For most of my life I believed I had been born at the wrong time. I love everything from the fifties, the cars, the music, heck even the chrome toasters.
My mom listened to the Beatles and Kinks but I preferred the sounds of the prior decade, rockabilly, the louder and more obscure the better. I pick and choose some of the cool stuff from the sixties and seventies but in my heart I want to turn the clock back to 1956.
Of course being transsexual in the fifties would have been even more of a nightmare. Only a few pioneers like Coccinelle, Bambi and April Ashley had the guts and blind ambition to make their true selves a living reality.
Not very easy being gay or lesbian either. Oh but we were out there….even in the Madison Avenue of the fifties, though the messages were coded to a “knowing audience”.
I had read that gays in the advertising industry (as it would have been mostly men in a creative role at agencies then) often snuck in phrases and imagery that would have only been picked up by “fellow travelers”.
While pursuing some vintage ads for one of my favorite Virgil Exner designed cars, the 1957-1962 Imperials. (he is also responsible for the Stutz Blackhawk) I think I discovered one of those ads. Check out the above print ad for a beautiful black Imperial Crown coupe.
Large version can be found here:
http://www.imperialclub.com/Yr/1958/Ads/BlackWedding-big.jpg
Large version can be found here:
http://www.imperialclub.com/Yr/1958/Ads/BlackWedding-big.jpg
Going beyond the ads tag line, which could be forgiven for being from an earlier decade the body of the text reads like the script for a gay porno movie….so I ask you am I wrong?
As Cass said when I sent her a copy, "do you think the groom had any idea she had transitioned?"
Who knew Chrysler Corporation was so progressive ;)
Here is some very modern but vintage sounding rockabilly:
