When Is a Catalog More Than a Catalog?
A close look at functional objects that also serve as catalogs. Plus a new Inconspicuous News Roundup!
Earlier this week I wrote about how a 1950s Frigidaire promotional glass led me to do a deep dive on the subject of decorator colors. But as I mentioned in that piece, there’s another aspect of the Frigidaire glass that I particularly liked, and I want to talk about that today.
As you probably know by now, I’m fascinated by vintage catalogs, which I collect and sometimes write about. They appeal to me because, much like collections and lists, they create order out of chaos. Each catalog has its own categories and subcategories, its own taxonomy, its own alphanumeric inventory system, and so on. Plus many old catalogs are just flat-out gorgeous.
The only downside to collecting catalogs is that they spend most of their time filed away on a bookshelf. So unlike, say, wall charts or coin-operated gadgets, which constantly make me smile because they’re displayed in my home, the catalogs only make me smile when I pull them off the shelf and flip through them, which isn’t very often. The lesson, which I’ve come to appreciate more as I’ve grown older, is that having an object — even a truly remarkable object — can be a somewhat empty pleasure if that object is usually stowed out of sight.
That’s part of why I like the Frigidaire glass so much. In addition to being a de facto color catalog, it’s a functional object, so I can have the fun of engaging with it on a regular basis. In fact, it’s already become my beer glass of choice for meet-ups on my neighbor Jason’s porch (as seen in this article’s header photo).
Of course, Frigidaire makes home appliances, not glassware, so there’s a slight disconnect there. It would have been better if they’d made a sample refrigerator rendered in all five of the colors. Granted, that might be impractical to produce (and harder to bring to Jason’s porch), but some companies have managed to create catalog-like versions of their signature products. For example: