#swastika

the last dress i’ve made for me .
I’ve mde it for the biggest festival in Avignon “the golden rose” in the south of France.

We enjoyed of the weather for shoot my new slavic oufit with @maenadscraft

“With intense expressions of love and lust, Swastika (1964) directed by Yasuzo Masumura, hailed by director Shinji Aoyama (Eureka) as the most important filmmaker in the history of postwar Japanese cinema, follows Sonoko Kakiuchi (Kyoko Kishida) as she falls victim to a school gossip along with Mitsuko (Ayako Wakao), an industrialist’s daughter, and soon they form a friendship that becomes a crazy sexual obsession, making Sonoko wild with envy and desire. Sonoko has a questioning husband in the form of Kotaro (Eiji Funakoshi) while Mitsuko has a clingy fiancé named Watanuki (Yusuke Kawazu). Sexual acts are mostly implied with body doubles used for intimate scenes, with emphasis placed more on the mental manipulations and mind games of the four central characters wrapped up in selfish desires and dilemmas.”

I decided to walk along the street in which back in the 1990s we used to get our watermelons, stacked directly on the pavement, weigthed by two elderly men using steelyard balance scale. I wanted to see what would this street give me in the New Era 新时代, and it had some of the most extraordinary swastika patterns I’ve ever seen. Note that staircase photos are taken in the same building on different floors - traditional lattice pattern with swastikas and auspicious fruits smoothly transforms into a foreign design, which makes it not only visually appealing, but also conceptually powerful - demonstrating how modern aesthetic emerged in Shanghai!

An American-made trap with a swastika. This is from around 1910-1920 and made by the Peck, Stow & Wilcox Company - or PEXTO - out of Cleveland, Ohio. They have been around since around 1797.

Swastika Brand fishing line. Not sure of the date,but probably around 1930. I believe Swastika Brand became the now known “Ashaway” brand.

Another item from the Swastika Fuel/Coal Company out of Raton, New Mexico. Looks like a product badge of some sort.

Click on the tags to see more stuff from the Swastika Fuel Company.

Happy Valentine’s Day

A collection of Native American tobacco felts from the turn of the Century until 1920. These were inserted in packages of tobacco. A lot of women collected them and some even sewed them together and made quits.

A fruit wrapper from Mahalia Growers, located in Riverside, California. I suspect this is late 1930s. Many West Coast growers used the swastika in their logos.

A really neat thermometer from Southwestern Coal Company.

Another coal company, Swastika Coal or later Swastika Fuel Company from New Mexico also used the sign.

An American-made swastika gear shift knob of an unknown date and manufacturer.

Here is another gearshift knob that I posted some time back.

Swastika syrup jar from Dugan Glass Company, out of Indiana.Circa 1900.

Logging stamp hammer from Michigan.

“ It was used in the logging days of the mid to late 1800’s for marking the end of the log. This mark identified which company the log belonged to as it made it’s way from the forest to the sawmills. Each company had it’s own identifying symbol or logo. There have been many log ends found along the Saginaw River which is the means of floating the logs to the sawmills, which lined the banks of the river in Bay City, Michigan. The logging pirates would cut the end of the log off and throw it into the river and mark the log with their own mark so the log would be credited to them.”

Here’s a Harley Davidson swastika fob. 

Many motor car companies used the swastika - everyone knows about the Krit, but Ford used it as well.

Russell Investment Company letter, which dealt with oil leases out Kansas City, Missouri.

This is dated July 17, 1920.

Weatherproof Roofing, Inc out of Chicago, Illinois advert with swastikas.

Troco was founded in 1914 on the Midland Valley Railroad in Sperry, OK, TROCO – Tulsa Refined Oil CO. 

Troco is now called Royal Manufacturing and still making oil products.

Here’s a rad good luck Swastika coin with the best of Cary Grant on the front, which looks to be a keepsake from the 1933 Cary Grant film, The Eagle and The Hawk.

The Swastika was used a lot in Hollywood during the 1930s. Here is another good luck token that I posted a while back with the face of actor Tom Mix.

A firegate for a fireplace.

Most likely made by Burnham Boiler Company than ran out of Irvingon, New York. Burhman is still in operation as U.S. Boiler Company located in Lancaster, PA.

Here’s a Ford Motor Company swastika fob.

Transportation has always seem to be keen on the swastika, especially in modern India.

A photo from around 1900 of an Iroquois woman named Wah-Ta-Waso, with a swastika pendant. Her American name was Wah-Ta-Waso Tethrault Gillespie and she was a direct descendant of an Penobscot Iroquis chief and was a Princess in her own right.

Wah-ta-waso means Bright Star. In the early 1900’s she was a famous actress, one of her plays being “As Told in the Hills”.

(Info from FindaGrave)

We all know that America used the swastika emblem on motor cars in the early 1900s, but here is a chime bell for a bicycle with a swastika proudly displayed. This was made by the Chicago Cycle Supply in or around 1935.

Chicago was considered the bicycle capital of the world in the late 1800s through the early years of the 20th century.

The third photo is a swastika turtle mascot for a bike (mascots were the decorations people would put on their hoods, or on their radiator caps) distributed by Brown Brothers Limited out of England, showing how swastikas on transportation was not just a regional thing.

Also notice that the Brown Brothers advert is one of the very few times you will ever see a Star of David and the Swastika posted together, in a positive manner.

Actor Sydney Ayers in the 1915 movie On Desert Sands, a silent movie that he also wrote and directed. He passed away at the young age of 37 due to complications of multiple sclerosis, but still managed to star in 90 silent films - a good amount for Universal.

The swastika was widely used by American cowboys in this era, most likely inspired by the vast use by the Native Americans.