About The Vintage Ladies
From the late 1800s and through the turn of the last century, people wanted and needed to communicate with each other just as much as they do now. In those days, naturally, they used the Postal System, so things took a little longer.
But news is news, whichever way it arrives and there were engagements to be announced, weddings taking place, new babies born, birthdays to be celebrated, holidays to be boasted about, and let’s not forget Christmas, Easter and Valentine’s Day. And if you think the commercialisation of Valentine’s is a modern phenomenon, think again.
Canny printers recognised opportunity when they saw it and saleable, posed images became big business and were shot, lithographed and often hand-tinted to produce post or greetings cards for every occasion you can imagine, as well as some you probably wouldn’t even think of.
These shots were then reproduced in their thousands, all over Europe, to meet the demands of the Social Media of the day. Alongside the mass-produced cards were others, produced specifically to promote and extol popular actors, singers and performers from the theatre, opera, vaudeville and the various touring circuses. In addition, what could be better than taking yourselves along to a professional photographer for a memento of a Special Occasion. These could then be reproduced for distribution to those family and friends who were interested – as well as to those who probably weren’t.
Photo sessions tended to fall into two categories, the first being formal and somewhat stiff (think waxwork!). The second type were carefully staged with props and backdrops to create a ‘scene’ with ‘atmosphere’, although in many of these it does have to be said, the subjects look less than relaxed and in some cases, positively startled.
I love every one of these images - the stories they tell and the ones they don’t! And once I started (obsessively?) collecting all the shots I could find ferreting around in dark, dusty and cobwebbed corners of attics or scraping the bottoms of boxes in garage sales, it became pretty impossible to stop. The more of these wonderful items I gathered, the more apparent it became these ladies had much to say for themselves, were dying to say it and lacked only the means to do so.
So, hang on to your smelling salts, grab your fans and tighten your corsets, the Vintage Ladies, not to mention several Vintage Gentlemen, have arrived.
* * * *