Wednesday, August 17, 2011

17 August 1957 “Passive Exercise with the ‘Stauffer System’”

magiccouch3 I have discovered many myths about the 1950’s to not be true. The eventual uncovering of old literature has often left me realizing much more sincerity and honest to goodness common sense under the illusion of the mindless man-controlled women of the day.

However, every so often, I find something that reeks of the empty promises of today. This article on Mrs. Sauffer’s System with her “Magic Couch” reeks of such promises. As this week’s Vintage News deals with exercise and diet, I thought this a good article to share.

This article is from a 1957 magazine, so we are beginning to see the weight obsession beginning here in the late 1950’s. This will of course culminate in the late 1960’s when 90 lb. Twiggy breaks onto the model scene and girls and women are suddenly meant to wear dresses SO short and revealing that a new form of bending at the knees had to be invented so as not to flash the world.

But, back to our good Doctor endorsed passive exercise. This one is rather interesting and seems to have had various locations in which one could attend to use the Magic Couch. Enjoy the quick read of this article.

magiccouch1

magiccouch2

I wonder, though, if the talk of posture and possibly teaching one to relax, stretch, and of course stand up straight may have in fact helped one to get a better looking figure rather or not they actually lost weight. The lady in the photo shows that simply wearing a slimmer dark colored sheath rather than a full skirted dress, stance and the height of the heels as well as the holding back of the shoulders does make one look thinner. You can see it is a matter of how they posed and dressed the woman. But this brings to mind the fact that if we, rather we lose weight or not, do dress better, stand up straight and make an effort now and again our appearance to the world may indeed be ‘thinner’ which today stands in for character and kindness.

I couldn’t help but think of this wonderful song from the 1990’s. Though it is not vintage per se, it did make me recall it and I think it is a well done funny song that points out, in any time period, how silly and obsessed we CAN be about our weight. Enjoy and Happy Homemaking.

4 comments:

  1. The lady in the photo shows that simply wearing a slimmer dark colored sheath rather than a full skirted dress, stance and the height of the heels as well as the holding back of the shoulders does make one look thinner. You can see it is a matter of how they posed and dressed the woman. But this brings to mind the fact that if we, rather we lose weight or not, do dress better, stand up straight and make an effort now and again our appearance to the world may indeed be ‘thinner’ which today stands in for character and kindness.

    >>This simply says it all. I believe that sexiness is seen from the inside and not the outside appearance.

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  2. I believe they say that presenting with good posture upright, head held high and shoulders back makes you appear 10 lbs slimmer and of course every woman knows the power of a LBD ;)

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  3. My Mom sold these and we had two in our home. My Mom and Grandmother lost many inches using this. Does't make sense, but I saw it myself.

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  4. Don't want to disagree with you, as the above comments are also true, but...
    My mother and her friend who lived next door actually purchased one of these units to share. I can remember my mother lying on it while reading a magazine. She actually went down 2 dress sizes when using it. Eventually she stopped using it and gradually went back up in sizes.

    ReplyDelete

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