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Photos from the early 1900s of the mysterious ‘Hula Hoop’ girls of the Ziegfeld Follies
07.29.2016
11:14 am
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A Ziegfeld Follies girl and her hula hoop. Photograph by Alfred Cheney Johnston, early 1900s.
 
Sometime around 1917 the photographs of Alfred Cheney Johnston caught the eye of Florenz Ziegfeld the founder of the glamorous Ziegfeld Follies. The Follies were a musical and vaudeville revue that featured beautiful women clad in glamorous gowns as well as more risqué attire. At times some were partially nude. Johnson struck a deal with Ziegfeld to become the official photographer for the Follies and would go on to photograph Ziegfeld’s girls in various poses and stages of dress and undress for advertisements or lobby posters to help entice patrons to come on in and see the show.

Though it sounds like Johnston had landed the greatest gig ever, according to his job description he was only allowed to photograph Ziegfeld’s girls with no more than an exposed thigh for it to be commercially viable. But that didn’t exactly stop Johnson from taking nude photos of the gorgeous girls of the Follies for over fifteen years.  His provocative images were quite the “hit” for all the right reasons. I recently came across photos taken by Johnston of some of the Ziegfeld girls posing with hula hoops and while many of them are far too risqué to post in a family publication (you can see them here if you’d like), I was able to find quite a few that I know you will enjoy oggling.

Apparently nobody is quite sure what inspired Johnston to use the hula hoop as a prop but I for one am glad he did as they are wonderfully whimsical time capsules that defy explanation. The hula hoop most of us remember playing with came to be in 1958, although the history of a similarly-sized hoop dates back as far as ancient Egypt when in order to develop agility men would use a hoop to play a game using sticks, the objective was to control the hoop between them. Mind blown.
 

A Ziegfeld girl with her ‘smoking doll.’
 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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07.29.2016
11:14 am
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Get hypnotized by the psychedelic slo-mo hula hooping for Bishop Allen’s new album
08.20.2014
11:39 am
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Bishop Allen is one of those indie bands that’s been quietly buzzing around for nearly ten years—I knew about them because they’re a former Brooklyn-based group with the weird distinction of being on Dead Oceans, a label based out of Bloomington, Indiana (my home before all the good bartending gigs dried up). The new album Lights Out is full of the kind of sunny, poppy, electronic-infused tunes one might use to round out the last of days of summer. It’s got a lot of darling hooks and bitter-sweet warmth.

However, I’m well aware that the Dangerous Minds crowd can be a bit… anti-sunny—or at least, anti-Brooklyn Indie Rock. If you feel a curmudgeonly tirade coming on, fear not! There is another component to Lights Out that may yet seduce you!

Perhaps in an attempt to humiliate Beyoncé (we can only speculate, but I believe there is a bitter feud going on between them), Bishop Allen has also released a video to go along with every track on the album, connected as a continuous playlist below. The twist is that every video is some variation on the same theme—their friends hula-hooping, in slow-motion. Now we here at Dangerous Minds would never advocate drug use, but I will say that if you’ve partaken of some “entertainment insurance,” then the videos have a hypnotic effect I’d liken to a liquid light show.

If you want to catch some shimmery synths in person, Bishop Allen just kicked off a big tour. If you are personally affronted by the thought of seeing a sunny Brooklyn Indie band, relax and enjoy the hula hoops.
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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08.20.2014
11:39 am
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