Throughout the 50’s and 60’s (Playboy) was a crucial promoter of modern design of that era.
Even today we see evidence of architectural influence embedded in the sets.
Thanks to architectural historian Beatriz Colomina and her team of researchers at Princeton, we have a better understanding of the influence that Playboy had on modern design.
“Playboy magazine was a crucial promoter of modern design. It published features on cutting-edge architects and designers and often posed playmates in their classic pieces – as here, where model Diane Hunter sits in a butterfly chair by Jorge Ferrari Hardoy.” – Blake Gopnik
With playboy being a more sought after magazine during this time period, even more than “Interior Design” magazines, it is no wonder how this was a great marketing tool for mass advertisement. Still today this is a technique used to draw in business.
EXAMPLE:
Even the pillows you see below are some of the many pieces sold using the same technique of advertisement. This link takes you directly to the website that shows these pillows https://www.cancerbelowthebelt.com/
V- Pillows
Kidney Pillows
KGA ~ Below the Belt advertising.
“Rather than pretending to buy the mag for the writing and really ogling the girls, which was the classic Playboy-reader excuse, many playboys were pretending to buy for the babes, while actually hunting for decorator tips. “Architecture turned out to be much more seductive than the Playmates,” – Colomina
Additional Info
“Any architect featured in Playboy – Mies and Wright and Bucky Fuller, but also the radicals at Ant Farm and Yale’s dean of architecture – “becomes a model poised at the very heart of the Playboy dream,” said Colomina. Strangely, from his very first editorial Heffner felt a need to apologize for keeping his readers inside the well-designed home, and away from the woods and wilds found in other men’s magazines. Colomina argues that this is because home decor was traditionally women’s territory, and a manly man wouldn’t go there. Rather than pretending to buy the mag for the writing and really ogling the girls, which was the classic Playboy-reader excuse, many playboys were pretending to buy for the babes, while actually hunting for decorator tips. “Architecture turned out to be much more seductive than the Playmates,” – Colomina said.” – Blake Gopnik
