Johnson &
Johnson company history
(excerpts): A
Company That Cares (1927)
Gilbreth report to Johnson &
Johnson about Modess - Modess newspaper
ads 1927-28
- "Silent
Purchase" ad, June 1928 - ad, 1928
- "Modernizing Mother" ads: #1, February
1929 ("Mother
. . . don't be quaint");
Modess "Teacher's
kit" (complete,
early 1950s, Personal Products Corp.,
U.S.A.)
Modess
pamphlet introducing its Meds tampons
to the world (1930s)
More booklets and
kits.
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MUSEUM OF MENSTRUATION AND WOMEN'S
HEALTH
Modess ad, 1951
Vogue, U.S.A.
I have your attention.
Did the Italian genius
who painted this and lived to be
95 create the oh-so-fashionable
woman in the ad below?
For decades Americans saw
magazine ads showing ultra-stylish
women stuttering when
trying to explain what they were
selling - and maybe wearing.
That was the "Modess....
because" ad campaign.
Star photographers Cecil
Beaton and Diane Arbus
with her husband photographed many
of these ads. Avant-garde designer
Charles James created many
of the gowns.
But did one of the 20th-century's
great illustrators (and I think
artists) create one of its similar
but non-because ads? This
one?
The style resembles René
Gruau's (see below). At the
time of the ad, 1951, during the
"Modess....because" campaign, the
popular fashion illustrator had
just finished working with Vogue
but because of time lag in
publication it could have easily
have been made earlier. Besides,
the artist probably worked with
the ad agency, not the magazine.
You judge.
After diverting the reader with
fashion, the text gets to the
crux: not menstruation - horrors!
- but hiding the box!
Efficiency expert Dr.
Lillian Gilbreth would have
beamed when examining it!
The
point was that high fashion
and secret boxes kept the
ladies, mentally, far away
from their periods.
(Many facts here come from the
Wikipedia article on Gruau.)
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