 |
| Scans of My Old Magazines |
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Photo by Muffy Aldrich
Muffy Aldrich's SALT WATER NEW ENGLAND
Muffy Aldrich
Muffy Aldrich, Editor of Salt Water New England: The Thing Before Preppy, since 2010. And a 12th Generation New Englander.
- Original Photographs.
- Timeless, Preppy/Sloane Clothing.
Most Items Sent By Vendors
One of my all-time favourite issues. —Michael
ReplyDelete'Like.'
ReplyDeleteBest Regards,
heinz-Ulrich
Very enjoyable. Thanks
ReplyDeleteAmazing post!
ReplyDelete"Back when they got it right." So true. That issue seems almost quaint compared to the unreadable mess that T&C has become: the relentless fawning over the Royals, the obsession with Hollywood and media celebrities, more than a whiff of fashionable politics.
ReplyDeleteI can’t agree with more... you hit it right in the head.
DeleteT&C is more like Vanity Fair these days. I flip through it before purchasing and there's nothing I find attractive or interesting. I sure do miss the issues from the 1980's and into the 90's.
DeleteSpot on.
DeleteJRC
Back when it was still acceptable to smile for a photo as opposed to looking off in the distance, blase and/or disinterested. No harsh photoshopping and grey hair can be quietly grey without a big headline about someone having grey hair.
ReplyDeleteT&C is now a tabloid.
(Muffy, did you get my L.L.Bean-related email?)
Uninterested, not disinterested.
DeleteSeriously?
Deletedisinterested adjective
dis·in·ter·est·ed | \ (ˌ)dis-ˈin-trə-stəd
; -ˈin-tə-ˌre-, -tə-rə-, -tər-; -ˈin-ˌtre- \
Definition of disinterested
1a : not having the mind or feelings engaged (see engaged sense 1) : not interested
Source?
DeleteBud's Eye, I can't imagine why you would feel so interested in correcting and validating my usage of "disinterest" which is correct, but your reason, whatever it is, is uninteresting to me. My source for my copy and paste is Merriam-Webster which I posted for your viewing pleasure.
Deletehttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disinterested
Thereon hangs a tale, for anyone who is interested.
Deletehttps://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/uninterested-or-disinterested
Superb! I still have all my mothers collection of her favorite Town & Country issues. Timeless classic's one and all! Thank you so very much!
ReplyDeleteBack when there was still such a thing as graciousness. Why, I'm so old I can even remember when Esquire was written and edited by witty, erudite adults.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, T&C is no longer about town and country life. It has become a glossier version of the Enquirer.
ReplyDeleteThe only (barely) redeeming issue is the annual issue regarding philanthropy, and that is mostly a self-congratulatory index of how much money the donors have rather than the societal good they are providing. Gone are the days giving is done quietly and without the donor's name splashed in bold type.
Bah humbug.
Love looking at all these but it hurts a bit too. Nostalgia: "Pain from an old wound."
ReplyDeleteI had the same thought.
DeleteOh wow! So many familiar names, faces and places......
ReplyDeleteA time capsule from a vanished world.
ReplyDeleteWhen the world was civilized.
ReplyDeleteWow. Real people. real families. So nice to see.
ReplyDeleteI love this so much, and sighed audibly several times while taking it in. Thank you for the beautiful memories.
ReplyDeleteI have mixed feelings about this. Part of me yearn for the days of wood-paneled Jeeps, sensible outfits and clam shack dinners after a long day at Good Harbor Beach. Yet I am not thrilled about the way this way of life in New England was portrayed in publications and films. There always seemed to an inference of class.
ReplyDeleteIn reality, the issue of tax brackets was never broached. No one really cared who relied on financial aid and who got admitted because their father donated a generous sum to the school's endowment.
The feel good 80's was an era of optimism and possibility. It was also the last true American childhood. You left your doors unlocked at night. You knew your neighbors by name. You could play chess with experienced Masters and local imposters at Harvard Square into the late night hours. You could watch a day game at Fenway and make a stop at the arcades and play Defender. It was an age of innocence even if malfeasance did occur in high places or our great Cold War nemesis was manufactured fear.
Publications and films glamorized this way of life and contrived the class issue. Then a funny thing happened - people actually bought into it and started playing their respective parts.
@anon - interesting to note that 2 of the men (business partners) featured would shortly enter into a bitter feud that would end in multi-million dollar patent infringement lawsuits.
DeletePlease keep going! If you wrote a book, I would read it...
