Weird Things I Collect: 1960s Teenage Magazines

I hated being a teenager. I was plenty vocal about it and rejected anything "teenager" related. But, just as I secretly listened to Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/ LoveSounds record, I also secretly shame-read magazines geared toward that age group. That was ten + years ago, during an era of questionable music and fashion. Nowadays, I am fascinated by "teenage" culture of the 1950s and 60s, when the concept of the teenager being its own demographic was first hitting its stride. These magazines are totally geared toward kids- they are a remarkable time capsule from 50 or more years ago, and a fascinating timeline measuring the sweeping social changes from the beginning of the decade to the end.

I was recently adding some new acquisitions to my collection when I realized that a) I had way more than I thought I did and b) I should blog about them! So, here we go. 

The title I have the most of is 'Teen, which was still around when I was a kid. I have issues ranging from 1960 to 1968. A telling indication of our changing society, the top three pictured here, from the end of the decade all have stories about sex front and center on the cover. This would have never ever happened in the earlier issues, where all three of my 1960-61 covers are about innocent  American Bandstand personalities and a cartoon "Alvin" from Alvin and the chipmonks. 

These ones are part of my music-centric titles, all post-64 which means they are Beatles Beatles Beatles. Titles like 16 and Tiger Beat were much more pop culture centered than others, like 'Teen and some titles that are pictured farther down in this post that were like women's interest for teenagers, featuring fashion, short stories and advice more prominently.

Teen Set was published by Capitol Records and featured artists signed to that label, like the Beach Boys and Beatles. 

Titles like Ingenue, which has my absolute favorite tagline "For Sophisticated Teens" before 1968 when the tagline changed, were essentially women's interest topics for girls. While they did have articles about pop culture stuff, they more focused on fashion, beauty, advice, short stories and "hot topics" like relationships and parents.  American Girl, pictured above was published by the Girl Scouts. 

Before the Beatles hit America in 1964, the music coverage was about people like Paul Anka, American Bandstand and Elvis, though by the time these were published, he'd been in the Army and back again. It's really interesting to see the lull in the music industry between the initial introduction of rock and roll to the white audiences in the 1950s and the British Invasion.

Post 1964, every music magazine had multiple articles and spreads on the Beatles. They were an inescapable force.

The non-music titles featured articles that centered on fashion, beauty and social issues. Included above is an article about long distance relationships when your boyfriend moved away- either to go to college, get a job or drafted into the military, and another on how to throw a beachcomber party.

stuffies are happening again

After a multi-year long hiatus, I've finally decided to get back into making stuffies!  Along with the regular style I used to make, I was inspired by the boudoir dolls from the 1920s that I've never been able to win an ebay auction for. Goddamn it! They're so expensive! 

Anyway, I run out of ideas pretty fast, so I'm always game to make custom dolls. I've made some of my best stuff for other people.  I get easily bogged down in my own favorite figures that I forget about everyone else out there. 

I've made a small batch of the new boudoir style dolls just basically as a test run to see how they'd come out.  I' frankly like making the better because the larger size makes it easier to do more highly detailed costumes, and honestly, that's the whole reason I got into this business in the first place. Ha!

This one started out as a Josephine Baker doll, but I couldn't get her face right for the life of me.  Eventually I was messing around with some Twiggy style eyes and ended up just leaning into it and making her into a Diana Ross-style girl group singer.  As you can see, she was a prototype and her arms came out a bit too long, but I ended up liking and keeping them that way. 

This one is my favorite that I've made in this style so far.  I really love menswear and was inspired by a Rudolph Valentino doll I saw somewhere on line. I put him up in my etsy, but I may end up keeping him! I've been making their costumes out of clothes I find at thrift stores or cast offs of my own.  His suit is made from an old blazer of mine, and his shirt is from a shirt that I really loved but spilled coffee on. His boater hat is made from a Pendleton wool scrap I got from my aunt! 

Hunting for the fabrics to make their costumes out of is one of the most fun things about making dolls again.  Since I hunt for stuff constantly for my space, being able to use things that I find that are not sellable , or in terrible condition is pretty great. 

These take forever since I completely sew them by hand. I've gotten pretty fast doing the bodies, but the clothing takes a lot of time. It's the most fun, but also most time consuming because I try and do some research to make them look like the real thing! 

Weird Things I Collect- WWII Edition

If you remember from the old blog's Band of Brothers saturation,World War II is an interesting subject to me. My grandfather served in occupied Japan in 1946/47 (he was too young to enlist during the actual war), and though he never really spoke about it, he was very passionate about history- something that trickled down to me! I was really interested in the Holocaust from a pretty young age- I remember getting a book in fourth grade from the book fair called something like "Behind the Bedroom Wall" about a German girl who's family was hiding a Jewish family behind a wardrobe and I was hooked. I was a weird kid, I don't know what else to say. Ha! 

 Then I promptly forgot about it when I got way too into the 1960s and the Beatles in fifth grade and didn't circle back until a few years ago. I've collected some stuff over the years related to the war and that time period, and I thought it'd be a fun way to kick of this new series on this blog.

I finally got my hands on a Raggy Doodle! I found him on Ebay last year for only 99 cents. He's in pretty bad condition, but... 99 cents!!!! He needs to be mended on the bottom and has a pretty big hole in his parachute backpack, but those are both fixable. Plus a wool garrison cap.

I. Love. Handbooks. I have a few more in my collection, but I grabbed both my WAVES/SPARS guidebook and "My Life in the Service" journal. This service record is mostly blank, with only a name and address, but it's still great! Also pictured here is one of my Victory pins and this photo of my grandpa Max in Japan (on the left).

My WAVES/SPARS (women's Navy and Coast Guard services) handbook. I'm a creep and researched the name written inside and found a photograph of her from this time period online! Also pictured are  sweetheart bomber plane earrings and non-period repro lipstick Victory Red by Besame. It's a direct reproduction of the color created by the military to go with uniforms in 1945, I believe. I barely ever find old cosmetics packages, though I wish I did. They're another favorite of mine! This is close enough. 

I love this lady! I've got another photo of her with what looks like her sister. I used to collect photographs way more than I do, but then I "inherited" a stupid amount of actual family photos from a great aunt and cousins (my pictured above grandpa's sister, actually) that my dad and I split up. Now it's kind of like, I really don't need any more pictures of people who I don't know (though I still dig through piles when I find them. You never know!). Another one of my victory pins. I just realized I didn't get any other up close photos of the others in the top picture, even though sweetheart/victory pins are what I have the most of in my collection! Aaaargh!

C'est La Vie

My new *~Life Career Path~* towards being a less miserable schmuck and selling vintage stuff quasi-full time means making more trips to the Goodwill Outlet, aka the BINS.  And it is a trip, as it's located on the complete other side of the city by some sketchy train tracks, and by bus, which adds its own level of adventure.  The Bins are an all encompassing, total sensory experience in glorified, legal dumpster diving. I mean, I literally found a bag of dirt the first time I went. A. Bag. Of. Dirt. I've also found great stuff, so I keep going back because I am a trash bandit.

WHAT IS THIS

I went early today hoping to beat the inevitable rush, but it was nuts anyway. Two people literally got in a shoving match over a broken child's keyboard (the instrument) and some lady yelled at me for "being judgmental" about someone's parenting choices after she engaged me, complaining about a screaming kid and saying she'd never bring her kids there. I agreed, then made a joke about "unless I had a baby hazmat suit or something" and she lit into me about how some people don't have help like SHE does and that it's very sad how some people make their money (?????).  Smash-cut to me backing away slowly as she continued to complain about the loud kid to no one in particular. 

It was looking like that was going to be the tone of the entire outing until I stumbled on a second set of  book bins. That never happens! Goodwill is insane for how they price their books these days (I totally remember when they were like 50 cents, I swear), and they run pretty high for what they are at the bins too, BUT I usually can find some good stuff. I had to pass on a 1950s Elks Lodge handbook since hardcover books are pricey (for what I'm about) but found some good kids books.  I stupidly put down a 1990 New Kids on the Block UNOFFICIAL (it made that clear) biography and then couldn't find it again. Why?!

FOR SALE YALL

FOR SALE YALL

FOR SALE YALL

I found this one back in October with the intention of putting it in my space for Halloween, but totally forgot and re-found it last week. Noooo! 

ALSO FOR SALE YALL

I need to get my act together and start taking photos of some stuff, because I really want to do a series of things I collect! So stay tuned for that, maybe.

What's Been Going On

Hey gang! Remember me?

   I blogged off and on for about four years (though more off than on in recent times. I think my last post was in summer of 2016) over at My Nickname in High School back before I changed the name to reflect my etsy shop, Blind Cat Vintage.  I had gotten very busy and started a new job within the same company that I was at which I blogged about here.  For all the relief and elation at getting out of a customer service job, the reality of working in the new location only took about two months to set in, particularly after I was moved into a different department than I was initially put into. I hated it. Hated it more than I've ever hated a job before, and that's saying quite a bit.  Being isolated both physically and inter-personally really took its toll. My anxiety and depression had reverted back to how bad they were when I was in high school. You know, back when I had mapped out the school security guard's route and time schedule so I could leave campus before lunch without getting caught because I just couldn't stand to be there any longer! Yeah, it was that bad.

   After a lot of thinking and stressing and worrying and missing huge amounts of work dealing with horrendous anxiety migraines, I finally had to start getting real with what I really wanted out of a job. I've worked exclusively in retail for all of my working life, and it's pretty much a drag... but there are aspects of it that I enjoy. I really love working with gift items, doing merchandising, organizing- the creative aspects of a retail job.  Basically, what I was doing in store when I worked for the gifts location of the bookstore, minus working the register.  I realized that my "dream job", if you can call it that, would be to expand my vintage shop space into a full time job- or at least as much of a full time job as that can be.  Running my space over the past year has been very fulfilling and joyful for me. The only problem is it doesn't come with a steady stream of income or any of the other benefits of a full time job like health insurance security. My dream plan would be to find a part time job that pays well and offers benefits (yeah right), that would allow me to devote more time to getting my business off the ground and expand to more of an online presence.

   After reaching my near breaking point with my job, I started applying like crazy to basically anywhere I could, just to get out of the environment I was in. I interviewed for several jobs to no avail, until I stumbled upon what would basically be the "unicorn" job. Doing gift merchandising part time, being paid almost $3 an hour more than I currently make, plus full benefits.

   Well gang, I was able to not make an idiot of myself, mention weasels or any other long rodents and got that job!  I am in the process of juggling finishing my "two weeks" at the old place and doing orientation and training for the new place, all while ramping up my time spent on my side business. I'm hoping to get back into blogging at this address and focus on both my new business ventures as well as just writing about stuff I like. I realized while working at my current location how important it is to stay connected to friends and people, especially when you don't have a job with built in companions, like when I worked at the gift store, and I'm hoping that getting back into blogging will help me do that.

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