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Selling the Movies by Janet Moat
Introduction The Star Image Fashion Marketing Techniques Graphic Styles Social History
Fact & Fiction Conclusion        
 
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Fashion

Pressbooks can be a useful tool for the student of fashion and the history of costume. Lavish picture pages were produced, to prompt tie-ins with local dress shops and milliners, and to show off the many beautiful costumes created for period films such as The Magic Bow (1946). Even Hamlet (1948) managed a fashion tie-in. Designers such as Elizabeth Haffenden specialised in period costumes for particular studios, which provided the marketing department with attractive copy.

A more unusual fashion tie-in was provided by the press book for Up the Chastity Belt (1971), when a somewhat implausible ad was included for a firm who made modern reproductions of the eponymous garment, as well as a range of other 'medieval handmade leather goods'!

Even further back in time, the male star of One Million Years B.C. (1966) demonstrated how much easier it is to shave in modern times, while Raquel Welch modeled a variety of fashion goods, as the new screen pin-up girl.

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Click on the images to view enlarged versions

Image from The Magic Bow Image from The Magic Bow
Image from Hamlet
Image from Up The Chastity Belt Image from One Million Years BC