There seems to be a fascination with 50’s pin up girl Bettie Page at the moment. Probably because there’s a biopic about her coming out soon. Jane magazine did an editorial entitled ‘There’s something about Bettie’ in March’s issue and French Vogue also paid tribute to Bettie Page in their March Hollywood issue.
My familiarity with Bettie Page began when I had to work at Fraser’s Autographs when I was a student. They had like a gazillion of her autographs that I had to catalogue over and over again. Therefore, I have a mental image of Bettie imprinted on my brain (not sure if that’s a good thing or not).
But just look at how different the two Bettie Page-inspired edits are:
Bettie Jane style – cute, coquettish, slightly innocent. Clearly, this is more of a pastiche of Bettie but they haven’t really gone too far into Bettie’s raunchy side.
Bettie French Vogue style – sexy, dominatrix, empowering. They decided to portray a conceptural Bettie that embodies elements of Bettie’s personality rather than impersonating her.
I think both capture bits of Bettie Page’s persona – combine the two and it’s pure Betty!