I'd Go for the Chimney Sweep

Oooo, ouch, ouch, ouch. Check out this fashion magazine spread shown in a 1960s-era design book:


First thought: wow, how much girls' fashion has changed.

Second thought: geez, how little the turgid copy and sexist attitudes have changed.

Little Girls' Fashions

Your subject: Your daughter -- Little Girl of a Hundred Looks. In the course of an ordinary day she runs the gamut from Botticelli angel to chimney sweep and finally (back to bed) back to angel. Being a female, how she feels and behaves are influenced to no small degree by how she looks. For her, the adage "Handsome is as handsome does" reads backward. Frame her face in fluffy fur, and she assumes the mined of a Russion countess; dress her in Victorian costume, and she lowers her eyes and gently smooths her skirt. Here and on the following six pages, photographed by Bert Stern, we bring you fashions to mold her manners -- marvelous old-new fashions with the nostalgic air of period pieces. They range from the demure to the dashing, from the brilliant to the romantically moody, but all have the elegant authority for which she, and you, and all of us thank heaven.

Personally, I thank heaven for copywriters who don't use clichés, but there's no one to thank here.