The Girls of the old spick and span

[manowar1952]

Originally Posted by tocofan

Not sure you can really compare now with then. It would be like asking a young R'n'B band to go into a modern studio and come out sounding like The Rolling Stones from Regent Sound in 1963.

There is a musical exception to this which proves your rule:

The utterly superb:
Dukes of Stratosphear - Chips from the Chocolate Fireball - (Google it)

I know I'm off-topic here but I'm hoping that I've got myself a little credit with the moderators.


btw....next posting will be a Bearsden Trio comprising all I have of Anne Scott, Helen Brodie/Milligan, Ruth Cavendish, Anne & Ruth and Helen & Ruth.

[faslane81]

Originally Posted by hardin567

Congratulations manowar1952 you never fail to surprise me with your range of photo's
Has anyone questioned how excellent these would have been had colour been available
Does anyone think the present day sites of Span2000 Beautifulbrits Classiclegs compare
with these girls?

For me, much of the essence of ToCo mags is precisely that they are in black and white. It adds to the authenticity of the era and, for me at least, they gain nothing when colourised - though I am astonished at the skill of those who can do it.

But the monochrome photos, pretty girl-next-door models, and the accidental-on-purpose flashes of stockings and suspenders epitomise the innocence of the whole series of publications - and evoke with great nostalgia the furtive flicking of pages with a pal who used to nick them from his elder brother's hiding place!



molegogger

[manowar1952]

Bearsden Trio.
These three Scots girls did various solo shoots, and also did some pick'n'mix with each other.
I've compiled all 445 images I have of these girls into their various shoots and tried to put them into order where possible.
L-R. Anne Scott & Ruth Cavendish, Anne Scott, Helen Brodie & Ruth Cavendish, Helen Brodie, Ruth Cavendish.




As usual, rather than post all the images together, I have put them all into a 38mb file and it is available for download here:
https://rapidshare.com/files/3806211...rsden_Trio.zip

Kudos to all the other posters and scanners.

[hobohemian]

Originally Posted by tocofan

Not sure you can really compare now with then. It would be like asking a young R'n'B band to go into a modern studio and come out sounding like The Rolling Stones from Regent Sound in 1963.

I'm not saying modern glamour pictures don't necessarily work on their own terms - sometimes they do. With the right clothes, poses, hair and makeup and the right girl I expect you could recreate those style of 50s-60s pictures. But I've yet to see it.

[Knickers1]

New stuff in the style of Toco. Doesn't quite work for me. Nick

[tocofan]

Originally Posted by hobohemian

I'm not saying modern glamour pictures don't necessarily work on their own terms - sometimes they do. With the right clothes, poses, hair and makeup and the right girl I expect you could recreate those style of 50s-60s pictures. But I've yet to see it.

There is a huge site out there (won't name it except say Pin-Up is part of the title) which attempts to do just that. Technically it's faultless and the models are all very pretty. But it's totally studio bound and comes across as completely artificial.

[manowar1952]

Originally Posted by tocofan

There is a huge site out there (won't name it except say Pin-Up is part of the title) which attempts to do just that. Technically it's faultless and the models are all very pretty. But it's totally studio bound and comes across as completely artificial.

You're not wrong there tocofan.
There is no soul in those images but it's what younger viewers, who didn't live through the time of real nylons & suspenders (hose & garters to our American friends) back in the 50’s & 60’s, are perceiving as being sexy....and good luck to them....because they'll never know the thrill of catching real glimpses of frillies & stockings when going about their daily routine. It's very much like the older codgers (me) looking back to the footballers of the same period and comparing them to the powder puffs playing today with their lighter balls & gore-tex strips....utterly soul-less, and in most cases, goal-less.

I totally put the blame on the demise of stockings & suspenders as normal wear down to Mary Quant and her Carnaby St designer friends for making the mini the 'costume de rigueur' and killing off nylon stockings as normal wear stone-dead…to be replaced with tights (panty-hose). She may be lauded today as a fashionista icon but not in my presence.

The girls appearing in ToCo and similar pocket publications were, apart from the starlets & professional models, young housewives making some pin-money to supplement their income and pay the rent in their flats and bed-sits. Most would do a solo shoot (usually in the ToCo offices)...and that was it, possibly because of embarassment, or in case their families found out. Some found it easy and did more shoots after the initial office one and then did lots of outdoor shoots...I'm thinking of models like Jill Lucienne, Lamorna Lea, Anne Duke, Susan Douglas, Nicky Taylor, Marie Graham and those Bearsden Girls who made a short career that seemed to go on for longer because of the many photographs that were taken and the fact that long afterwards, in some cases ten or fifteen years, ToCo would continue to use images from the old archives to pad out the magazines from the very late sixties to the mid-seventies when they ceased production.

The girls appearing today in the pseudo-spick & span sites are for the most part being 'issued' with real nylons which are not their everyday wear....and that's the difference....the original girls who lifted their skirts, slips and petticoats to show us their stockings, panties & suspenders would drop them and still be wearing them when they left the ToCo offices…because those were their ‘real clothes’. They were the girls you walked behind going up the stairs at Tube stations, or up the steps to the Embankment or walked up or down office stairs where one could look up and see through the steps to the real thing.

[hobohemian]

Originally Posted by tocofan

There is a huge site out there (won't name it except say Pin-Up is part of the title) which attempts to do just that. Technically it's faultless and the models are all very pretty. But it's totally studio bound and comes across as completely artificial.

I think I (we) may know who you mean. Is it the one where if I recall correctly the founder appropriated ToCo pics for his website in the 90s and plastered a spurious copyright notice onto them, then foisted cloned modern models onto the world ever since?

Manowar is exactly right - in those days the models were showing us their everyday lingerie (probably their best set) whereas nowadays these young women are clearly not used to wearing stockings and suspenders in their everyday lives and treat them as 'sexwear'.
As has been said before in a previous thread the original ToCo models really were 'the girl next door',with pretty smiles or appealing slightly embarrassed expressions, not the blank-faced bored-looking 'models' of today.
Moreover these days younger women-and the not so young- seem to have no experience of wearing stockings or tights at all, apart from black opaques in colder weather.

Oh, and Mary Quant and her like haven't aged well - trendy 60s 'dollybirds' don't...

[TheDogThatDidntBark]

Originally Posted by tocofan

There is a huge site out there (won't name it except say Pin-Up is part of the title) which attempts to do just that. Technically it's faultless and the models are all very pretty. But it's totally studio bound and comes across as completely artificial.

Interesting; I always thought they were more going for the Elvgren style, which is acceptably "artificial"; it never occurred to me that they were imitating ToCo.

I love a lot of their stuff for what it is and the beautiful models especially; but yes, sometimes I do wish there was something more ToCo-like around.

[Knickers1]

You chaps really have summed it all up so succinctly. Toco's models were "real" girls for me and the style of posing was saucy, cute but charmingly innocent. Nicola, Marie and many of the others were simply in a league of their own. Nick