How high can a hemline soar? VICKI CAMPBELL and JANET NEILL give us a preview of their reply to the Parisian designers. Any poll you care to take will show 99% in favour of the Campbell-Neill line.
The 1% ! That’ll be our office boy—he thinks Vicki and Janet could have lopped off another couple of inches. That boy’s too old for his years.
ELAINE VICKERS is a charming example of a Beautiful Briton turned beautiful and happy a housewife!
Elaine comes from Dartford in Kent, and before her marriage she worked in an engineering office there.
But although the engineers themselves were very nice, engineering is no career for a pretty girl.
A pretty girl is like a melody. A pretty girl in a frilly slip is an absolute symphony, and there's no place for that in an engineering works not without disorganising the engineers and their output.
When Elaine's not busy with the chores, she likes to play some tennis. If her husband plays as well then somewhere along the line of their progress towards wedlock someone must have called a love game and we don't think it could have been the umpire.
The look is oriental, and you might expect the name to be, too. But it's not Little - Flower - That Flutters - In - The - Wind or Blossom - With - The - Cherry - Red - Petals it's ALEISHA PHILLIPS. The Christian name may have an almond flavour to it but don’t be fooled - Aleisha is a Beautiful Briton. Nevertheless, drape her in a kimono, place her unobtrusively in a Tokyo bus queue, and the nearest the Nips will get to classing her as a foreigner will be Shanghai. Is it the delicate slant to those beautiful brown eyes?
No, but listen. Aleisha’s never been to Tokyo or to Shanghai. We don’t think she’s even been in a bus queue.
She rides in taxis and she’s strictly a no chop-suey type. That alluring, exotic Eastern look just developed along with her slim and shapely legs, and any mysterious Oriental characteristics she’s acquired are really quite Occidental.
Now fashion modelling in London, Aleisha shows that black lingerie tailored around her trim 35 - 25 - 35 figure looks good from all angles, and she models it with the sweet assurance of a Tokyo counterpart who's left her kimono on the hook.
IT was a rainy day wet, too, as so often happens in this country and the daffodils hadn't yet started to bloom, and the man from the collecting office had already been round twice to ask for the rent. Then luscious-looking LAVINIA GRANT dropped in - actually, it was only to get out of the rain—and we said why not come into the parlour. So, she did and the next thing she knew there was a camera keeping her company at very close range.
Well, it's not often someone as bright as Lavinia drops in on a rainy day. so why not - we said - record the fact? So, we did
This might mean that Lavinia has met too many sailors or not enough airmen. Anyway, she slings her hammock in Kensington now and is shipshape at 37 - 22 - 38.
It would indeed be delightful to have a maid-of-all-work like PATRICIA McGREGOR around the house. But unfortunately, Pat’s not registered with any domestic agency. The chores she does are strictly for her own benefit career wise she’s a fashion model and drama teacher. No, we can't tell you where she teaches drama, and anyway, Horace, we can’t see you as Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. With that glint in your eye and that smirk on your face, you’re not mournful enough.
Washing-up sans skirt is to save the skirt getting splashed by detergents, and, of course, to prove that fashion models have very glamorous legs.
Pat, by the way, is a pukka fashion model, and this is the first time she’s posed for pin-up shots. She was quite confident she would do us justice—with a smile like that and trim limbs like these, this was a certainty.
What she didn’t realise was that so many pin-up girls who put their feet up for temporary relaxation inevitably end up flat on their backs.
“This is a new one on me,” said Pat, “and I can’t say anything except the bump hurt me a lot more than it hurt you. How many times do I have to do this for pin-up art?”
And while she made herself a cup of tea to soothe her shattered nerves we explained it was a pure accident.
“Willingly,” said Pat, “I’d give you the benefit of the doubt on that if I hadn’t seen you push me. Pardon me if I pick a softer seat than before but I’m a little tender.”
We laughed that one off by saying that a little tender is just as much behind as a big tender, especially on British railways.
“You can say that again,” said Pat, and curling up on the armchair she refused to budge until we’d gone. And she stayed unbudged so charmingly we had no option but to fold up our tents and depart like the wise men of old.
To illustrate what s currently cooking in the matter of black lace fashions, we couldn't choose a better model than ROSA DOMAILLE.
Sooner or later most glamour girls model black lace because pink and white are all very charming but aren't the colours to actually slay 'em. Slay whom? Well, mostly the hawk-eyed buyers. Rosa, of course, does happen to be a girl who can slay ’em in anything, which is why Bill Watts, leading London agent for glamour, has just placed her under contract.
Rosa, who is making the pages of the nationals now, was only a girl up from the country a few months ago. Twig the new sophistication, fellers, and breathe deeply.
To model black lace, you just have to be soph isticated. But Rosa's still cute, huh?
In case you've forgotten, Rosa’s vitalistics are 38 – 23 - 36
THAT’S what the photographer asked JENNIFER MITCHELL on a recent modelling session. Jennie didn't need asking twice she'd been longing to try the machine out for size ever since he drove up. So, she told him to run along and attend to his flash bulbs, or light meter, or whatever it was needing attention she'd stay guard over the bike.
