One of the spin-offs that Royale tried to exploit was the sale of clothing seen in their photographs. Clavering's background in the cinema industry gave him an entrepreneurial flair and practical knowledge of marketing and merchandising.
Their first campaign was spearheaded by Fred Collins, "Royale's most popular model" in 1959.
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| Fred's Shorts on Offer |
In
Sept 1959 Man's World carried an image from Fred's 'Footballer' series in an advert offering The
“Fred Collins, Elastic Waist, Continental Soccer Shorts” for 15/- a pair
(or £0.75 today). The ad was selling the fantasy of course, not just a pair of shorts, but since various sizes were on offer, we may conclude that the
shorts were not pre-worn! The 'Continental' attribution was quite exotic and sophisticated in the 1950s, pre-EU. It was a time when elastic was replacing
drawstring shorts for Soccer (but not for the hurley-burley of Rugby).
Notice
also the 'Specially Styled' claim. With his ethnic background, it's
likely that Clavering had connections in the 'Rag Trade'. We can only
speculate about the nature of the 'special styling'.
A tight fit perhaps
The inclusion of Brian Morris (3) and Mike Ridgeway (4) in this clothing 'brochure' suggests it must have been produced around 1960-1 when the Royale-Hussar transition had just begun. Model (5) may be Tibor Noszgay
The photograph of Fred Collins (2) is much earlier, of course, 1958.
Cliff Smith (1) had a legitimate career as a model for casual wear. Here he shows off a self-supporting "clip pouch". It was advertised in its own right in Man Alive 10 (Jun '60), below
This ad enlarges the rather vague explanation of the mechanism in the brochure, but gives little idea of how the device is kept in place. Cliff's, rather forced, smile suggests it might involve clenched muscles. It did. Illustrations in other magazines showed it had a back piece, a rod that fitted, rather inelegantly, but not entirely uselessly, between the buttocks.
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| Cliff Clenches |
Amazingly (or perhaps not so amazingly), these two images turned up in 'Drummer' in 1988, but the illustrations were so small that the novelty design of the pouch and it's erotic significance barely registered.
Fred's shorts were made of cotton, 'Sea Island', no less, but Cliff's pouch and the G-string advertised in pictures 3, 4, 5 of the brochure above were made of nylon, which was still regarded as desirable and luxurious. The 60s revolution in men's attitude to dress (pink shirts!) meant that it's exotic qualities could now be marketed to them. Its fit as an erotic garment in these images speaks for itself, and the moral climate had eased enough for them to be publishable. There are good examples of it in 'Tibor Urgay Outdoors' as well as in Brian Morris solo and Mike Ridgeway (pending). A very
similar design can be seen in Scott of London's contemporary photos of Wally Grimme,
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| Royale Studio - Brian Morris |
From an erotic point of view, this sleek, tight, form-fitting pouch design is a marked
improvement on the early, loose 'pocket' style, which was the
disappointing norm in beefcake imagery when Royale started up (e.g. Ian Oliver). The original pouch was characterised by a top hem, through which the waist string
passed, producing 'gather' like a simple curtain hanging. This design
was not incapable of producing impressive results in
the right hands (as it were) but often delivered far less.
Royale also experimented with
other styles. Some of Peter George's pouch images show a different self-contained, box-like design
which is rigid and has no gather on the top hem, keeping its shape and
guaranteeing generous bulk. It still had string supports, though.
I've not yet found any attempt to market it.
All these garments were priced at £1 (about £30 pounds in today's money). Customers may have imagined that the hunky models had actually worn the garments they purchased, but when the average wage was about £10 a week, a pound for a G-string (even a nylon one!) was not a cheap indulgence.
£1 sounded so expensive in those days that expressing it as 20 shillings (20/-) was common practice. Indeed, even higher prices were often disguised this way, 21 shillings (a guinea) was regarded as a 'posh' price, and you might be asked to pay 25 or 30 shillings in some places.
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I may add more clothing references here as I discover them.
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