Classic Holiday Gift - Purse Accessories

Most of these items would be considered obsolete today, but it's fun to imagine that someone had enough money to purchase these trinkets from Cartier in the 1960's. Who needs a 14K gold case for their matches anyway? Though I suppose if you want to buy me an 18K gold pillbox, I won't say no.

December 1966 - "Say it with gold gifts from Cartier." From the top:
- 14K gold carryall clutch, $1400 ($9300 today)
- 14K gold lipstick case, $160 ($1065 today)
- 14K gold powder case, $530 ($3500 today)
- 14K gold cigarette lighter, $90 ($600 today)
- 14K gold matchbook case, $210 ($1400 today)
- 18K gold cigarette box-case, $800 ($5300 today)
- 18K gold cigarette case, $920 ($6100 today)
- 14K cigarette holder, $66 ($440 today)
- Pillbox in 2-tone 18K gold, $365 ($2400 today).

By the way, the "today" prices were calculated using a CPI calculator which shows that if I bought something for $1.00 in 1966, in 2008, that item would cost $6.65. The "today" prices are not meant to be an appraisal or estimate of the current value of these items.

John French

John French:(1907-66), often overlooked in surveys of British fashion photography of the 1950s and 1960s in favour of his two famous one-time assistants, David Bailey and Terence Donovan. Yet this quintessentially English gentleman took fashion photography to a mass audience with the elegant, graphic images he published not only in fashion publications like Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, and The Tatler, but also in newspapers. Recognizing Fleet Street editors' desire for contrasty pictures, but also aware of the aesthetic limitations of printing them on cheap newsprint, French saw that low-contrast, ‘high-key’ prints—where most of the detail was in the lighter areas—would reproduce best. To do this, he rejected popular direct tungsten lighting for softer daylight photography, bouncing light off reflector boards. Taking few of the photographs himself, French preferred to work closely with his models (including Pauline Stone and Jean Shrimpton), calmly instructing his assistants to make the exposures.











































(Swinging Sixties, Getty Images, The Fashion Book)