In our last thrilling episode, we were considering the Windy Day school of Wardrobe Malfunction postcards. These small cardboard jokes were aimed primarily at a bit more leg exposure than was allowed the average woman going about her daily chores. But if the breezes did not cooperate, an artist could resort to more slapstick methods of exposing an ankle, calf, or thigh. THIS theme goes back to the early days of postcard humor, as you can see above.
But the accidental leg exposure motif became wildly important at mid-century, when pinup painters busied themselves thinking of possible accidents which would result in accidental exposure. Artists like Gil Elvgren, whose Near Miss is seen here, did not generally publish their work on postcards, but did benefit from the nostalgia market, which produced this postcard for pinup collectors.
A dog’s leash, an inconvenient door: anything that would keep a lady’s hands occupied so she couldn’t hold her skirt down would do. One artist, Art Frahm, specialized in pinups which made matters worse by not only having a skirt fly up while the lady was trying to untangle herself from a leash, but would also make it clear that the elastic in her underdrawers had given way at the same time (though the skirt was generally flying up in a way that denied anything too intimate from being displayed to us, the viewers. What onlookers at the scene saw was left to our imagination.) But postcards were generally too subject to postal inspection for this degree of catastrophe.
Unless the artist could think of a way to make it harmless.
But a lady did not need to have her hands full for an accident to result in an embarrassing display. Like our lady at the fence, above, a badly placed prop would be enough.
Or an inexpert fisherman.
It was not even necessary for the lady in question to realize what was going on. The postcard artist could instead capture a moment before it all sank in.
You will notice that in most of these situations, the artist has NOT included an onlooker (unlike the Frahm “Lady in Distress” pinups, which always included spectators to make the situation even worse.) After all, that’s what WE were there for.
And, as always, there was at least one artist to remind us that social exposure is not limited to women. (See column hereintofore on skinny-dipping accidents for the ultimate in men’s wardrobe malfunctions.)
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