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Does she make you thirsty? A detail from a 1953 Shiner Texas Special beer ad, by a master of the pin up form, Gil Elvgren (1914-1980). Click image to see the full image.[/caption]
Slight irony: I make money collecting beer cans to recover the deposit value, but I can't stand to drink the stuff; just thinking about the taste makes me bilious. I'm half-Chinese, and a lot of Asians have a poor tolerance for alcohol, due to a particular ALDH enzyme deficiency. Whatever the reason, I don't drink much at all.
But I do like to look at the pictures. Female glamour has long been used to sell beer (I drew my share of flaxen-haired, buxom beauties hefting tankards of brew for Oktoberfest events) but it's been a lowest-common-denominator, easy, animal brain sell. These days we're seeing a more nuanced use of female allure; the blunt sex sell is filtered through the retro visual vocabulary of mid-Twentieth Century pin up art. I say this is thanks to the safe icon-ification of 1950s pin up model Bettie Page, and thus the notion that Burlesque can be empowering for women, as well as the modern acceptability of tattoos, which are all about retro visual vocabulary. Pin up imagery is cool, and a politically-correct way to sell the hell out of sex, and beverages!
From left to right: a Lagunitas beer box I've just seen in an alley, though I haven't seen the bottle yet; Red Racer, a Surrey, B.C.-based beer; Old Milwaukee, is brewed in Canada by Sleeman Breweries in Ontario. A popular beer, empties-wise, with several different pin up model cans to choose from; Happy Water isn't beer, but this Vancouver, B.C.-based company is pushing it's new therapeutic water, beer-style, with classic pin up imagery. Click the images to enlarge.
Does she make you thirsty? A detail from a 1953 Shiner Texas Special beer ad, by a master of the pin up form, Gil Elvgren (1914-1980). Click image to see the full image.[/caption]Slight irony: I make money collecting beer cans to recover the deposit value, but I can't stand to drink the stuff; just thinking about the taste makes me bilious. I'm half-Chinese, and a lot of Asians have a poor tolerance for alcohol, due to a particular ALDH enzyme deficiency. Whatever the reason, I don't drink much at all.
But I do like to look at the pictures. Female glamour has long been used to sell beer (I drew my share of flaxen-haired, buxom beauties hefting tankards of brew for Oktoberfest events) but it's been a lowest-common-denominator, easy, animal brain sell. These days we're seeing a more nuanced use of female allure; the blunt sex sell is filtered through the retro visual vocabulary of mid-Twentieth Century pin up art. I say this is thanks to the safe icon-ification of 1950s pin up model Bettie Page, and thus the notion that Burlesque can be empowering for women, as well as the modern acceptability of tattoos, which are all about retro visual vocabulary. Pin up imagery is cool, and a politically-correct way to sell the hell out of sex, and beverages!
From left to right: a Lagunitas beer box I've just seen in an alley, though I haven't seen the bottle yet; Red Racer, a Surrey, B.C.-based beer; Old Milwaukee, is brewed in Canada by Sleeman Breweries in Ontario. A popular beer, empties-wise, with several different pin up model cans to choose from; Happy Water isn't beer, but this Vancouver, B.C.-based company is pushing it's new therapeutic water, beer-style, with classic pin up imagery. Click the images to enlarge.
A nice look at Happy Water's colourful promotional van ►
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