The whip-cracking, bondage-donning Betty Page; sleepy-eyed, mouth parted Marilyn Monroe and leggy; swimsuit-wearing Betty Grable are all iconic pinup images. All images that, now, seem tame in comparison to the females in magazines such as paper-bag covered Hustler or even newsstand friendly Maxim.
And yet, despite the images being more than 50 years old and downright modest by modern day standards, they stick with us. There’s something appealing, all at once clean-cut and sexy about the pinup — a kind of mystery and appeal the bare-it-all girls of Hustler and the Internet don’t possess.
Jenna Moore, a shapely, chocolate-brown haired 24-year-old Arizona State University graduate, works at an insurance brokerage from 8 a.m to 5 p.m. and is a modern day pinup around the clock.
Moore says she always knew vaguely of pinup modeling, but didn’t really become involved in pinup until October of 2007 when she began attending rockabilly concerts (a hyper infusion of folk, rock and R&B) and “kustom” car shows (hot rods with elaborate paint jobs, many including paintings of pinup girls, and other stylistic alterations) with her boyfriend, another ASU Alum, Travis Haight.
“[Rockabilly, “kustom” cars and pinup] all kind of goes hand-in-hand together,” Haight, a professional photographer, says. “Whenever you go to a rockabilly concert, it usually ends up looking like a car show in the parking lot, and you’ll find all kinds of lovely ladies all pinupped. “
Moore was hooked.
“I became fascinated,” Moore says. “People idolize pinups, they’re classy curvaceous and classic — they’re not slutty. I wanted to know how I could get involved, but I didn’t know of any groups or people that were doing anything with [actual pinup girls].”
Since there was no group to join, Moore and Haight decided to create their own, Arizona Pin-Up Girls, a group for all the pinup girls in one of the Union’s hottest states.
“Arizona Pin-Up Girls was my brain child, “ Moore says. “There are a lot of beautiful girls here in Arizona. I wanted to get attention for them and showcase local beauty.”
Arizona Pin-Up Girls is currently hosted on MySpace (www.myspace.com/arizonapinupgirl) and holds a monthly pinup girl contest with the winner chosen by online voting. The winner gets a free pinup photo shoot photographed by Haight and a permanent photo album on the Web site devoted to the winner and her photo shoot.
Haight says he doesn’t really know how to describe the pinup aesthetic, but that everyone knows it when they see it.
“To sum it up simply, I’d just say it’s a lady with retro-style hair and clothing who exudes confidence and strength,” Haight says. “Oh, and she usually has a flower in her hair.”
The monthly winners range from cheesecake-style models — models who adhere strictly to the traditional, retro look of pinups like that of Betty Grable — to the more modern models who showcase the convergence of pinup and alternative, that manifests itself in a mix of punk and Betty Page.
“There’s the cheesecake-girls, and then there are some with pink hair and with tattoos covering 80 percent of their body,” Moore says. “But either way, we want for the shoot to look nice, natural and put together, and to look as good as possible.
The photo shoots done by Arizona Pin-Up Girls sticks to the “classy never slutty,” pinup look Moore admires. The girls are always PG, with only slight suggestions toward anything more racy. After all, the long lasting appeal of a pinup girl is a result of the fact that she manages to be seductive and innocent at the same time.
Moore and Haight both cite Alberto Vargas, a painter from the 1940s who famously created the iconic pinup art used in Esquire magazine and Playboy, as their biggest artistic inspiration.
“His illustrations were amazing and truly helped define the entire style. He left behind a giant body of work over the years, and his pieces were so highly stylized, elegant, and consistently beautiful,” Haight says of Vargas.
“There were many others that did similar work, but not quite the way he did it. I’d love to push my photography into that direction, and see if I can achieve with a camera what he did through his illustrations.”
Some of the prints from the winner’s photo shoots are sold on the Web site, but currently the group is not-for-profit. Neither Moore nor Haight have the kind of time to devote to the site what would be needed to make it a profitable business — yet.
“Right now we’re just doing it for the fun of it, and to promote local models and designers,” Haight says.
