You've Come a Long Way, Baby

Virginia Slims' costume brilliance

Which Virginia Slims ads do you remember?

Perusing Stanford’s Collection of Virginia slims ads these 4 rang several bells. They are all from 1996. Makes sense, those were my heavy fashion magazine years.

Impactful. Advertisers got 14 year old me spot on. I never smoked. I’m cheap. Always have been. But, my 14 year old best friend did. For the next 10 years. I am going to ask her which ads she remembers - she was definitely channeling blue striped cardigan woman in … just about everything. From the makeup to the white pants to the slogan “Who says you can’t make the first move.” .. no beret, though.

Which of these do my fashion magazine readers from 1990 remember?

These are worth pulling in full-size and reading. The one in the middle says, "After several attempts to add her opinion, the town council finally yielded the floor to Valerie Jordan." That's Valerie with her hand raised and Valerie again, scrubbing the floor. The rest of the captions bite just as hard.

How about the 1980’s?

That first one says, "In 1903, it was easy for a woman to receive a lifetime appointment to the board." The second says it was important for a woman to "move in the right circles".

There are 100 of these, 5 a year for two decades. The first one is from 1970:

ending with this series in 1991:

1952, "when a well-dressed woman could really clean up", 1957, "what a woman's bank account looked like [a jar in the kitchen cabinet]; 1962 her husband "wore the pants in the family, but once a week he didn't mind giving them to his wife" [to wash].

Those are all real period clothing for the “historical” images. If I didn’t hear it from a credible source, I would have had a hard time thinking these images were made recently.

Those real period…