Like the celebrities of today, Louise Brooks’ name and image was used in a number of advertisements and advertising campaigns. Beginning in 1926 with the “Louise Brooks Evening Gown” and running through the LUX soap campaign of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Brooks’ name, image and likeness was used to sell all manner of products and consumer goods — not only in the United States, but also elsewhere around the world. Here is one example. Here is one example of cosmetics.
The Princess Pat brand was a Chicago-based cosmetics company established in 1919 by the husband and wife team of Patricia and M. Martin Gordon. The company was an early leader in cosmetic advertising. The Princess Pat Almond Base ads were a series of text heavy advertisements run in the Kingston Daily Gleaner newspaper in Kingston, Jamaica between 1928 and 1930. So far, two different ads featuring Louise Brooks have been uncovered. The first shown (on the left) is titled “The Powder I use has an almond base” and subtitled “I prefer it for many reasons.” Notably, or rather remarkably, it carries a by-line by Louise Brooks. Personally, I doubt she wrote the text which follows – but there it is. I also doubt that Brooks exclaimed “Mysterious! Fascinating! Unbelievably beautiful” in response to the Princess Pat new Duo-Tone Rouge. I even wonder whether of not she was aware of these sort of over-seas advertisements. I also wonder who arranged for them…. perhaps a local Paramount representative who thought Brooks was popular in Jamaica.
Please note: The Princess Pat Almond Base ads are not so dissimilar from the Belleza Resplandecente ads which ran in newspapers and magazines in Argentina and Brazil. There is also a page on the Louise Brooks Society archive related to those advertisements.
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| Jamaica 1928 | Jamaica 1930 |