“We are working on a virtual calendar and building up excitement and the business,” Moore says of business plans. “Arizona Pin-Up Girls’ biggest challenge is staying fresh and keeping the excitement, while still maintaining the ideal and values of what a pinup is. That’s our biggest challenge for the next year.”
Moore also hopes to have an actual Web site off of MySpace with a section devoted to selling products from local designers as well as Arizona Pinup Girl merchandise sometime in 2009.
While the group may still be in the starting stages, Arizona Pin-Up Girls isn’t doing all that bad for itself either. The group hosted its first major event in October 2008, “Rocktober-Abilly-Psychout #1,” a pinup girl fashion show that fittingly coincided with a rockabilly concert and “kustom” car show.
In local, pinup designer wear, 18 girls strutted down the runway at The Blooze Bar in North Scottsdale to a very warm reception, says Moore.
“It’s great because [Arizona Pin-Up Girls has] really grown into part of the scene, and it’s really achieving what we wanted, which was to help support and grow the pinup scene here in Arizona,” Haight says. “It was created to do that, help local girls get a start modeling, help showcase local clothing and accessory designers.”
Moore says that, as well as showcasing local beauty, she is glad to be able to promote local pinup clothing designers and artists. Some of the local vendors Arizona Pinup Girl uses are Meleah Sassy Face, a local makeup artist who does all the makeup for Arizona Pin-Up Girls photo shoots; Black Cherry Clothing, a local pinup clothing company that creates custom garments and supplies much of the clothing for Arizona Pin-Up Girls’ shoots; and Lila-Jo, a local designer with a flair for pinup-style hair accessories, such as the quintessential pinup girl flower.
The relationships between the group and designers are beneficial for both parties — the designers get exposure through the use of their products in photo shoots, Arizona Pin-Up Girls receives free items for their photo shoots and all of them are supporting the local pinup scene.
Moore herself is a pinup girl and goes by the pseudonym Miss Jenna Devaux.
Moore has been pinup modeling for a year and is currently a spokesmodel for Black Cherry Clothing and was the cover model for an article about the clothing company in the Phoenix weekly paper College Times.
A self-proclaimed “former fat girl,” Moore says pinup modeling has done wonders for her self-esteem.
“Pinup modeling makes me feel so glamorous,” Moore says. “It makes you love your body.”
“I was a fat kid in high school, and I was very shy. I always wanted to try modeling, but when we started Arizona Pin-Up Girls, the only person I had ever modeled for was Travis. I was too self-conscious to model for anyone else. But doing this has made me love my boobs and ass,” Moore says, her voice rising into a laugh. “More than anything [pinup modeling has] made me so self-confident. When you get out there, and you look hot in your pencil skirt, nothing can bring you down.”
While Moore has learned to appreciate her body through pinup, becoming a part of the pinup community is what Moore has enjoyed most.
“I mean, sitting at a desk is awesome,” Moore says sarcastically of her day job, “but this fulfills my life. It feels like … like my life is a big complete thing. More important than being a pinup myself, is I’ve met so many amazing people through it. I love having a big group of girls to look to for getting and giving advice.”
Since Arizona Pin-Up Girls’ conception, pinup culture has begun blossoming back into fashion, with several groups such as Polkadot Pinups, Redskirt Pinups and Pinup Parties popping up in the Phoenix area.
“I feel like the pinup look is being thrown at people ad-nauseam at the moment, “ Moore says with some irritation. “Fashion is very cyclic, and I think [the recent resurgence of pinup] is fashion coming back around on itself.”
Moore isn’t too worried about the competition, though. She says what’s different about Arizona Pin-Up Girls is that they aren’t playing around.
“People in Phoenix are definitely interested in pinup, especially because it involves a lot of rockabilly, so people from that come into it,” Moore says. “But it’s our job to make sure they do it right; that they educate themselves about the pinup modeling. It’s not just dress up for us and our models, it’s what they want to do with their lives.”
With a professional and passionate attitude such as that, it’s not hard to believe someday people will also be extolling over the images of such modern day pinups as Miss Jenna Devaux and others next to names such as Betty Grable and Betty Page.
Reach the reporter at lana.burke@asu.edu.
