"Outside, thousands of men were waiting..."

If only they had known that pictures like this were sitting right there, sandwiched between ads for Ivory Snow and tomato aspic recipes, in the pages of their wife or girlfriend's ladies magazines.

I wonder if any man, aside from other male illustrators, ever laid eyes on such wonders back then - or would they never be caught dead flipping through a Good Housekeeping magazine, slipping instead, a fiver on the sly to the proprietor of the news stand for what must surely have been far inferior work in the pages of some seedy under-the-counter men's mag.

This piece, the companion piece to monday's image, is supposed to represent an awkward moment where we see a Hollywood movie star in all her humanity, struggling as we all would with clothing that actually requires some assistance. But Whitmore seems incapable of not sexualizing the moment. The pose is, of course, absurd - designed to emphasize all the model's womanly charms and would fit perfectly into any pinup calendar of the time.

Coby Whitmore once said he was most interested in "racing cars, illustrating, and smart clothes on good-looking women".

Would it not be fair to add, "...and good-looking women out of their smart clothes"?

* All this week's images can be found at full size in my Coby Whitmore Flickr set.