Showcasing vintage male photography, mostly nude. You must be 18 years of age or older to visit this blog! If you hold a copyright on any material shown on this blog, notify me, and it will be removed immediately.
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Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Rick Coleman seems to be getting out of some gauzy underwear here. At the time, it was probably a legal dodge, but of course some people find such motifs sexy even today.
The briefs are "Skants" by Jockey - a single-ply, four way stretch Nylon with a unique cross-over at the hip, launched by Jockey in 1958 to become the best selling bikini brief of all time. They were redesigned with an even briefer cut in the early 1960s when Jockey's marketing division started to call them as a "sports brief" to rival the jockstrap, and were regularly worn by boxers and even jockeys themselves. They came in candy stripes as well as plain, the latter in the lighter colours being nearly see-through. Before full-frontal legality, they were used by many of the physique photographers with appropriate lighting to by-pass the censorship laws. Leaving little to the imagination and costing less than a dollar (under 10 shillings - 50 pence - in Britain), I am sure that AMG, Pat Milo et al simply handed them out to their models. Some of the best known and iconic physique images of the 1960s (John "Butch" Davidson and Don Hawksley to name but two) were featured wearing them. They were also ideal for front-covers.
I think it was in 1967 that my school's uniform requirements listed Jockey Skants for middle- and senior-school boys in lieu of a jockstrap for the first time. At the start of each term (the sports clothes depending on season), our trunks were placed at the foot of our beds and the housemasters used to tick off each item. The boy in the bed next to mine had decided to opt for them and when our Housemaster found them, stretched them out in mock, baffled amazement and then announced, "Oooh, what nice panties!" and slungshot them like a catapult across the dormitory where they sailed out of the window to land on the tennis court below. Ah, the good old days. How I miss them.
I should add that I had previously been able to cull two images of Rick Coleman likewise attired, and so I assume that J Brian was also one of the photographers who cleverly discovered and used the "luminosity of Nylon" in his work.
I am very aware that not all experiences of the English public school system match mine and in my time, I have met some very damaged men. We were blessed in a school under a Master (as we called the headmaster), a graduate of Trinity College, Oxford, whose motto was his guiding principle: Ancient, Liberal and Humane. In my eight years there, I only ever heard one racial slur (the student body comprised 21 nationalities), no one was ever punished for masturbation or homosexuality and bullying was stamped on very severely. We had boundaries we knew we should never cross, but we had enormous personal freedom - and conscience of religion.
You were put in a "house" which was a subdivision of the school, and your Housemaster in your young life ranked next in authority and status to your father. My Housemaster died at the age of 86, and a former Head of House, a Chinese Buddhist, flew from Singapore to read one of the Lessons at a packed funeral. I was asked to read the "Old Testament" Lesson, and did so in Hebrew, giving a sight translation. He was a good man. When the school matron (nurse) died at the age of 94, Old Boys from the school carried her remains into the chapel. It was and remains an extended family. Not all stories are horror stories.
One of the several gay men amongst my time at school was happily and hilariously entertaining us all at one Old Boys Dinner when, in an unexpected moment of seriousness, he suddenly said, "You know, the only thing I really remember is the laughter."
The briefs are "Skants" by Jockey - a single-ply, four way stretch Nylon with a unique cross-over at the hip, launched by Jockey in 1958 to become the best selling bikini brief of all time. They were redesigned with an even briefer cut in the early 1960s when Jockey's marketing division started to call them as a "sports brief" to rival the jockstrap, and were regularly worn by boxers and even jockeys themselves. They came in candy stripes as well as plain, the latter in the lighter colours being nearly see-through. Before full-frontal legality, they were used by many of the physique photographers with appropriate lighting to by-pass the censorship laws. Leaving little to the imagination and costing less than a dollar (under 10 shillings - 50 pence - in Britain), I am sure that AMG, Pat Milo et al simply handed them out to their models. Some of the best known and iconic physique images of the 1960s (John "Butch" Davidson and Don Hawksley to name but two) were featured wearing them. They were also ideal for front-covers.
ReplyDeleteI think it was in 1967 that my school's uniform requirements listed Jockey Skants for middle- and senior-school boys in lieu of a jockstrap for the first time. At the start of each term (the sports clothes depending on season), our trunks were placed at the foot of our beds and the housemasters used to tick off each item. The boy in the bed next to mine had decided to opt for them and when our Housemaster found them, stretched them out in mock, baffled amazement and then announced, "Oooh, what nice panties!" and slungshot them like a catapult across the dormitory where they sailed out of the window to land on the tennis court below. Ah, the good old days. How I miss them.
Thanks for the info! Not everyone shares your nostalgia for those schools, though. I know a few guys who described them as "horrific."
DeleteI should add that I had previously been able to cull two images of Rick Coleman likewise attired, and so I assume that J Brian was also one of the photographers who cleverly discovered and used the "luminosity of Nylon" in his work.
DeleteI am very aware that not all experiences of the English public school system match mine and in my time, I have met some very damaged men. We were blessed in a school under a Master (as we called the headmaster), a graduate of Trinity College, Oxford, whose motto was his guiding principle: Ancient, Liberal and Humane. In my eight years there, I only ever heard one racial slur (the student body comprised 21 nationalities), no one was ever punished for masturbation or homosexuality and bullying was stamped on very severely. We had boundaries we knew we should never cross, but we had enormous personal freedom - and conscience of religion.
You were put in a "house" which was a subdivision of the school, and your Housemaster in your young life ranked next in authority and status to your father. My Housemaster died at the age of 86, and a former Head of House, a Chinese Buddhist, flew from Singapore to read one of the Lessons at a packed funeral. I was asked to read the "Old Testament" Lesson, and did so in Hebrew, giving a sight translation. He was a good man. When the school matron (nurse) died at the age of 94, Old Boys from the school carried her remains into the chapel. It was and remains an extended family. Not all stories are horror stories.
One of the several gay men amongst my time at school was happily and hilariously entertaining us all at one Old Boys Dinner when, in an unexpected moment of seriousness, he suddenly said, "You know, the only thing I really remember is the laughter."
Does he have a black eye?
ReplyDeleteI think it's just a shadow this time, but I've posted pictures where I'm pretty sure the guy had one.
Delete