Vintage Boudoir Photography: Vintage Bombshells

This is not your vintage *style* boudoir photography. This is the real deal. Boudoir photography. Over the last few years, boudoir photography has really caught its stride, quickly becoming one of the more respected and pursued genres of photography. But the popularity of boudoir didn't pop up over night. In fact, it has a long history of classic tradition and unique style.

It was in the 1920s when boudoir art and photography really began to come into its own. During this decade, it was generally illegal to have nudity in photographs, but regardless, photographers like Albert Arthur Allen, a French artist, continued to create masterpieces. He focused mostly on women, especially larger women, who posed in romantic ways against ornate backdrops.

Fast-forward to the 1940s, and suddenly the boudoir focus was on pin-up girls. These decadent women were delightfully curvy, as popular standards deemed a lack of shape typically undesirable. It was a culture quite different from our more modern, and ridiculous, ideas of beauty. These pin-up girls wore stockings, corsets, men's ties and hats and were among the first to use various props in their unique "portraits."

Lisa Winters

Vintage Lingerie 1948 Vogue Magazine Lingerie Boudoir Photography

Sometimes you come across something that you cannot get out of your mind. This is one of the most beautiful photographs we have ever come across.

This is a John Rawlings photograph, which appeared in the February 15, 1948 issue of Vogue. Just the epitome of the what the image we think of in what elegance and primping is all about. Wear lingerie as beautiful as this and getting dressed was a more elegant affair altogether, an era all gone too soon. 

With a little splash of home furnishings that invade a bare white studio, as this beautiful model gets dressed in this makeshift boudoir. This gorgeous model is adorning a blue strapless wired brassiere, matching blue nylon stockings and white petticoat by Iris.

What the best is, her light pink lipstick further underscores the femininity of this image, and makes me just swoon.