For those of you who saw the posts about the Disneyland home movies taken in 1956, only a year after the park opened will most likely appreciate that the author of those videos have found another treasure from his grandparents home movie archive, San Francisco in 1958. The movie guides us around a few urban scenes, trolley cars and the Golden Gate bridge among many other things. The scene from inside the trolley car reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock's movie Vertigo made in the same year. Let's hope that he next time finds a home movie from New York around the same period. Mad Men anyone?
American company Big Chill came up with the brilliant idea of launching a line of kitchen appliances that have modern functionality, efficiency and dependability but that look like they are straight out of the 50s. If you always wanted that pink retro kitchen, here's your chance – with the added bonus that you don't have to venture out on a long and slow quest to find those over priced retro stoves and fridges found at various thrift stores, which turns out they barely work once installed.
Big Chill offers newly manufactured fridges, stoves and dishwashers that come in various retro pastel color schemes circa 1955. If you recognize them it could be because they have been featured in both Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray and Oprah. Prices range around $1695 for the dishwashers to $4295 for the stoves. Who said living a retro lifestyle is cheap? For more kitchen styling and renovation madness, be sure to visit the great Retro Renovation blog. [Thanks Cam]
Short funky Swedish documentary about the development of the state-of-the-art Royal Swedish Air force jet fighter "Draken". Built and developed by Swedish car maker Saab in the early 1950s, this video takes us on a brief journey on how the plane was developed and tested before its maiden flight in 1955. Also pay attention to the thick and rather silly Swedish accents that makes this video even more kitschy. Good times indeed! (Via)
Lisa Predko, a professional photographer from Chicago and lover of all things vintage sends me these lovely 1960s inspired photos that instantly transports you back 50 years or so, to a more fun, colorful and playful time. I love the the attention to detail and color and if you are fascinated by the space age designed television seen above, you should definitively head over to Predicta, who manufactures them (in living color). Wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of those sets my self, bet it would look snug in any Mid Century modern home! Continue reading for more of Lisa's photos and a short biography about her.
Winter is almost upon us in northern Europe, but these newly found postcards of retro Sweden brings back kitschy summer vibes that are sure to warm anyone. Those of you with sharp eyes might spot that a few of the cards depict Sweden pre-1967, when we still had left-side traffic. Native Swedes might even recognize some or all of the places. But for those who aren't in the know, they represent Värnamo, Kramfors along with the two suburbs Vällingby and Huddinge outside of Stockholm. Which street scene looks the most inviting or... boring? Continue reading to see all the images.
Contributed by Jay on September 4th, 2009 | Comments
Spacemen Magazine was a relatively short-lived publication. It was published from July 1961 to July 1965 and was a spin off from the more successful "Famous Monsters of Filmland." Both were edited by the late Forrest J. Ackerman and Published by James Warren. The cover art for the 1965 Yearbook was by well-known comic book artists Russ Jones and Wally Wood. This particular cover was unique because the magazine's covers were usually a color photograph (still) from a film, or an artist's rendering of some more sensationalistic aspect of science fiction. This cover, with its urbane space bachelor gives a rather obvious nod to Hugh Hefner. The magazine featured mostly photographs from, and articles about the Hollywood "Space-Age" films and television programs which usually took a rather fanciful view of outer space and the future (e.g. robots, alien invaders, space travel, etc.).
This is the House of the Future (or Plastic House of the Future) at Disneyland, California circa 1957 – where you could get a glimpse of what the future held in technology and comfort in the year 1986. Look at all those fancy buttons all over the place, I crave more buttons in my apartment too! Many things would probably be regarded as somewhat retro-future kitschy today, but one gadget that was eventually invented was the microwave oven. The house was open until 1967 when the it was demolished to make room for other projects. Parts of the construction was so sturdy seeing it was rated for earthquakes it was impossible to remove it and couple of the remaining pillars for the house can now be seen in Neptune's Grotto. One more video after the jump.
Ultra Swank takes you back in time into the kitsch, chic and swank living of the 50s to the 70s. We mainly focus on the design, architecture and the lifestyle of the happy-go-lucky and space-age-living mentality from that era - but also on the mood music that takes you back to happier times. Ultra Swank is run by Chris who resides in Sweden. More | Contact
Here it is, the compilation that started everything. This compilation was actually compiled a few months before I started this place back in september 2005 and I decided to keep the name Ultra Swank for this site. This compilation was the first compilation I had done in many years, so it is not as solid [...]
Christmas is around the corner, and although there are no snow to be seen anywhere around me there are other ways to enhance the Christmas spirit – like listening to great vintage holiday songs. For those of you who have missed out on my praised Retro Christmas compilation, you should stop what you are doing [...]
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