'new towns', the moving , if you will, of pavillions from far to near. Although we may have thought we were unleashing a blanket Billy Butlin-ism ultimately we built only readymade ruins. There's nowhere you can fittingly hang a Kiss-Me-Quick hat. Born, not consulted, etc.

The Beloved Brochures: Horrockses.

These images are culled from The Story Of Cotton, a beautifully printed company brochure lovingly produced by Horrockses. I'm guessing the brochure was produced around 1946, possibly for the Britain Can Make It export trade exhibition of the same year. By 1947 Horrockses were playing a pivotal role in the rapid brightening of women's fashion as rationing restrictions began to fall away.










For Horrockses in 1946 fashion was 'the newest development' necessitating 'enlisting the services of Artists, Painters and Engravers', the exacting standards of which are all over this glorious brochure.



Not everyone liked the Britain Can Make It expo, there we were producing goods for export which were not yet available at retail. Of course, Britain was so bankrupt export income was an obvious priority.
What would we have to-day in 2010?
Britain Can't Be Arsed To Make It - an exhibition of Chinese t-shirts and Swedish MDF? Aah, but we still design things and export financial services via Ethernet.




Yes to all.

Dear Mr Information-Highway,
I have been a very good boy. Please send me another of these. I have been careful recently not to go over my quota. I've tidied my room, polished my shoes, ironed the pillowcases and the hyacinth are doing well.

If only they'd stuck to cranes.

German toy catalogue 1930.

Miss Gertie Millar

1905 Tuck's postcard. Postcards of Gertie Millar are relatively easy to find as she was one of brightest stars of the Edwardian era, however , this card is among the uncommonest. This hasn't scanned so well on account of glossiness. Rather lovely in a sunny sort of way.

Font me: Misch-masch polka.

Weimar Republic 1930. It's all going on here. If memory serves this is the rear jacket of a printing trade periodical. This could be a Lucian Bernhard 'black letter' revival with hints of Wendingen and Futurist. Could be anything, really.

Urchins were sponges.

Lesser-known rival to Look And Learn. On latter issues of Finding Out the cover folds out with a continuation of the frontispiece panorama ( as with the Battle of Britain cover above ). As with Look And Learn the text doesn't patronise and the larger features are wonderfully written and make terrific bedtime reading to this very day. No advertising or photographs for this lot although that may well have contributed to their downfall. I don't remember this magazine, the latest issue I have is from 1965 so I'm guessing they didn't last much longer. How much do I love colour sat processes?

You're never alone with a cigarette.

German cigarette advert 1928. Maximum Modernity. Three kinds of posh fag. Suit yourself and your budget, whatever gets you through the night. Did I really just say that? Perish the thought, concentrate on the armchair and the light fittings instead.

Space race glace.

Look at those crazed moonshot mites! Freckled frenzy! I think Wall's were getting spanked by Lyons Maid's Zoom lolly around this time. I recall a lolly called something like 'Jelly Jet', icecream with jelly in it - like having your birthday party on a stick ( perhaps they gave away tennis balls with the wrappers ). I loved it all. You had to love the Russkis for landing motorised dustbins and woodlice on the moon. 40 foreign stamps is temptation enough: DDR, Magyar Posta.....now you're talking. Every single time the Soviets sent a satellite up they'd issue a stamp somewhere on the Bloc. Mate, you had to be there.

Font me : These Boots are made for writing.

Boots advertisement circa 1940. To-day notepapers teeter on the verge of extinction. At the time of this advert notepapers were commonly canvassed door-to-door along with other bespoke paper products. All I get at my door is reconditioned yoof selling dusters and the Kabbalah honey trap ( this is a neighbourhood where bottled waters can never be too expensive). I'd be terribly impressed to be knocked-down for some quality vellum instead. Can I get some monograms on that? Possibly this advert marks a time of increasing conscription into the forces naturally culling salesmen from the streets. And look at that! a writing bureau: not too many of those at Ikea.

Didn't they ramble? No.1

. It is curious to note that mid-century ramblers were more elegantly dressed than we would nowadays be even for a wedding, the above images are not especially idealised. How lazy we've become. I'm apt to be a little confused about contemporary daywear, I often look around my essentially urban situation to see almost everyone wearing 'casualwear' and sport-related brands with scant regard either for colour coordination or body contour. We end up with a situation where it looks as though most people are dressed for cross country or a trip up into the cloud base on Scafell Pike. Additionally, no particular distinction is made between day and eveningwear. The shops are full of this bogus 'leisure' clothing and subsequently there is little choice but to become a victim of this peculiar plague. Isn't this meant to be the age of choice? Choose from whatever we put in front of you.

I'm sorry. I rambled.

Disposable Darlinks.

Mannequins by Boehm&Co, Berlin 1930s.

I'd like to acquire a few gross of these gentlemen for distribution around the cosmopolis: Nike, Footlocker etc. Maybe plant a few of the twin ladies here and there. Can I get a few proximity detecting voiceboxes?

"Is something the matter?" "What's wrong?" "Don't you like me?"

So life-like.

Do the Mussolini eyepoke.

This is one of my all time favourite images. Love the light and composition. So full of detail: the bequiffed fellow leaping in at rear left, the angles of the sticks, the variety of facial expressions. Was it posed or spontaneous? Considering the sheer amount of this type of material passed through my hands it's surprising I've only come across this image the once, in a 1970s partwork.
I've framed and displayed the image on and off over thirty-odd years, often in my kitchen or bathroom as a wake-me-up for the day at hand and the battles that continue. Sort of thing I'd wear on a t-shirt were I a t-shirt wearer. I'm such a partisan.

Weimarana.

These two images come from a 1930 edition of the German arts and photography periodical Belhagen&Klafings Monatschefte. I think it must have been a expensive subscription-only publication as it included high quality plates, fold-outs and even watercolours lovingly reproduced on proper watercolour papers.

As a young man I copied, as far as was possible, the clothes in these two pictures ( and many other '20s-'40s images besides ), if you had a mind to it wasn't terribly difficult to find the stuff in late 70s England. If this suggests an undercurrent of androgyny I am here to remind you it wasn't totally uncommon in the popular culture, certainly not among serious David Bowie, Sparks and Kraftwerk followers. Sexless alien undesirables are we.

When the lights go on again.

For several years this image has been a comfort to my wearied old bones. I like to have it where I can see it. I suppose I find personal allegory in this image. There's been a war in my life, the books won't betray me, best to stay clear of Quisling Street. I can't help but wonder precisely when this image was produced, I imagine sometime between 1940 and 1945. Through the window are Blitz ruins, if the Blitz were still on at the time the book token was produced then the image is rather optimistic because the blackout would have been in force. The bookshelves look as though they are CC41 or Utility (Government-controlled production) which would date the image to no earlier than September 1941. On the reverse the image is repeated in the form of a gummed 'book plate' intended for insertion into the eventual book purchase.