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Home > Michael O'Mara Books > Nostalgia > The Fun of the Fifties: Ads, Fads and Fashion

The Fun of the Fifties: Ads, Fads and Fashion

Extent: 128 pages

Size: 210x160mm

Publication Date:

Price: £12.99

ISBN: 9781782435273

Categories: Nostalgia

About the Book

A nostalgic celebration of the fabulous fifties.

The 1950s was a heady mix of American excitement – cowboys, rock'n'roll, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe – and the British sense of fun that included Airfix kits, Plasticine and Hornby Dublo trains. It was a boom time for DIY enthusiasts, seaside holidays and space fiction. The Fifties also saw the birth of self-service shopping and sugar-coated breakfast cereals. Ultimately, there was a new optimism that followed the Festival of Britain, the Queen's coronation, the end of rationing and the increasing distraction of a new entertainment – television.

The Fun of the Fifties is jam-packed with over 500 colourful and evocative items, everything from tantalizing toys and electric kitchen gadgets, to frozen foods, furniture and fashions. Here too are the popular TV programmes that pervaded this remarkable era. This book is not only stuffed full of vibrant 50s graphics, but also reveals an insight into a decade of consumer change.

A celebration of this most memorable era, this book will take all those baby boomers back to their childhood – Noddy, Sooty and Muffin the Mule, Meccano, Magic Robot and Dinky Toys, Watch with Mother, road safety kerb drill and novelty soaps, Spangles and Corona drink.

Publication Date: 19/05/2016

Price: £1.99

ISBN: 9781782436447

Categories: Nostalgia

About the Book

About the Author

Fifty years ago, Robert Opie saw the need to unravel the fascinating story of how consumer products and promotion had evolved since Victorian times. By 1975 he had enough material to hold his own exhibition, ‘The Pack Age’, at the Victoria & Albert Museum. After a sixteen-year career in market research, he opened the first museum devoted to the history of packaging and advertising in Gloucester in 1984.

In 2005 his Museum of Brands moved to London, recently reopening in larger premises in Notting Hill. Recognizing the need to save our ever-changing consumer society, his research has focused on how our culture and lifestyle has been influenced by Britain's consumer revolution. Having written some twenty books and presented a two-hour DVD, In Search of our Throwaway History, he has become a leading authority as a consumer historian, appearing on a wide range of television and radio programmes.