Ah - the great ironies of life. It's always struck me as vaguely hilarious that while lingerie scenes were effectively banned from the Hollywood mainstream for over three decades, the printed media was literally saturated with cheesecake imagery - particularly newspapers and women's magazines. Many of the glossies opted for illustrations over photographs, and considering the level of quality, it's easy to see why.
Lingerie ads were often beautifully rendered in classic pin-up style, somehow managing to look both risque and tasteful at the same time. No need for racy pulps or Esquire calendars here, not when Ladies Home Journal featured artwork every bit as sexy as Vargas or Elvgren at their best. Common tabloids and mail order catalogs included much the same material as the more prestigious publications, making these visual delights available to everybody.
I tend to believe that panty ads of the 1970s were a lot more fun than they are today. I mean, there was none of the hard-edged arthouse angst we see in the present day. Eiderlon girls like the one posted above looked like they were actually having a good time.
I guess that was one of the hallmarks of the "Age of Aquarius": pretty young women could still be bright, playful and 'girly' if they wanted; the stifling pressures of the 'Excecutive' decade hadn't yet set in. Take the header for example: "Be a pantynut. For peanuts!" Could you imagine any high-end women's magazine carrying something so unabashedly light-hearted these days?
No post-feminist subtext here: our erstwhile heroine isn't some world conquering CEO, she's a sweet young thing surprised in her underwear (something she quite enjoys by the looks of things), innocently comfortable with her own natural beauty.
Yeah, OK - we all know that beauty is only skin deep and no one should be judged on looks alone. But the message here isn't one of political repression, it's something far less sinister. Why do girl wear pretty, patterened undies in the first place? The answer is simple, of course. They wear them to feel good about themselves.
