Here’s a collection of “Calling all Girls” magazines from decades past. Each of them features a delightfully cute dachshund, making for quite the little gender studies project, if one wished.
There’s also wonderful headlines like “How to lose weight and enjoy it!” and “How do you rate as a spectator?”
Ah, feminism. Where were you then?
(via Draplin)
The history of the Jockey short:
Although the briefs had been put on show in the window at the Marshall Field & Co department store, its management thought it ludicrous to try and sell such skimpy items on a cold day that cried out for long johns – then the dominant form of men’s underwear – and ordered the display to be removed. They were so wrong. Before their orders could be carried out, 600 packages of Jockey shorts were sold. And 30,000 pairs were sold in the next three months alone.
The article goes on to describe the strugge between boxers and briefs, plus the emergence of hybrids like boxer-briefs and shorter trunks. Strangely, nowhere does it mention going “commando.”
PS. Before the comments section starts a’flyin’ I don’t normally just go searching for web pages about men’s underwear. But a recent comic over on dinger.ca made a pun about “tie fighters” (guys who were battling each other with neckties) and I thought I could make a related Star Wars joke about Y-wing fighters and Y-front briefs. It didn’t work out. Also, no picture on purpose. Google Images is not your friend in this instance.
UPDATE: Holy crap. More here than you could even want to know. Thanks to Wikipedia for the link.
He told me so. I said it should probably make him sad for our sweatpants pool. (Punnier if you say it out loud.) This made me think of it:
I’m sure it’s been around the Internet a time or three, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it. I did a quick Google, and found a forum post with the complete text of the article it’s from. See it after the jump.
(fyi, it’s an article about a retail war between dollar stores! I’d really be interested to map the spread of dollar stores and correlate it with the decline of five-and-dimes. It’s weird how the language changes. Think of pennycandy, for another example.)
Every now and then, I get a strong feeling about something, and I just *know* it’s going to be popular. Lately, it’s been happening a lot with music, but it’s also happened with other trends. Of course, I could say anything and there’d be no way to prove it, so I’m going to keep quiet about my past successes. (I mis-called pipes, though — I thought after Gandalf, they’d be huge.)
My latest feeling is sartorial in nature: I think those Euro-style undershorts are the hot new thing, and boxer briefs are the new passé.
Also called “army trunks,” I bought some on a whim, and I’m sold. They’re stylish and comfortable. They make boxer briefs feel like grandad’s undies.
I am absolutely not going to include a picture, because I didn’t find something perfect right away and I can’t stand Googling for men’s underwear any longer. Gigantic packages! Enormous ripped abs! In close-up! It’s obviously designed for, um, male perusal.
But I don’t need to see anyone’s funky bunch, if you know what I mean.
PS. Men’s style is not going to be a regular thing here on Absurd Intellectual. Try A Continuous Lean for that stuff.
I’m not sure what this mother was thinking when she took her kid to American Apparel. Surely she’s aware that their ads are near-pornographic — and in fact are inspired by vintage porn?
But I gotta say she probably didn’t expect to have actual pornography shoved in her face, by merely flipping through a magazine that was on display.
Then again, the magazine was called BUTT. Maybe this mother was just not thinking her actions completely through on that day.
That aside, I also found this in-depth and fascinating tale of a visit to the American Apparel factory recently. Think what you will about their style (wretched), their advertising (nauseating), their founder (creepy) or their attitude (pretentious) but you have to admit that the writer, Kevin Meyer, has a point:
This is a $500 million manufacturer of t-shirts, underwear, and the like. Typically low margin products, the kind of thing that usually comes from Asian and Central American sweatshops.
But not at American Apparel. This company makes over 1 million articles of clothing per week, from their one factory in Los Angeles and they grew 40% this year. They pay their 5,000-person workforce significantly above minimum wage (average is $12-$15 per hour), give them full subsidized benefits (such as high quality health care insurance for $8 per week), and they turn a profit.
This should embarrass the heck out of any executive who thinks he has to outsource in order to find effective labor. Or at least call into question his fundamental competence as a leader. If American Apparel can manufacture low margin clothing efficiently enough to beat the sweatshops (in California no less), then anyone should be able to. If they try hard enough.
Lots more interesting insights from his visit to the factory.
And, if you have been listening to the right kind of news lately, you’ll know that the company’s founder is accused of being essentially really weird and creepy, in a sexual way, and is being sued. Think SNL blew their load on Palin? Check it here (seriously, green manties!) and be sure to watch to the end.
(By the way, the image above, of an American Apparel in Winnipeg, I found by a photographer named Bryan Scott. He’s got a fantastic set of Winnipeg and Manitoba pics up on his website, plus lots of interesting commentary. It’s at winnipeglovehate.com. Check it out!)