Cigarette girl in European and American context generally refers to a person that sells or provides
from a tray held by a neck strap. They may also carry
cigars, and many novelty items like lighted roses, candy, snacks, chewing gum, lighted jewelry, and lighted
yo-yo's on their trays.
Uniform
The most common uniform is a red and black short saloon-style skirt above the knee dress accompanied with a matching
pillbox hat,
but you will find many in different colors and styles. Another title for a cigarette girl is candy girls.
Aside from serving cigarettes and other novelties, the attractive girls acted as eye candy and were often employed to flirt with male customers as well.
Modern image
The modern image of cigarette girl developed in the 1920s with the urbanization of America.
Though largely not seen outside of
speakeasies and
,
cigarettes girls were frequently shown in Hollywood films and soon became well-established among the general public.
With the repeal of
Prohibition in 1933, speakeasies across America closed and cigarettes girls soon found employment in more popular business destinations.
Cigarette girls were a common sight in restaurants, clubs, bars, airports and casinos during the 1930s and 1940s in the United States.
Cigarette machines
With the rise of
in the mid-1950s, however, venue owners no longer needed to seek out cigarettes girls who worked for a paycheck and the girls largely vanished from the public eye.
In the arts
The 1924 film,
The Cigarette Girl from Mossel'prom, featured a heroine who worked as a street-corner vendor.
[A History of Russian Cinema -Birgit Beumers - 2009 Page 63 Similarly, Yuri Zheliabuzhsky's (1888–1955) The Cigarette Girl from Mosselprom (Papirosnitsa ot Mossel'proma, "] The cigarette girl of the night club also became a staple figure of film and theatre.
[The Theatre Book of the Year, 1945-1946 -George J. Nathan, Charles Angoff - 1974 Page 148 "All the boys and girls, along with the old night club setting, are again in evidence: the dumb-cluck minor mobster, the love-lorn cigarette girl in the abbreviated costume, the oily head- waiter, the imperturbable night club boss, the slumming .."]
See also
