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Steve Heller
Posts:366
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| 07/24/2007 4:52 AM |
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I remember thinking when I first saw George Lois's Feb 1967 Esquire
cover "The New American Woman: Through at 21": "How the heck did
he get her in that trashcan." It played havoc with my drumskins (as a
famous moptop said around that same year). I even went so far as to try
the stunt myself. Needless to say it was painful. Yet that said, it was
also one of those recurring visual tropes at the time in films and elsewhere to see
someone trapped in a garbage can - ah the vicisitudes of fashion.
Nonetheless, my colleague Mike Dooley points out its been 40 years
since that cover was published. And recently he found its doppelganger
on the July-August 2007 Psychology Today.
Of course its not as well done. Lois and photographer Carl Fisher had a
talent for flawlessly rendering these conceptual images. And the
model in the can was just perfect. Comparatively, the one in this
current receptacle seems right at home - no pain, no gain.
Still, it proves a good idea is a terrible thing to waste.
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Michael Dooley
Posts:1
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| 07/24/2007 10:09 AM |
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Thanks, Steve, for the personal reminiscence. Way back when I first saw the Esquire cover on the newsstands I assumed the legs were a cut-and-paste job just based on their lighter tone coloration and lack of shading where they protrude from the trash can. Still think so. Nevertheless, a classic Lois cover.
I have a few other memories of that issue of Esquire. One is that writer Harlan Ellison removed his byline because he resented how his article was extensively edited, presumably to work better with Fisher's photo illustration (when was the last time the graphics drove the text to that extent?).
I also recall that Esquire generated a degree of public resentment at the then-shocking visual metaphor. Today, Psychology Today's trashy design doesn't raise an eyebrow. |
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