Ah, but I get off track ... something that tends to happen more and more whenever I write anything. Old age? Kid-induced insanity? You be the judge.
SO what's so cool about the Fifties, in my opinion? Here are just a few of the things I love about the decade ....
Is there anything cooler than sitting down to eat around a
chrome table with cracked-ice finishing? That is why I plan
to place one of these babies smack dab in the middle of my
dining room. That is, when the dining room gets finished
... and since our contractor hasn't even started on it yet,
I almost feel foolish planning it all out. In anticipation,
I visit americanchairs.com regularly and put the table and
chairs into the shopping cart, and pretend I can just hit
that button and have it delivered ASAP. But I'm waiting ...
until we at least have a room to put the dang thing in.
This is the table I will be getting ....
with red cracked ice laminate ...
and these chairs covered also in red cracked ice ...
Is there anything cooler? No. End of story.
Let's hop back into the Coolmobile and continue the tour,
shall we?
Fabrics like this just get my heart apounding ....
The design is so abstract, and essentially meaningless.
What the hell are those shapes? Nobody knows. Boomerangs
and ??? New age TV antennas?
Don't even get me started on starburst clocks. I found a
cheap knockoff of the originals at Target, and it currently
hangs in my living room, but oh! how I would love to have
an authentic, bordering-on-ugly starburst clock. Only
problem is that they sell for hundreds on eBay. And the
cheapass part of me just can't part with that much money
for a clock. Yet.
Advertising always goes through phases, but there is no
better advertising than the ones in the 50s. The colors,
the fonts, the made-up words (fun-o-matic! dishmobile - see
below), and the reflection of happy families. Who wouldn't
like that?
I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that my
dishwasher hasn't gotten me this excited in my entire life.
But we must remember: during this decade, dishwashers were
a relatively new technology. If I had to wash by hand every
dish my family used during the course of the day, I'm
pretty sure I'd be dancing in the kitchen over a dishwasher
as well. No more apron! Throw it away! Nevermind that 50s
aprons are becoming collectible again. Put that apron in a
cedar chest, lady; some schmuck on eBay will be paying
twenty bucks for that baby in fifty years.
Colored door handles? Why did stuff like this ever go out
of style? Anyone who has gone fridge shopping in the past
20 years or so can tell you that the days of
color-cordinating appliances are long gone. Today you have
four or so choices: white, beige, black, and stainless
steel. Not that I want to bring back the days of avocado
green refrigerators, although having such a stomach-cramp
inducing color containing my food might help me lose 20
pounds or so. But if I could get a red fridge to match my
cracked-ice table, well that would be just ... just ...
swell. Or nifty. ;-)
Don't get me wrong; I don't wish to go back to the days
when people smoked and thought it was actually GOOD for
them, thanks to ads like these. (Didn't anyone, in the
midst of a hacking cigarette cough, wonder any
differently?!) I just love how this ad uses not only a
trusty doctor to attest to the Lucky goodness, but it gives
a claim that I'm not sure is normally associated with cigs:
TOASTED. Is toasted nicotine more tasty than regular? I'll
never know.
The above is just an example of one of those cool fonts,
but man, it's a good one. My obsession with starbursts
probably attracted me to this font, and it probably also
explains why I went totally bananas when I saw these
kitchen canisters at an antique mall in Dyersville, Iowa:
Um, just ignore the greasy fingerprints from a recent
cookie-baking escapade. Truthfully, I think I'd be afraid
to clean this lest I accidentally rub off some of this
fantastic font. With stars! Oh, be still my retro heart.
Before I found these canisters, I thought I might luck out
and find some new canisters that were made to look 50s.
This is as close as they get, guys:
Small pic, but you get the idea. They tried to make the
font cool by adding a shadow, but it falls short of the
intended retro look. There's nothing out there today that
comes close to mimicking the coolness factor of the
original 50s kitchen canisters. Someday, somewhere, someone
will get smart and start reproducing some of this stuff.
Franciscan Oasis
Although these don't match my kitchen by any stretch of the
imagination (or, remember, that lovely cracked-ice table),
I found these via Google -- on a gray cracked ice table, no
less. This is a good example of the kinds of dishes I love
from the fifties -- the abstract patterns, starbursts, thin
lines. No perfectly even pattern of roses or apples. These
plates were MODERN, man!
Franciscan Starburst
God, just look at it: atomic design, totally random
spacing, cool Fifties colors. Someday I'll have these. (No,
they don't match my kitchen either, but ... but ....
they're so dang cool!)
Harmony House Blue Heaven
I seem to like these patterns with blue in them, don't I?
Well, it's not about the color ... it's about the shapes.
Once again, we have geometric shapes with thin lines
running everywhere.
Harmony House Skylark
Blurry picture, I know. Even astigmatism-plagued people
like me should be able to read it, though. The 1957 Sears
catalog that I got this out of didn't care to publish this
in color, although I suppose it doesn't matter once one
reads the description: "Deep midnight black and dusky gray
stand out in sharp relief on oyster white background."
Looks pretty much like this in color, so why waste ink?
Now this pattern would match my kitchen.
Must have. (Someday) Impossible to find, of course. Just
think: in 1957 I could have plunked down $21.92 for a
53-piece set. Gah!!!
Franciscan Pine Cone
This one is so scarce that I can't even find a pic of it
via Google. I've only seen it once on eBay and once in an
antique store, and both times the prices were, uh, a wee
bit high for my tastes. No, I don't expect this stuff to be
free, but I think my husband might balk a bit if I tell him
I spent a seven hundred dollars on a new dish set. Anyway,
for those of you not familiar with this pattern, it's
beautiful: light blue border with a simple, elegant cluster
of pine cones in the corner. I'm going on memory with that
one, because it's been awhile since I've seen it, but I
still love it, even if I only vaguely remember what it
looks like.