Jacques Fath-Paris, 1955

Dress by Jacques Fath, automobile by Cadillac.
Via myvintagevogue.com

Two By John Rawlings

Anne Saint-Marie in Maximillian fur, November 15, 1957



Suzy Parker in Dior, October 15, 1953

Photos By John Rawlings

Man's First Surf Trunks

In the late 1950s, Nancy and Walter Katin were in the business of making canvas boat covers, and the "multi" billion dollar surf wear industry of the late nineties and beyond was all but unimaginable. Yet one day a young man came into the Katin's shop in Surfside, California, complaining of the difficulty in finding a pair of swim shorts durable enough to stand up to the then-quirky pastime of surfboard riding. Walter focused on a vision with his sewing machine and some of the sturdy boat canvas previously used for boat covers and whipped up the first pair of Kanvas by Katin surf trunks . The surfer was stoked. Word of Nancy and Walter's creation quickly spread up and down the coast, and the Katin's were suddenly in the surf trunk business. The American surf wear industry was born.
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Katin Online Store

Lisa Fonssagrives Penn

It was in the mid-nineties, thumbing through an Irving Penn book entitled Pasage, when I first discovered the classic beauty of Lisa F. I was captivated to say the least, and was on a mission to find more images of her. The next year,my wish was granted in the form of a thorough coffetable book, celebrating her life as a model, artist, sculptor, dancer, photographer, clothing designer,athlete,pilot,wife and mother. A Real Supermodel. The book is now out of print and fetching up to $300.00-worth every cent. Five Stars *****

Lisa Fonssagrives: Three Decades of Classic Fashion Photography (Hardcover)
by David Seidner (Editor), Martin Harrison (Author)
Lisa Fonssagrives (May 17, 1911 – February 4, 1992), credited by some as the first "supermodel."
Her image appeared on the cover of many magazines during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, from Town & Country, Life, and the original Vanity Fair.
She worked with fashion photographers including George Hoyningen-Huene, Man Ray, Horst, Erwin Blumenfeld, George Platt Lynes, Richard Avedon, and Edgar de Evia. She married photographer, Irving Penn, in 1950.
She was the inspiration and subject of some of Penn's greatest photographs, particularly his studies of French haute couture.


Lisa Fonssagrives opera glove gallery:

http://www.operagloves.com/Classicstars/LisaFonssagrives/lisa.html