I love it when I come across some vintage glamour shots in my collection and I can trace them back to where they were published or other such details. Such is the case of the bushy ebony beauty above, as I have a collection of original images of her and several other natural beauties from the 1960’s. I have about 10-15 sets of models all of which I believed where from France or Europe due to the uncensored nature and style of the shots and I recognised several of the shots, so started digging through my archive.
To my delight some of them seem to have been published across two very similar publications in the 60’s that some of you may know with the titles ‘Cover Girl’ and ‘Exciting’. These were published by Nordisk Bladcentral, Copenhagen and distributed by Sangko-Norden, so I wasn’t far wrong with location and both magazines followed a very similar format. They both featured colour covers and back pages of a featured model, as well as a colour centrefold, the rest were black and white shots, but sometimes with a single coloured border or bi-coloured. All of the models had one thing in common, they were nearly all natural and showing off their thick bushy curls, as above as an example. I even have several copies of both publications in my own collection and you can see the cover and back page of Cover Girl No.12 featuring the same model below.
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Now for the tenuous Harrison Marks link as not only did Nordisk Bladcentral publish these two magazines in the 1960’s, but several others as well including titles such as as Play-Girl, Bazaar, Lotus, Charme, Nouvelle Serie De Revue and Nouvelle Serie De Studio. Nearly all featured re-prints of Harrison Marks work from Kamera and his other publications and feature all the familiar models we know and love, with one slight difference. All of his images have had pussy hair brushed back into the shots, even on the likes of June Palmer, when we know she was clean shaven until late in her career. So from the look of the images I have and the content of these magazines the Europeans back then sure loved their women to have a full natural look 😉
So there you have it more of my collection traced back to point of publication, which for me always has a feeling of satisfaction. The only missing pieces of the puzzle are the model name and photographer? Finally, if anyone has any copies of Cover Girl or Exciting out there I’d love copies to see if I have any other models in my collection that also appeared within the pages of these magazines? Very doubtful I know, as they seem to be rather rare and hard to find out there. 🙂
That notional trail of hair that leads from the bush up to the navel, that’s another thing that was deemed OK till around the seventies, then became perceived as a ‘defect’ that every model swiftly removed.
It could be found on models of all races (typically Indian, but not exclusively) and I personally always thought it quite intriguing. Regardless one’s preferences, it’s another cultural difference between photos of that era, and today.
I agree Tonal, today everything seems to have to be perfect and in its place or removed, with excessive hair even seen as unhealthy and unhygienic. I’m a big fan of the natural look back in the 1970’s and that can be seen in my favourites such as Clyda Rosen who had that full on look. It’s natural so show it off I say, but saying that I know fans on here are split 50/50 with natural or shaven, which I also get as some of the classic nude studies by Harrison Marks look far better with nothing showing. Fashion and trends change, but we all know what we like 🙂
A female friend (who has one herself) calls hers ‘a treasure trail’, which is a lovely expression.
LOL, good one. I coined a phrase ‘bush-trail,’ but treasure trail is better.
I think not so many white women have it, and there were very few indian models in men’s magazines. But those that did have a treasure trail, so long as it was discreet, and a finer hair, then we were still seeing it on models in the seventies in the likes of Men Only etc. But the boundary of acceptability kept getting stricter, till now we don’t see it at all. Nor indeed, do many models have a proper bush if any at all; Brazilian wax all round!
With a sharp enough camera, we see that even women have a fine facial hair, hair all over their bodies, and that includes the treasure trail. But the rules of ‘glamour’ became such, that anything visible from say 6 feet away, now has to be shaven off.