The frontpage of the vintage woman&home magazine immediately caught my eye amongst a stack of old magazines at the antiques market I was visiting. Describing itself as a ‘good needlework magazine’ with a special feature on the ‘little princess who would never be shy’, I had to read more.
On closer inspection, the coincidence made me gasp. This was the August 1953 edition, making this near-pristine copy exactly 70 years old. 1953 was the year Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. Only months earlier, I had watched her son, Prince Charles, ascend to the throne. Those coincidences aside, most of the magazine’s contents couldn’t have been more different from how we experience womanhood in 2023. From adverts promising to ‘reveal your natural loveliness’ to advice columns on ‘what is not gracious’, I laughed with every turn of the page.
