Each historical period has its fashion. In the 18th century curly white wigs were very popular in high places, but they would be seen crazy if put on in the middle of the 19th century, when long and formidable sideburns were all the rage, at least for westerners. Our times has seen drastic changes of style, often in the space of a few weeks. The first half of 20th century had seen too a lot of change in fashion, naturally, but this usually required some two-three years to become actually noticeable. As everyone today can tell the difference between a Betty-Bop coiffure of the first 1930s and the middle 1940s Rita Hayworth hairstyle, one could say that throughout those years fashion developed in a very regular and affordable way. Well, this is quite right…but sometimes all this has to stop when we deal with pulp magazines.
Take for example a cover from the quarterly “Planet Stories”, the one we can see below:
it features a typical girl of the sixties (a good one), with short pants, a fresh makeup and a hairstyle that resembles the one worn by Ann Margret. Problem is that a closer look at the front cover reveals that the issue’s releasing date is spring, 1944. The author, Graham Ingels (1915-1991), surely made a good work when drawing a picture that, in some way, looks curious if seen with today’s eyes. In fact, if we take a look at typical hairstyle of 1944 the sense of surprise grows even bigger:
It’s all this simply a chance? An unimportant coincidence? Or is it possible that the author had in some way a sort of premonition of the way people would have dressed in the future? We leave the interpretation to the reader.