If you ever wondered how the word Populuxe came to be, we have Thomas Hine to thank. He is the author Populuxe, of one of my favorite books of all time. This word he invented inspired our retro store in Orlando Fl. which turned into our ebay business and eventually our Populuxebooks website.

Populuxe 1st edition 1986

Thomas was kind enough to answer a few questions for Retro Info.

How did you come up with the word Populuxe?

The idea for a book about the look and life of America from the early fifties to the early sixties had been percolating for a long time—probably ever since I had a traveling fellowship in 1977 and 1978 that took me to Saudi Arabia where I saw houses being built that distilled and heightened everything that was bizarre about the houses that were being built when I was a child. But the catalyst came when I told my editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer my idea, and she replied, “What you need is a term—like art deco or camp—that will give people a handle on what you are talking about.” Within an hour I had seized upon one of the central paradoxes of the later postwar period—that it seemed to be about extravagance for everyone, popular luxury—and I had my word. Later, when Knopf bought the proposal, the word was one thing about it that they weren’t sure would work. So we went through twenty or thirty other possibilities before settling on Populuxe. One pretty good alternative, I thought, was Powerflite, the name of an automatic transmission offered by Chrysler. The word ended up on the cover of the original edition of the book—it’s on the car—but none of us noticed until the book was out.

more after the jump

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Did you know the word Populuxe inspired several companies including a band, record label, design studio, blogs and bookstore?

Yes, the word’s out there, and it’s fun that it is, though I sometimes can’t understand what those who use it think that they are saying. The oddest use and most interesting use of of it, in a way, is by the historian Cissie Fairchilds who applied the term to eighteenth century France. Obviously Populuxe always wanted to be a French word.

Please tell our readers about your book Populuxe, its success and how it has been re-issued in paperback.

Populuxe was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1986, and on the strength of some wonderful reviews sold quite a lot of copies such a lavishly produced, heavily illustrated book. It clearly came along at the right time. Good writers, including John Updike and the New York Times columnist Frank Rich started using the word, images from the book started popping up on television and in works of art. It was really exciting to have created something that engaged so many people so quickly. Over time, it has become clear that this is a book that people really love. But Knopf, having gone through a number of management changes let it fall out of print in the mid-nineties. In 1999, it was reprinted in an edition that was sold primarily at Barnes and Noble, but it was difficult to find and order.

Populuxe paperback 2007

In fall 2007, Overlook Press issued it in a paperback edition that has a different cover from the original, but except for a new foreword by me and the loss of the original hardcover’s amazing endpapers, it is identical to it. Overlook is a good small publisher whose design list is small but powerful. Raymond Loewy and Milton Glaser are two of the authors represented. It is distributed by Penguin, which makes it easy to order.

What was it like for you growing up in the 1950's?

That’s a big question. It often disappoints people when I tell them that I grew up in a small New England town in a house that was built in 1770. Moreover, my mother was a widow with quite a small income raising two children, so we were not partaking of the luxury ourselves. So I was a bit of an outsider to the Populuxe culture, which for a writer, can be an advantage. It helps you see things much more clearly. Being in an old town, the things that were new were much more striking. And because I lived in a ramshackle house and had to watch my pennies, I probably found indulgences of my schoolmates’ families more alluring. Yet I did partake of the atmosphere of hope. I knew I lived in a world of expanding opportunities and I fully expected to be able to take advantage of them.

Any particular memories that stood out for you?

I did have a wealthy uncle, who bought a new Cadillac every two years or so, and looking at the brochures and seeing the new car was always an event. His wife, my aunt, finished her basement in knotty pine and Formica sometime in the mid 1950s, and I remember, at the age of nine or so, poring through the catalogues and materials samples she had somewhat more carefully than she did herself. Neither of us knew I was starting to work on a book.

Who is your favorite designer of the mid century modern era?

As a kid, I suppose I was attracted most to Virgil Exner, the automobile designer. Our neighbors had one of the Raymond Loewy Studebakers, which was actually designed largely by Exner, though I didn’t know it at the time. The ridiculous but sort of wonderful “Forward Look” cars he did for Chrysler in the late fifties were sort of an obsession for me as a child. As an adult I am drawn to the designers working in the wonderfully experimental period immediately after the war, before Populuxe really got under way. A designer who interests me very much now is George Farkas, who designed furniture and fabrics in Miami during the immediate post-war era. He is a key figure in a show I am helping curate there.