As soon as he was out of sight, Jennie was on the saddle. On the handlebars, too which is original if not comfortable.
A peek to ensure that the photographer was still occupied elsewhere, and Jennie was off for a trial spin. Alas, the bike will never be the same again neither, we think, will the photographer. Jennie, we’re glad to report, remains unalterably delightful.
Pretty ANNE LEYTON “irons it out”
Crease - troubles - can usually be ironed out with a little patience and the right kind of approach. Naturally ANNE LEYTON has both.
She also has big brown eyes and a gorgeous figure, but that’s by way of being incidental in relation to the approach. And the item with the creases is a skirt.
In SPICK, such a picture is always cute. And Anne, an office girl, is the governing factor of this one.
The answer isn’t peanuts. It’s more a matter of corn if you consider the title alone. The fact is, this sweet young thing’s name is PENNY PRICE, and we thought there was a gag in that somewhere. But corn and gags apart, Penny is going places in show biz.
To start with, the girl has a background. She used to work in a circus, starting off by flying around on a trapeze. A succession of falls helped her to develop the art of bouncing, and she does it better than a Yo-Yo.
Incidentally, Penny left the circus because they put her into the strong man’s act. The strong man wanted to fire her from a cannon and catch her before she landed. But Penny, a slim young lady at 36"- 22"- 34", thought she might slip through his fingers. Well, there are easier ways of saving money to etcetera, etcetera.
GIRL who’s just crazy about the Bohemian look in black woollen stockings is DOREEN SHEARD. Doreen’s not a true Bohemian type, however, because she remembers to keep her hair gleaming and well-brushed and her clothes fresh and neatly pressed.
In fact, Doreen’s not an idle Bohemian at all. She’s a hard-working showgirl.
It’s just those black woollen stockings. Irresistible, aren’t they?
This picture was taken 65 years ago, when smog was the problem. Not to sure how much progress we are really making! Taken from Span No 3 – November 1954. Thanks to Brian for spotting it.
To be a really good model, you not only have to be a pretty type — you have to be a pretty tough type. That’s what MAUREEN HUCKER found when a recent assignment took her out into the country and it began to rain.
"Do we stop?” she asked the cameraman, and the cameraman, all wrapped up in raincoat, hat and umbrella, thought she was fooling. "Stop?” he said. “What for?”
“Because it’s raining and I’m wet,” said Maureen, and the cameraman said I’m all right, Jack, why should I worry?
“Oh, gosh," said Maureen, “these pictures could be called Girl and a Shower, and you,” she added under her breath, “are the shower, you rotter.”
(or - Don’t Shoot The Cook, She’s Too Beautiful)
When Mr. Burley, a keen amateur photographer, who hails from Brixton, London, sent us some photographs of his lovely wife, we were so impressed by the discrimination he showed in picking a girl like this to wed, that we sent our own photographer along to provide additional evidence.
We didn’t arrive at the best time. Well, it wasn’t the best time for blonde and beautiful Mrs. Burley, who was choring in the kitchen—no girl likes to be caught in her apron— but it didn’t take us long to realise that there’s no time like the present, and could the lady have looked any lovelier without her apron, anyway? A moot point, that, and one on which we will not linger.
Mrs. Burley, do you always dress in this cute outfit when you’re working in the kitchen—or is it that we just caught you on the wrong day?
Well, no-well, yes—well, I like to look glamorous in my kitchen, particularly on Wednesdays, which are half days, of course.
But today is Thursday—
Is it? Oh, well excuse me a moment while I lift Mrs. Beeton off the biscuit tin.
No, but really, Mrs. Burley — hold that a moment — you really are the cutest kitchen maid we’ve seen in years.
Well, thanks. For that you can stay and have some coffee, if you like.
Would you like to sit on your kitchen table, Mrs. Burley? With pleasure—but may I ask what for?
Because it's always been a crazy idea of ours that there are so many things which photograph better on a kitchen table than cups, saucers and toast-racks, and now we see you there we know it wasn’t such a crazy idea at that.
Well, we finally went away with the feeling that we’d shot off a lot of very attractive photographs, and it wasn’t until we’d gone about five miles in the trolley-bus that we realised we'd left Mrs. Burley to do the washing-up by herself. Never mind. She did it all with such a sweet smile.
T.V. viewer is TONI KAYE, who dresses informally for looking-in!
We haven’t got a clue what's on, but we share with Toni’s many admirers a feeling that, with Toni around, it can’t be anything that matters.
It turned out to be a short piece taken from Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, and these two pictures illustrate Toni’s concentration—not on the Concerto, which she switched off, but on the Yogi formula of lying diagonally from corner to corner instead of straight from North to South. What does it achieve? Somewhere the answer’s in the relevant book.
Toni’s a cabaret girl and they’ve got a spotlight which makes every inch of her 36"-22"-35" count!
Muriel is a girl who tries hard to be domesticated, but when it comes to knitting Oh! what a mess! No matter how much of a tangle Muriel gets into, however, she’ certainly first class for our money.
Despite her problem, Muriel still flashes that charming smile.
After this, I’ll take up something easier, like bricklaying ` says Muriel.
