1 December 2018

Life in 1925......



....IF YOU BELIEVE THE ADVERTS

  


A final selection from the 1925 special issue of  L'illustration.  'Exposition Des Arts Decoratifs'

The goods and services offered in the many pages of advertisements in this magazine serve merely to emphasise how much things have changed and how little they have changed.
As today, advertisements seek to sell you goods and services that you must have. Goods that everyone has, so so must you. Certainly the aspirational reader in 1925 France could assume that if you wished to look Parisian, English or American in your tastes and personal possessions, that this magazine provided all the answers.





Many household names of today appear in the pages. Names that have epitomised French life.




English life

 and of course life in the   US of A     




One thing that strikes me is how nostalgia was used as a selling point. Either that or the 'THIS is SO MODERN you MUST BUY ONE' tactic.


 Nostalgia first. This ad for a hair preparation assures its users that it works for woman, man and child...including in cases where men lose hair by 'le travail intellectuel' (intellectual work). Comforting for all those captains of industry. Look at the outfits the women in the illustration are wearing crinoline styles c 1860s...and it is a maid doing the actual work of brushing Madames hair.









To keep up with the modern crowd, you (or your housekeeper more likely) would need one of these.





The majority of the adverts were for cars. The sketch of the driver and passengers in this ad leave you in no doubt as to whom the target audience was.



Men were all business types or blazer wearing sporty chaps.











                                                     
              For the ladies (or their nannies)










Maybe this was more their thing...












Celebrity endorsements..

How your house interiors could look...



Where you could stay to be 
in the centre of English Society...sadly no longer exists...the hotel that is, not English society.




A petit buy to let maybe?         Or rent or buy a villa in Cannes?


Something for the outer woman and something for the inner! Deco style and period throwback style side by side.

       Still as chic today.


I'll finish on two that have a special resonance to an English woman TEA.

Both these brands still exist in France today.


And thats it. The end of a trip through 1925 in Paris.
Thank you for reading.