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May 14, 2021 14 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Today in pulp I try to decipher 1980s Japanese street style, with the help of Olive: The Magazine for Romantic Girls!

This may involve frills... Image
Street style is an ever changing mix of styles, brands, attitudes and poses with various influences. And you normally have to be in the right place at the right time to capture it. Image
Which is where magazines come in! Photograping, documenting and deconstructing fashion never goes out of style, and in the late 1970s Japanese youth had one key guide to help them: Popeye! Image
Popeye was the Magazine for City Boys, with the City Style - a bit Preppy, a bit Paninaro- becoming one of the dominant '80s looks. At least for the chaps. ImageImage
Women's street style was a more complicated affair on Japan with many competing trends. Kawaii - the aesthetic of cuteness - vied with Otome ("maiden style"), Lolita, Pink House, Prarie Look and many other influences in the 1980s. Image
So in 1982 the publishers of Popeye released a new magazine: Olive. Aimed at City Girls looking for a City Style it lasted for only a few issues before it was withdrawn, radically retooled and reissued. Image
Olive: The Magazine for Romantic Girls hit the newsstands in 1983 and for many years was the go-to guide for Japanese street style.

But what was the "Romantic Look" and where did it come from? Image
Well ther were a number of Olive styles over the years. The classic look was French high school style - Lycéene - with lots of volume and details. Image
Natural Kei, often associated with the Pink House label, involved soft patterns and lots of layering. Long skirts were the norm. ImageImage
Character fashion was also a notable influence, with fashion styles reflecting popular singers and bands from Madonna to Bananarama. Image
By the early '90s the focus had moved from specific brands towards specific ways of combining clothes and accessories. How you wore it mattered more than what you wore. Image
And by the mid-90s the French high school lok was giving way to Schoolgirl Style, although Olive Girls still wove the maiden-type aesthetic through them. ImageImage
The Age of Magazines may be passing, but Instagram can't replace the well-curated insights or the sheer pleasure of a good fashion magazine. So here's to Olive and all the Romantic Girls it influenced!

More stories another time... Image
(Big 6th form common room vibes here...) ImageImageImageImage

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More from @PulpLibrarian

Mar 25
Today I'm looking back at the work of British graphic designer Abram Games! Image
Abram Games was born in Whitechapel, London in 1914. His father, Joseph, was a photographer who taught him the art of colouring by airbrush. Image
Games attended Hackney Downs School before dropping out of Saint Martin’s School of Art after two terms. His design skills were mainly self-taught by working as his father’s assistant. Image
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Mar 23
Today I'm looking back at the career of English painter, book illustrator and war artist Edward Ardizzone! Image
Edward Ardizzone was born in Vietnam in 1900 to Anglo-French parents. Aged 5 he moved to England, settling in Suffolk. Image
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Mar 14
Today in pulp I look back at the Witchploitation explosion of the late 1960s: black magic, bare bottoms and terrible, terrible curtains!

Come this way... Image
Mainstream occult magazines and books had been around since late Victorian times. These were mostly about spiritualism, with perhaps a bit of magic thrown in. Image
But it was the writings of Aleister Crowley in English and Maria de Naglowska in French and Russian that first popularised the idea of 'sex magick' in the 20th century - the use of sexual energy and ritual to achieve mystical outcomes. Image
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Mar 8
Between 1960 and 1970 Penguin Books underwent several revolutions in cover layout, at a time when public tastes were rapidly changing.

Today in pulp I look back at 10 years that shook the Penguin! Image
Allen Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, aiming to bring high-quality paperbacks to the masses for the same price as a packet of cigarettes. Lane began by snapping up publishing rights for inexpensive mid-market novels and packaging them expertly for book lovers. Image
From the start Penguins were consciously designed; Lane wanted to distinguish his paperbacks from pulp novels. Edward Young created the first cover grid, using three horizontal bands and the new-ish Gill Sans typeface for the text. Image
Read 22 tweets
Mar 3
Today in pulp: a tale of an unintentionally radical publisher. It only produced 42 books between 1968-9, but it caught the hedonistic, solipsistic, free love mood of the West Coast freakout scene like no other.

This is the story of Essex House... Image
Essex House was an offshoot of Parliament Press, a California publishing company set up by pulp artist Milton Luros after the market for pulp magazines began to decline. It specialised in stag magazines sold through liquor stores, to skirt around US obscenity publishing laws. Image
Image
By the 1960s Parliament Press was already selling pornographic novels through its Brandon House imprint, though these were mostly reprints or translations of existing work. Luros was interested in publishing new erotic authors, and set up Essex House to do just that. Image
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Feb 26
Today in pulp... one of my favourite SF authors: Harry Harrison! Image
Harry Harrison was born Stamford, Connecticut, in 1925. He served in the US Army Air Corps during WWII, but became disheartened with military life. In his spare time he learned Esperanto. Image
Harrison started his sci-fi career as an illustrator, working with Wally Wood on Weird Fantasy and Weird Science up until 1950. He also wrote for syndicated comic strips, including Flash Gordon and Rick Random. Image
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