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I am temporarily putting the contest on hold due to health issues
Pin-up: A brief History
Although the term 'Pin-up' was first coined in the early 1940s, the art form can actually trace its roots back a few decades earlier. The roots of pin-up actually can call the invention of the bicycle its grandfather. Bicycles gave women of the late 19th century the means of getting to point A to point B on their own for the first time but there was an issue. Floor length skirts and dresses didn't necessarily make biking around easy, so women of the era began to adopt clothing more suitable. Women began wearing more form fitting styles of clothing including pants in a way that was still mostly socially acceptable for the time.
Ministers and doctors of the time didn't like this one bit. There were many campaigns against the use of bicycles for women because the bike seat could potentially damage the fragile internal structure of women, or worse yet the seat friction might cause arousal. The bicycle became a symbol of freedom for women's suffrage. It was also ground zero for the new artistic expression of the female form once women began to shed their long skirts and petticoats.
Enter Charles Dana Gibson an American artist/illustrator whose work appeared in Life magazine for more than 30 years. In 1895 Gibson created the "Gibson Girl" what Charles himself said was the composite of thousands of American girls. They were his ideals of what feminine beauty embodied and feature buxom women with hourglass figures. With printing technology exploding during this time period, men for the first time ever had an easily attainable source of feminine fantasy.
Around this time Calendars had already been used as an easy marketing tool for businesses. Some of these first calendars featured George Washington and suffice to say they had a hard problem even giving them away. Then around 1903 the first calendar girl came into being. "Sex Sells" was now pretty much a proven fact. So much so that during World War I the US government published propaganda posters using the imagery of young women to inspire young men to go to war. The Wilson Administration created the Division of Pictorial Publicity during WWI that printed untold numbers of works like this example to the right.
This happened in sync with what would become known as the roaring 20s. A time in America where women shed their former identities and became what would be known as the Flapper. While the men were away women helped define a sense of rebellion and redefining social norms by wearing increasingly revealing fashion and also by partying down. Women were here, and were having fun, and they didn't care who knew it.
Jane Russell posing for The Outlaw film poster in 1943
By the time Hitler was steaming across Europe calendar girls were more popular than ever and pin-up art began to push the medium. The Golden Age of pin-up was here. No longer just in calendars and wartime propaganda pin-ups were used to sell everything from mufflers to women's fashion and Hollywood! Pin-up women even appeared on the sides of American bombers and warbirds as they fought the Nazis.
Its hard at this point to talk about pin-up without talking about the one and only Bettie Page. She is the most well known and most credited for pin-up crossing from an illustrated art to photography. Her impact is still felt today and named by such luminaries as Dita Von Teese and countless others. One of the common elements of pin-up art from the Golden Age is the cheeky nature of the girls. This is one thing common in nearly all of Bettie's extensive library of pictures. For the "Photo Clubs" that she started with in the 40s, she hand made a lot of her own clothing almost single handedly creating an entire form of underground fashion that incorporated for the first time BDSM themes. Even though Bettie was accused of corrupting the young many times, or just turning women into sex objects for the sole gratification of men, she also made it okay for women to feel like sexual beings. To take pride in ones own sexuality.
Pin-up as an art has had its ups and downs since then. As print gave way to film and then to video and then to internet, the foundations of pinup has always maintained deep roots tied to its earlies days as illustrated. Indeed in recent times there seems to have been a resurgence in art in all forms of media. One could even consider Cosplay photography as a form of modern day pin-up.
That is one reason I wanted to create this contest, and this website. While I used to cosplay myself I find it hard to keep up with that these days. Also... I can be shy as a person. But on Second Life I can really let go and be things I would never be anywhere else. SL in itself is just another medium from which SL photographers can make their art from. I want this site to celebrate that and to help promote it. I want to celebrate my own sexuality as well as that of others. I want to be cheeky. I want to be fun. I want to tease and to be teased. I hope that's what I get to do.
Kira
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