Ultra Swank - Retro Adventures

1950s

A Classic 1950s Café In Stockholm

I lived in Stockholm for two years but I totally missed out on this place. Café Valand was opened in 1954 by Magdalena and her husband Stellan Åström who also designed it. The café is located in the cute and lively area Vasastaden in Stockholm where it has sat frozen in time with its stylish wooden walls, signs, machines and tables for over five decades....

Large Collection of Audrey Hepburn Articles

Seeing it’s Monday and we all love Audrey Hepburn here’s a really swell collection of scanned Audrey articles from various magazines from all over the world. The creator of The Audrey Hepburn Library realised a long time ago that it was nearly impossible finding good source material that wasn’t already covered in biographies about her and other Audrey fans had often scanned only the photos...

Video
Written by Christopher in Daydreaming

Think Pink from Funny Face

The classic ‘Think Pink’ song and dance number from the 1957 movie Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. Love how clean and stylized the environment and colors are. This truly represents the height of the mid century modern look and feel – clean and simple. Legendary Kay Thompson sets the style and mood....

Educational Movies about the Atomic Bomb

The clips, produced in 1955 and 1959 about the atomic bomb, radioactive fallout and how you can protect your self from it. For someone born in later decades it is probably hard to grasp the hype, fear and fascination about the atomic bomb in the height of the cold war era. Especially for those living on the eastern seaboard of the US, which were apparently...

Postcards of Googie Architecture in California

Since we all love kitschy postcards, I thought this would be a great way to start off the week. Here’s a sample of postcards of yesteryear California. Including motels, restaurants, diners, bowling alleys and everything between that all share the “Googie” styled design and architecture that became popular on the West Coast in the 1950s and 1960s. The “Googie” style took its influence from futurist...

Disney’s House of the Future
Written by Christopher in Science

Disney’s House of the Future

The House of the Future (also known as the plastic house of the future) at Disneyland, California circa 1957. This is where curious visitors could get a glimpse of how Disney imagined what the future would hold in technology and comfort for the year 1986! Many (or most) things would probably be regarded as very retro-future-kitschy today, but one gadget that was eventually shown and...

Shaynee Rainbolt Leads a Charmed Life – Featuring Russell Garcia

American jazz vocalist Shaynee Rainbolt contacted me a while back having seen one of my compilations which features songs by legendary musician and composer Russell Garcia. It turns out that she is not only a fellow fan of his but also worked with him on her latest album entitled Charmed Life: Shaynee Rainbolt Sings Russell Garcia. Russell, now 92 years old have been living on...

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