Just Too Cute for a Wishbook Christmas!

After last week's crazy outfits, I thought we would take a break and go back to just some ordinary fashions from the early 70s. 

These pics are from the Sears 1972 Wishbook.   The Wishbook was a Christmas mail order catalog that came out in time for parents to place their orders for all the in demand toys for the season.  They were not as big as the big book catalogs for the spring and fall, but they were still pretty substantial. 
The arrival of the Wishbook (and their counterparts from other department stores) always caused great excitement in households across the land for they signaled kids that the Christmas season was in full swing.  It was almost like Santa had fired a flare across the sky letting everyone know that, yep, he was coming this year.

The Wishbook was mostly toys of course.  However, they had seasonal clothing offerings also.   Moms could always be counted on to order some clothes.  The kids wanted toys while moms were more interested in making sure they had school clothes.  Grandmas too could be counted on to always get clothes for the grand kids.  You can still hear the echos across the land from those Christmas mornings "No, you WILL put on that sweater with the reindeer pattern that Grandma Casey got you and we WILL take a photo of it and you WILL send her a thank you card, young man". 

All of these pics are form Sears Junior Bazaar.  Sears really was the marketing leader in this category.  The others never could quite come up with as catchy a name for their juniors section.

Otherwise these are just really nice pics of Kathy.  She was just too cute.

Not much to say here.  Except for the pointy collars, these shirts would not be out of place today.  Karen has a wig on (obviously).  They did that with the models sometimes.  Maybe they got bored or something during the shoots.  Not really a good look.  Kathy is absolutely radiant here.

Not sure who the third model is.  There were a posse of models that were always in these catalogs, and there were others that kinda popped in and out.  The extra wide white belt on Kathy is a nice touch.

Ahh, here we go - sweaters.  Nothing says Christmas quite like a comfy, cozy pull over sweater with acyclic bell bottom pants.  Note the price on the pants.  Gee, that is not much less than the equivalent would go for today.  And this was in 1972!  Those foreign workers making stuff for Walmart have really had an impact on clothing prices. Otherwise acrylic was about the most uncomfortable fabric to wear as I remember. 

Kathy looks absolutely adorable here, really steals the scene. No wonder she was a popular model for this kind of work.  You can picture grandmas looking at this and going  "Ohh my little Suzy would look adorable in that.  I'm not sure about the bell bottoms, seems a bit hippie, but if that is what the young folks are wearing these days, I'll get it for her".  Perhaps that is why Sears toned down the clothing for the season - they were going after the grandma sales.  They could save the edgier stuff for Spring.

Sear Catalog Fall / Winter 1972

The year 1972 was a turbulent one.  Tricky Dick was elected to his second term in office.  The Watergate scandal hadn't broken out as big news yet.  Negotiations were underway in Paris to end the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.  The news of that day was dominated by every twist, turn and rumor of the goings on in Paris.  The treaty would be signed in just a few months in January 1973 to get us out of that tar pit.  Nixon had just closed the gold window the year before, and for the first time in human history, the world economy ran on 100% pure fiat money - the final verdict of that experiment is still out.

In the midst of all this chaos the big book catalogs (weighing in at over 5 pounds each!) could be counted on to arrive in the mail twice a year from the major retailers bringing perfect fashions on perfect bodies with perfect poses  - tranquility in the midst of storm.  And on top of the list was Sears.  While some companies targeted the upper or lower ends of the economic spectrum, Sears targeted the big middle.  So everyone got the Sears catalogs - rich, poor, urban, rural, etc.  It truly represented the fashions of the day.

And the year 1972 was in the peak of Kathy's career as a catalog model.  Here are some classic picks from the Sears Fall / Winter catalog of that year.

Yes Sweater Knits do give you that "young and lively" look  perfect for a night out rocking the club scene!  The sweater cap (hat?) on Karen is classic.  What girl would actually wear that and mess up her hair?  Of course perhaps you put it on to cover up the fact that you hadn't done your hair.  Kathy's pose is pretty odd.  I guess they are trying to show off those awesome clog shoes.  And why is her hand behind her head?  Perhaps it is to show prospective buyers that the sweater doesn't show underarm stains?!?

I love the girl on the left.  Is she running at the same time she has her arm under Kathy's arm?  Those photographers must of had something on their minds there.  Another sweater cap on Karen - they must have been trying to push those.

One thing they did a lot in these shots is to have on model look at the another while that model is looking away.  In this case Kathy is looking at the girl to her left (and laughing) while that girl is looking down laughing.  What are they laughing at?  I guess the idea is to create a shot so that the buyer can fill in the details.  So the message is buy these wildly colorful dresses and life will be all happy and full of laughs - clothes will make all your anxiety and problems go away! 

Other than the colors, these dresses seem pretty conventional.  Oh wait, I almost missed the weird collars on the dress on the right.  Are those supposed to be seagull wings?  More awesome clog shoes on Colleen.