Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Hugh Hefner Belongs To The Ages 1926-2017



Hugh Hefner

Belongs To The Ages
1926-2017


Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy passed away today at age 91, and left behind quite a legacy. The screen-grab below is from Playboy.com today. 


What do Hugh Hefner and Rolex have in common you ask? They are both extremely well known iconic brands that came into their own in 1953. Let's get in the Rolex Time Machine and go back to 1953 and take a look around.


On Top of The World

Rolex had been around for almost a half century in 1953, but things were really just getting to ready to take off. Many of us have seen the classic National Geographic photo below of Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay near the top of Everest. The two men were wearing Rolex Oyster Perpetual Watches on their wrists when they were the first to conquer Everest.




Jacques-Yves Cousteau was out in the Mediterranean Sea, on his beloved Calypso ship filming his seminal documentary named "The Silent World" in 1953, and he and his diving team members were wearing and testing prototype Rolex Submariner watches as seen below.


A 1953 Rolex Submariner is pictured below, and in may ways it resembles the current Submariner models.





The 1953 letter below from the Institute Of Submariner Research below documents Cousteau's teams results from testing Rolex Submariner prototypes.




The Rolex Magazine ad seen below feature the Submariner as it was later advertised in 1955.







It Was A Very Good Year

In 1953 the world was starting to bounce back from World War II and Queen Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of England at Buckingham Palace as seen in the Life photo below from the coronation. 

Ironically, news of the successful conquering of Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached Britain on the very day of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.


1953 was a glorious year of optimism where anything seemed possible. As the world embarked upon the second half of the twentieth century, a whole new modern world began to emerge. The world entered into a truly modern epoch where everything began to change quickly, and humanity began to freely dream again. The only limitation was imagination.

In 1953 Dwight Eisenhower was the President of The United States and of course he was wearing his beloved yellow gold Rolex that had been given to him as a gift from Rene-Paul Jeanneret who was the director of Rolex. This Rolex was no ordinary Rolex, it was the 150,000th Officially Certified Swiss Chronometer that Rolex made.


1953 was a very interesting and promising year. Elvis Presley was still in high school and the Space age had arrived–and with it, America's love for the automobile culminated in the 1953 Corvette which had beautiful lines like nothing that had ever come before it.



Speaking of beautiful lines, 1953 was the year that Hugh Hefner launched Playboy magazine, which, in its debut issue, featured this stunningly gorgeous photo of the young Marilyn Monroe–The sexual revolution was also underway.



Kurt in Germany took this photo of two classic icon's. The Supreme irony of course, is that in the 1980s the Rolex President (with the Champagne dial) was considered to be the international mark of success-for men. Today, this same watch has become the international mark of success for stylish women. Oh, sweet irony...



Hugh Hefner was a truly icon revolutionary who legacy will live way beyond his lifetime.