Why Were Glamour Models Painted On The Side Of Aircraft?

Whilst glamour photography is most commonly seen in magazines, newspapers, posters, calendars and as part of advertising billboards, glamour models also be seen in several places you may not necessarily expect.

One of the most curious and fascinating pin-up traditions is the custom of painting glamour models onto the sides of ships and aircraft in a custom known as nose art, which whilst commonly associated with military planes can be seen pretty much anywhere.

The very first examples pre-date the First World War, with many early designs depicting sea monsters or angry gaping mouths behind the propeller, designed largely to intimidate the enemy and increase the morale of the pilots and flight crew.

Indeed, whilst many of the designs were later linked to the pilots flying the plane, the art was produced and designed by the ground crews who readied the craft for flight.

During the war, the first glamour models also appeared in the trenches, either in the forms of French postcard-type sensual imagery or idealised pictures and drawings of the “New Woman”, typically as depicted by artists such as Charles Dana Gibson.

What brought these two worlds together just in time for the Second World War was Esquire magazine, which was one of the first magazines to dedicate a lot of space to glamour images, both in photographic and artistic form.

The two most popular and the two that inspired the nose art of aircraft the most were George Petty and Alberto Vargas.

The Petty Girls were hugely popular and the style became ubiquitous not only in the pages of Esquire but also through advertising in a similar style, with the rosy-cheeked, innocently suggestive girls used to sell everything from double bass stringed instruments to tool vices.

Most famously, an image of a petty girl was used on the nose of the Memphis Belle bomber.

When Mr Petty left the magazine, he was replaced by an artist who became similarly influential in the form of Peruvian artist Alberto Vargas.

Whilst the Petty Girls were depicted as more coquettish, the Vargas Girls were elegant Femme Fatales, depicted as far more in control of their sensuality, and became very popular amongst men and women, particularly by 1942 when the US joined the Allies in the Second World War.

Esquire sent free editions of the magazine, as well as calendars, and these designs soon found their way onto aircraft, where they were grudgingly tolerated by the air force as a talisman and morale-boosting reminder of what they were fighting for.

Allegedly they also helped to distract enemy pilots.