Suppose your bachelor pad has a balcony, or is a penthouse with roof access. What outdoor accessories should be there?
Two things your balcony should not have: Tiki lights or a Weber grill. Those are suburban backyard decor, not urban bachelor pad. Simplicity is the word for your balcony. Maybe a glass-topped table for two, and wrought-iron chairs with cushions.
A few other thoughts. The leather flight jacket, if you wear one at all, should be saved for driving your Austin Healey Sprite along the coastal highway or piloting your single-engine plane, not for city wear. The coat of choice for the city is either the plain tan raincoat, or the black wool or camel hair topcoat.
For casual wear, we suggest the straw-colored cardigan sweater, but keep that necktie on! And knit sports shirts (e.g., the Lacoste) are for daytime and outdoors while you’re doing something sporty, not nighttime and indoors.
Another useful item for the balcony is a chaise longue, where your girlfriend can tan during the day. Add a small side table for her iced tea and the telephone, thank you.
On the coffee table in the conversation pit: copies of Town & Country, Horizon, Esquire, Life.
No posters on the walls, unless it’s a tasteful travel poster, and then only if it’s framed.
Haircut? See James Franciscus, Dick Van Dyke, or John F. Kennedy. They got it right.
Ah, they’re 1960s-style “bachelor pads.”
::: d&r :::
What’s the joke, **av8rmike **?
Before I move this to IMHO (because it really doesn’t have a factual answer), may I suggest a waterbed? A ROUND waterbed was considered to be the ULTIMATE in coolness when I was growing up. We were kids, and didn’t have to worry about such mundane issues as buying sheets for such a bed. I will echo the suggestion of a Lava Lamp. As kids, my friends and I also considered black light posters and black lights to be essential cool decor.
Waterbed? Definitely not a '60s bachelor pad! The first waterbeds were made in 1969, and were considered hippy items. Ditto with black lights and lava lamps.
You may be thinking of Hugh Hefner’s giant round bed at the Playboy Mansion in the 1960s. But it wasn’t a waterbed.
Satin sheets, but only when you have company. And 2 matching robes.
Nothing makes food taste more “with it” than being served from monkey pod:
If I remember correctly, the early 60’s was the “plastic revolution”. Have lots and lots of plastic stuff.
I agree with this very strongly! Several SHAG prints would be better.
And the bar must be Tiki themed.
There was a recent episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy where the Fab Five turned one guy’s tiny apartment into a perfect retro swingin’ bachelor pad. Thom, the interior design expert, worked wonders in such a small space. You should watch BRAVO to see if they repeat the episode, but it was only on the week before last.
Brini Maxwell, who someone else mentioned, has a show on Style Network and should have good advice for you. Perhaps she has a website too–I only saw her recently on Conan O’Brien, making fondue. I guess I’d have to describe her as a '50s/'60s Martha Stewart-style domestic goddess. And a fondue pot is a necessity for your kitchen.
Definitely avoid the rock posters, love beads, black lights, and lava lamps. You’re going for an early '60s Rat Pack vibe, not a late '60s hippie commune. Please, no incense either! Get all the Tiki stuff you can, though! A set of martini glasses and a chrome shaker are important, and if you can get retro stirrers or cocktail umbrellas, all the better. Sometimes trendy stores like Urban Outfitters sell little odds and ends for bars or funky bachelor pad living.
For music, I recommend Capitol Records’ excellent Ultra Lounge series, plus Louis Prima, Esquivel!, and the more recent lounge band Combustible Edison. For style and fashion, watch the movie Swingers to get in the mood, or the original Ocean’s 11 with the Rat Pack (although admittedly, the new one is more entertaining).
You can find a great example of an early 60s pad in the movie Down with Love.
If you go to the movie’s offical site. You can go into a flash site and check out the production notes and in there is a flash game of Catcher Block’s bachelor pad.
You should definitely have a bar, hidden behind a bookshelf or wall, that rotates out at the touch of a button. (I don’t know if anyone actually had such a thing, but it seems to be a staple of movies from that time.)
I think a Lava Lamp. And what about some 1960s anti war posters. And a poster from Woodstock.
You’ll need a “coccoon style” chair made from bamboo that’s suspended by a chain from the ceiling, a couple of wooden paddle racquets in the closet, kitchen counters covered in Formica and a leather watchband at least 4 inches wide.
How about a 60’s-style Death Ray? Sorry.
Actually…
Some good 60’s bachelor pad decor (and wardrobe ideas) can be found in The Love God? (starring Don Knotts!?!?!)
A cardboard cut-out of Michael Cain sipping a Martini in the corner, to set the mood.
And this record, which I always play when entertaining stewardesses from Icelandic Air, in my penthouse pad.
I managed a small biz ca.'66 in suburban Philly,and one of the employees said something that has stayed with me to this day.
“When I get enough money I’m going to get me a pad.All I’ll need is a lounge chair and a pole lamp and I’m set”.
So for urban black swingers,that appeared to be the epitome of cool.
RE the Howard episode on Andy Griffith.That was more a late 60s scene,pillows on floor,beads,etc.67 or 68 seems to be the delineation of the slicked back/button down slim styles of the late 50s/early 60s,to the loose,casual style of dress/furnishings.
Vietnam played a major role in the transformation,as did the Beatles and Woodstock.In '64 their hairdos looked positively strange to me,tho they still wore tailored clothes.By the end of the decade John Lennon looked like a street hippie freak.
Mary Jane as a high of choice over alcohol also played a role.Early 60s martini glasses,late 60s a roach clip.
I have a 60s bachelor pad. Here are the contents:
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pair of curvy, stone-topped tables (one end, one coffee), walnut frame with a light-colored top (never been sure what kind of stone - I’m thinking granite). The end table is two-level - stone on the larger bottom level, walnut on the top.
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one lamp whose base lights up (mine is dark blue, cone-shaped). The shade shoud be of a paper laminate, round, with an abstract pattern, and preferably with at least two tiers.
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one pole lamp.
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one rug with a pattern out of a Kandinsky painting.
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two curved armchairs, again with walnut frames, found at the 6th Ave flea market and, erm, rather expensively reupholstered (ah, the days when I was still a practicing lawyer…).
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Lots of glassware. IItala, Kosta Boda, that sort of thing. Glass fruit and candy, too.
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A sunburst clock. Mine’s a contemporary reinterpret, which took forever to arrive because right after my friend ordered it for me Queer Eye featured it.
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A set of china from the period. Mine’s Ben Seibel, “Autumn Leaves” for Iroquois.
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A painted brick wall, for texture with lightness.
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A 4’x5’ mirror of three interlocking diamonds
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A poster by Guy Georget for Air Algerie, featuring a Constellation (actually 50s, but still looks great)
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An anonymous poster for United Airlines of Seattle, very elegant, simple featuring a swooping blue triangle of a mountain, half a dozen green cones representing trees, and the Space Needle in its original orange-and-blue glory.
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a low sideboard, again in wood.
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Lots of period jazz, preferably bop, hard bop, samba. Early Miles, Coltrane, Jobim, Horace Silver, Nina Simone, Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughan, the Gilbertos, etc…
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Shake, and serve.