Ad Campaign – Bates, 1944

Blueprint for tomorrow by Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck, star of “Double Indemnity”, a Paramount Picture, plans to commute by helicopter from Hollywood to her home – after the war!  You will be able to travel by air too, and perhaps have your own plane if you buy enough War Bonds now!  Those who want a touch of tomorrow in their homes today are selecting Bates bedspreads, designed to provide warmth as well as beauty… and they see in Bates spreads with matching draperies tomorrow’s answer to decoration.

This has got to be one of the oddest star endorsements of all time.  Here is the glamorous Barbara Stanwyck in a bedroom decorated with cotton bedspread and curtains that are covered with log cabins and pine trees.  I somehow had her pictured as more of the satiny boudoir type.

And then there is all that talk about the future, with good reason.  “For the duration” was a common way of referring to wartime life, with the hope of a brighter future being one of the things that got people through all the shortages and sacrifices.  Still, it seems to be strange that a fabric covered with log cabins is being touted as the answer to tomorrow’s decorating problems!