Are you a collector of mid century modern design?

No, I’m not. I have a couple of stools from the Eero Saarinen tulip series, some Jacobsen chairs, and some crazy lamps, a bunch of hood ornaments and a snack set, but I am primarily a collector of imagery rather than objects.

Did your family have a nuclear fallout shelter or have you ever been in one?

Our house stood on a dry stone foundation—no mortar at all. I have never been in a real fallout shelter, though I do remember a sort of display fallout shelter that was built at our town fair, and shown along with the prize poultry and very large cauliflowers. Of course, I ducked under my desk in elementary school, and we were taken periodically for bomb shelter drills in a dank cellar where we could barely survive the hour we spent.

How did you get into writing about architecture and design?

When I was in college, I had taken courses in architectural history, simply because I was interested. Several years later, I was working at the Philadelphia Inquirer, which was just beginning the period when it was one of America’s most interesting newspapers, in a dream job where I could write about almost anything that interested me. Still, I was dissatisfied without something to focus on. After I’d been offered another job, I asked an editor there to come up with a job I could really sink my teeth into, and he immediately offered me the job of architecture writer. It turned out that the Inquirer was looking for one, and realized that I had, without really knowing it, already been doing the job.

Please tell our readers about your new book The Great Funk.

In the final paragraphs of Populuxe I talked about how the world had changed and about how I, for one, could not imagine going back to the world I had described in the book. The time when the assumptions of the Populuxe years were truly undone, once and for all, was the decade of the 1970s. And I realized that even though this was a period that was antithetical to the fifties in so many ways—a time of scarcity rather than abundance, fragmentation rather than national unity, personal exploration rather than social progress, corruption rather than trust, defeat rather than victory—it visually interesting and even positive in all sorts of unexpected ways. I had the idea of a sequel to Populuxe in mind quite soon afterward, but I went on to write five other books instead. Now, after two decades of gestation, I have gone and done it. The Great Funk: Falling Apart and Coming Together (on a Shag Rug) in the Seventies is a real companion to Populuxe, and it has a real family resemblance, in large part because it was designed by Iris Weinstein, who also designed the earlier book. But it reflects its time in that it is less about technology and more about consciousness. It deals a lot with clothes and the body, and thus is PG or even R rated, rather than G. The title is a play, of course, on the Great Depression, which is one meaning of funk. But funk is also about texture, and rhythm, and a sensuality, which is also an important part of the picture. And it contains some incredible pictures of interiors. I think that those who like Populuxe will be intrigued.

Please tell us about your other books.

I hope that people who are interested in Populuxe will take a look at some of my other books. The Total Package considers design and technological and social history, through some of the most ubiquitous and rarely considered objects in our lives—bottles, cans, packets, tubes, and other persuasive containers. The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager is probably my most serious work, dealing with the three century history of a phenomenon that really came to the fore in the Populuxe era.

Please tell us about the upcoming museum exhibitions you worked on.

The main one is called Promises of Paradise: Staging Midcentury Miami, and it will open at the Bass Museum in Miami Beach this December and be seen elsewhere in Florida as well. Miami played a major role in Populuxe, of course, though it was actually atypical in many respects. I am working as a guest curator, involved primarily with furniture, design and popular culture, and I think even people who think they know something about what Randall Robinson has labeled MiMo, or Miami Modernism, will discover designers they didn’t know or phenomena they didn’t consider. I played a lesser role in the exhibition Birth of the Cool which opens in October at the Orange County Museum in Newport Beach, CA, acting as an adviser and catalogue essayist. I can’t wait to see this exhibition which combines California art, design and culture of the late 1950s. I am very pleased with my catalogue essay, “Cold War Cool,” which comes at some of the themes of Populuxe from a very different direction.

Thanks again to Thomas Hine for answering a few questions for my blog. We are huge fans, your book inspired our store and basically our way of life.

all photos via Thomas Hine

For more info on Thomas Hine, his books and projects go to ThomasHine.com All his books can be purchased on Amazon.com