Sexy Pirates

For the Winter campaign 2008 of Agent Provocateur posed Helena Christensen as a sexy pirate.



I don’t think that there is a reference to any particular pirate painting. But the whole series seems to be inspired by the pirate pin ups of the thirties.

Vanity Fair's Pin Ups

I just have mentioned, that pin ups became fashionable. Probably it’s the colors and the artificial poses which made them so attractive to photographers and designers. Anyway, since some years Vanity Fair presents a relatively new and up-coming actress in form of a 50s-style pinup shot.

The Vanity Fair edition of October 2008 shows the actress Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis.

But Mila Kunis is not only posing as "a" pin up, she’s exactly copying the pin up by Edward Runci which was published with the title "They're Easy To Handle" in 1953.

Fashionable Pin-Ups

Pin-ups had become fashionable. Since years photographers and designers discovered the nostalgic charm of that once despised artwork.

A very beautiful series was made by the photographer Bruno Dayan for Chantal Thomass.



Probably Dayan didn’t think in a special painter when he made his photos. But he wanted to imitate not only the costumes and poses but also the colors and the artificial surface.

It sounds good to me (1942) by David Wright (1912–1967)

Sleepy-Time Girl (1930s) by Gil Elvgren (1914-1980)

Coppertone Girl

The Italian fashion photographer Gian Paolo Tomasi has an inclination for new interpretations of artwork. That he isn’t only interested in the "big" art represented in the museums shows this example:


It’s a nice quotation of the "Coppertone Girl" from 1959, which was invented and done by Joyce Ballantyne (1918–2006) a well known painter of pin-up art.

Patriotic Pin-Ups

On the cover of Vanity Fair in January 2009 was a very patriotic photo by Annie Leibovitz (so it may be more ironical).

But this photo is a quotation of a pin-up by the painter Rolf Armstrong (1889-1960). It dates from 1945 and was called "The Winning Combination". So it was a celebration of the end of the Second World War.

Maybe Leibovitz was just celebrating the end of the Bush era.