Life — March 1, 1917 — page 2: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This is primarily a **perfume advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. It's a Rigaud "Mary Garden Perfume" ad from an early 20th-century Life magazine. The advertisement uses exoticized imagery of Hawaii to market luxury fragrance. It features a woman in a decorative circular frame (resembling a halo or portrait medallion) alongside perfume bottles, positioned against a romanticized scene of Hawaiian figures in the background. The text employs orientalist marketing language—describing Hawaii as a paradise of "perpetual Spring and flowers" where inhabitants live "care-free lives." The perfume is positioned as a luxury product that would enhance the wearer's "native charms." This reflects period advertising conventions that capitalized on Western fascination with non-Western cultures to sell high-end goods to affluent consumers.