Before I get into this blog post, I just want to apologize to anyone that is experiencing the pop-up ads on this site that push the content out of the way until you close it. I've asked the ad network I work with if they wouldn't mind removing them, because they're a little more intrusive then I expected them to be.
Now that that's out of the way...I'd like to thank Go Retro reader Mark for making me aware of these swell Chesterfield ads some time ago. The original article they were featured in talked a lot about James Bond. In the Ian Fleming novels (as well as the earlier films) Chesterfields were Bond's smoke of choice when he couldn't get to a shop in London called Morland that made custom cigarettes for him. I actually don't think any of these ads have much to do with James Bond except for the fact they feature ladies that could easily be Bond women, but I find them amusing.
For starters, they all pretty much read like dating profiles. One even states that if you mail in 2,120 empty Chesterfield King cigarette packs, you may just score a date with the model (just in case you're wondering, the cigarette company wasn't serious about it.) But what's great is that each woman's measurements are listed. And everyone here has a waist that is either 21" or 22" around. So laughable. I'm a size 6 and my waist is 29".
Anyways, all of these ads were created sometime in the early '1960s, when the Bond film series was just heating up. By today's standards they'd be called sexist. And as you can see by the end of this post, Sean Connery himself was a Chesterfield model in 1964. Smoking and cycling -- always a great match!
And oh hey, did I mention that three of these ads feature a sultry woman named Pamela?
How can this Pamela get some of what that Pamela is getting? I guess I have to take up smoking...
I think it's pretty obvious that she doesn't have a 38" bust...and a waist that tiny is dubious, too. Shame on you with the false advertising, Chesterfield.
