Life — April 5, 1917 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a **product advertisement** for Duratex, a synthetic car upholstery material marketed as superior to leather. The silhouette illustration shows a man in formal attire reclining luxuriously in an automobile, with what appears to be cattle in the background—a visual pun emphasizing the leather alternative. The ad's tagline, "Leather has had its day," positions Duratex as a modern replacement material that is "fine as the finest leather but more comfortable, more durable and infinitely more beautiful." The copy explicitly references "the brutality and the endless slaughter involved in the preparation of leather," appealing to both practical and ethical concerns. This represents early 20th-century marketing of synthetic materials as progressive improvements over natural products.