A Very Avon Christmas, 1973
Holiday Beauty Catalogues
For your viewing pleasure, I scanned a selection of pages from four Avon Christmas catalogues from 1973. Avon catalogues or brochures were small—just 5.5” by 7”—and were sent out usually monthly to Avon Ladies to share with their customers. Every page showcases a different product or multiple products, with the ads subtly changed from catalogue to catalogue so that the viewing experience for the client is always different—an ad might go from a single page to a double-page spread with new images or copy. These four brochures are dated October and November 1973 and stamped on the back with the name of the Avon rep (who carefully corrected in pen the prices on some of the items).
What I love about Avon products from the 1970s (and which I will return to in a future newsletter) is the sheer weirdness of many of their ideas. Avon’s product developers and designers were churning out ideas at a speed unlike any other company at the time, and they differentiated themselves from their competitors through both direct sales and unique products. There was a heavy emphasis on “novelty” products, individuated not by the quality of the eyeshadow or bath oil inside but by the uniqueness of the packaging—olden times flacons or decanters of after shave or perfume, bath oils packaged as cars or tractors, pop art inspired containers or compacts. No idea appeared too “out there”—there is a sense of continual experimentation and joy.
Each brochure is eighty pages so this is just a smattering of some of the most Christmassy, the strangest, the most covetable, or simply most inspiring in typography and design.
Woah flashback! My Great Grandmother had a lot of those animal-shaped ones. She used to save the empty ones for me. Thanks for this!!
Thank you for sharing, great memories. Our Avon lady lived down the street and came by regularly to visit my mom. She always had miniature lipsticks in her "Avon case" for her to try. I remember many of the items featured in these catalogs (I was about 8 years old at the time.) Mom saved the empty glass jars of the "creme sachets" for me and I used them as ottomans and tables for my Barbies! I still have one of the petit snowman perfume bottles, too.