On March 1, 1932, brothers Charles and Joseph Revson, along with chemist Charles Lachman, established a nail polish company they named
Revlon (the “
l” in Revlon came from
Lachman).
In his book
Fire and Ice: The Story of Charles Revson – the Man Who Built the Revlon Empire (William Morrow and Company, 1976), Andrew Tobias chronicled the career of the man who "started with one bottle of nail polish and a fine ear for female fantasy and built an empire – The Revlon Company – worth millions from them”:
A special album has been created for this book in the
60s Ad Campaigns Album: Revlon Album (1940s-1950s):
http://www.minimadmod60s.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=88141
Here are some historic Revlon ads from the 1930s through the 1970s:
The first Revlon ad to run outside of trade journals:
The New Yorker Magazine
Summer 1935http://www.minimadmod60s.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=88186
The first Revlon ad to run in
Vogue Magazine:
Vogue Magazine
Summer 1936http://www.minimadmod60s.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=88186
The first full-scale color promotion with "matching lips and fingertips". Revlon popularized this fashion strategy in the 1940s:
1944http://www.minimadmod60s.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=88186
First Revlon product named after Charles Revson:
Charly Stember
1973http://www.minimadmod60s.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=51871
To read this out-of-print book online, go to Andrew Tobias’ web site:
http://www.andrewtobias.com/fireandice.html
Susan Camp
Senior Editor & Archivist