Delete@Anonymous: Well put and eloquently said! I too, have mixed feelings about reminiscing about the former T&C and the image of New England. I think I have been "trad" since I was very young, but I am so well aware of the inference to class and, let's face it, white privilege. I, too, long somewhat for what some of us may mistakenly feel were the "simpler" days, but upon closer inspection under some harsh bright light, we sometimes need to question what we hold dear and whether hanging on to a certain "culture", we ignore the disadvantage of someone else. I am all too aware of that. And after all, at my 58 years of age, I don't want to take preppy culture or lifestyle too seriously. I do love the New England aesthetic (I wouldn't be reading this blog otherwise), but I am also a little bohemian sometimes, a little edgy other times, and I am inclusive of other cultures from other flung-off lands that I've lived in for the better part of 25+ years. Anyway, all that diatribe aside (sorry), I do still read T&C when I am back Stateside, visiting my mum, because she has stacks of issues in her salon, but I also do find it has gone the way of Vanity Fair with its bling, its bombastic characters and preoccupation with royals. I prefer the UK's Country Life because it is much less pretentious.
DeleteHow silly to say that because people lived well and in most cases modestly within this group that they were bigoted and exclusive. Most that I knew in this group were open minded and giving. Quick to give to and help those in need in their communities. Connected to Rich and Poor; not disconnected from their communities as so many are today.
Delete@anon 2:48 PM -- I agree with this. Well said. I like the comment too of anon 12:24: "Publications and films glamorized this way of life and contrived the class issue. Then a funny thing happened - people actually bought into it and started playing their respective parts."
DeleteLove their names -- Armory, Payson, Carter and Loyal. Why don't people get wonderful names like these anymore? My son got his great grandfather's name, Thomas Augustus. After I joined Ancestry.com I found that almost every man in my family was named either John, William or Thomas. Wish I had considered Carter or Loyal! O well. Maybe someday I'll have grandchildren and my son might ask me for a suggestion. One can only hope!
ReplyDeleteOh, but there is something wonderful to continue the tradition of naming a son those names. Hopefully, your son will also have a Thomas, John or William - or maybe all 3.
DeleteI remember some of these. Stopped reading T&C years ago. Like so many things, they’ve gone down the proverbial tubes.
ReplyDeleteMaryAnne
Four years prior to the date of this issue, I was living in the town of Mattapoisett, which is right down the road from Marion. As someone has already noted, the 80s were a far different time for most of us. One fall afternoon I rode my bike through Marion, with its quintessentially Updike-an streets (it could have been a more than serviceable Eastwick), tennis-tog clad denizens and tidy white clapboard homes. A little further up the road was Tabor Academy, with its manicured fields, its own private sailing school and its boys in Sperry Topsiders and blue blazers. I grew up in New England and had been to many of its tonier outposts - from Newport to Chatham to Camden. But for some reason it was in Marion where I felt the divide between the haves and the have nots most acutely. It was all so perfectly but unconsciously stylized. It was Polo before there was a Polo. For some reason, none of this inspired envy. It inspired effort. Somewhere in my post-adolescent brain the thought registered that all of this might somehow be possible. But it would not, like the chance encounter with it, happen by accident.
ReplyDeleteAn insightful comment. I agree with you.
DeleteNice to hear someone mention Mattapoisett. Spent several summers painting my aunt and uncles' house on Ned's Point Road. Afternoons were spent playing tennis at the Casino. Weekends were spent sailing on Buzzard's Bay.
DeleteIt's pretty horrendous these days. " Who ARE these people"?
ReplyDeleteThe black poodle looked happily content.
DeleteYes, T&C is now all about glitz, gossip, and excessive, vulgar displays of wealth. No thanks, I cancelled my subscription. Sad.
DeleteGood Lord,
ReplyDeletemy vocabulary has increased by the tenfold just by the comments.
Some lapidary formulations, eh?
DeleteDiamond in the rough~
DeleteSee you Sartresky,
Deleteraise you….
Lapidary Formulas as Topics of Invention -- From Thomas of Hales to Henryson-
Perle, plesaunte to prynces paye
To clanly clos in golde so clere,
Oute of Oryent, I hardyly saye,
Ne proved I never her precios pere...
Wow. What a great post. A window into an almost forgotten time. The pictures present a period of confidence, dignity, and quiet refinement.
ReplyDeleteJRC
I suppose it's natural to view the past with rose tinted specs. We weren't so exposed 24/7 to the world around us the way we are now. I know it's easy to blame social media for the decline, but like so many things, it is all in how you use it. Blogs are a wonderful example of that. To the commenter who mentioned "Country Life" magazine; that is a favourite of mine too! I haven't seen an issue for a while though at my local Marks & Spencers. Fingers crossed they haven't gone out of print.
ReplyDelete@Alison: Don’t worry; Country Life is still very much in print. The latest issue is about Scotland.
Delete‘Tis true “it is all in how you use it.” But, unfortunately, among much of the general population there is often no disconnect between quality and popularity. If something is popular it must be good. The media chases for and charges for eyeballs. The lowest common denominator rules.
DeleteAs taught in advertisement- the 3 second rule.
DeleteOle Brumm, thank you! I went this way-perfect...thank you again!
Deletehttps://www.countrylife.co.uk/publication/country-life
Thank you Ole! I've bought a subscription this morning, save messing around.
