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The Bachelor Pad as Cultural Icon
Masculinity, Consumption and Interior Design in American Men's Magazines, 1930–65
London Metropolitan University
Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare(Trans: ‘If You Don't Swing, Don't Ring’).
Inscription on a brass plaque at the entrance to the Playboy Mansion, 1960
Focusing on the representation of domestic interiors in American men's magazines during the mid-twentieth century, this article explores the history and significance of the ‘bachelor pad’ as an icon of high-living modernity. Beginning with a consideration of Esquire magazine in the 1930s, attention is given to representations of the sleek, stylish bachelor apartment and its role as a totem of forward-looking and ‘liberated’ masculine consumerism. Depicted as a place where men could luxuriate in a milieu of sybaritic indulgence, the ‘bachelor pad’ was configured as the spatial manifestation of a consuming masculine subject who later became pervasive amid the consumer boom of the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, the fantasy of the chic, gadget-laden ‘bachelor's lair’ was a recurring icon of hedonistic, masculine consumption in men's magazines such as Playboy, Escapade and Rogue. Cosmopolitan and brimming with á la mode luxuries, the ‘bachelor pad’ was a leitmotif in these magazines' wider celebration of masculine consumer pleasure and desire. Analysis of these representations, it is argued, suggests that in American culture during the mid-twentieth century the ‘masculine’ arena of production and the ‘feminine’ domain of consumption were not neatly and clearly divided. Instead, the iconography of the ‘bachelor pad’ in American men's magazines points to a significant masculine presence within mid-twentieth century commodity culture.
Key Words: consumption—domestic space—gendered design—leisure—masculinity—United States
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