DeleteFor me Country Life is hard to find. I use to buy it at a Barnes and Noble but they do not carry it any more. I wish there was a store that carried it. I would like to see what an issue contains before I buy it. I have given thought to a subscription.
DeleteThose young women sitting on the boulders are Rockefellers yet they look regular, relaxed and comfortable in their own skin enjoying the summer in Maine. Now folks pictured in T/C remind me of Eva Gabor in Green Acres! I miss the old T/C where there were cultivated people doing interesting things without seeming to try too hard.
ReplyDeleteRockefellers? I admit I'm very surprised. They look ordinary (in a good way).
DeleteLovely photos indeed. But I think what some of the complainers above are dancing around is that today's Town & Country has become more racially inclusive along with its increased focus on celebrities and royals. As a Black person myself, I find that a salutary development. I've been enamored of the prep aesthetic since childhood and never viewed it as pretending to be something I wasn't -- it includes me, and others like me. (As it happens, I'm just back from a week's vacation in my wife's hometown on Cape Cod, where we walked down to the clam shack to pick up lunches and my son and I alternated days of golf and tennis; all perfectly natural and easeful, and effortlessly in keeping with this blog's unfussy ethos.) Read with an open mind and you may find that T&C has bent your old understanding of its target readership but hasn't broken it.
ReplyDeleteBless you, John E., well said. I like the cut of your jib.
DeleteMaybe it's just the focus on celebrities...?
DeleteFor me, it's the focus on celebrities that has turned me off of TV and print media. I don't want to read about them, I want to read about regular people, doing regular things - like you've outlined in your lovely post. I don't care for celebrities or what the media makes them out to be. They aren't role models. They are clanging cymbals with money. --Holly
DeleteThanks, 9:47! I’m not trying to make anyone feel like a bad person, just offering a different perspective.
ReplyDeleteMy mother purchased T&C, I recall, with some vague belief that by having it on our coffee table, an editor would show up one day with a camera crew ready to snap our family 'informally' lingering on the back porch of our upper-middle class house in New Jersey attired in anything but informal clothing, all with the view that a photo or two of her brood would appear in the magazine representing her final attainment of the status she so longingly craved. That was the seventies and, well, T&C never came by the house. Time passed, the brood left for less-than-elite places like California and Texas and the blue blazers ended up in the Goodwill bin at the supermarket. Slowing, imperceptibly, the veneer of civility, 'class' and serene accomplishment of intellect, culture and taste waned and, by the nineties, the brood had broods of their own created with persons of color or other race as spouses, jobs outside of investment banking and law and lifestyles bordering on ostentatious. Oh, the humanity.
ReplyDeleteDo you consider the faded veneer to be positive, negative, or merely the state of affairs as society in the US evolved, and your family evolved with it?
DeleteTown & Country: It ain't the real bougie. Nuff said ...
ReplyDeleteI think that would make a good question: What magazines do people read? Are there any available that caters to a, for lack of a better term, Preppy lifestyle?
ReplyDeleteGREAT question! I go to the library and read a stack of this and that at a time. AD, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, The New Yorker etc etc. What are other reading?
DeleteI'm shocked - shocked.
ReplyDeleteNot a single obese person or tattoo in sight on any of these old pages. Almost seems un-American nowadays.
On target as always, R.R.
DeleteMany thanks for the kind words.
DeleteYes. I would love to teleport myself to mid 80's at least for a while...
DeleteBack when you could photograph people who were not utterly distracted by cell phones , filled with injectables or covered in tattoos . Gone for ever . God , I'm feeling old now ..... thanks .......
ReplyDeleteA sweet spot in time for sure.
ReplyDeleteOne thing, and maybe the most puzzling thing, about the women we see in photos of the women at the balls and galas in NYC and Palm Beach is that they all insist, regardless of their ages, on wearing long hair, usually blond and usually well below their shoulders. The only woman I knew of my mother's friends who had long hair wore it in a chignon. There has never been a better look.
ReplyDeleteJudging by what I've seen recently, it should change its name to "Silly Ultra-Rich White Limousine Leftists with Vulgar Tastes."
ReplyDeleteNot that it would have happened then, but if I, my family and friends were asked to pose for T&C the answer would have been "Hell, no!" It smacks of a magazine version of current selfies and influencer's 'branding' posts. Cringy.
ReplyDeleteWhat occurred to me after reading the captions and looking at these pictures is that these really were just regular folks with the wide range of life experiences we all have/had. Some of the images remind me of my own life experiences. The photos are terrific and capture a moment in the sitters' lives. How wonderful for that. I hope if they come across this blog that they remember the experience fondly.
ReplyDeleteAhhh beautiful…and not one iPhone! Simplicity!
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents and parents used to subscribe to Town & Country. Back in the day, as a kid in the 70's, young adult in the 80's, it was a great resource for so many things. The past 20+ years, it has sadly turned into an unreadable wasteland of nonsense. --Holly
ReplyDeleteTrue perfection! Thank you, so very much!
ReplyDelete