Nostalgia is usually bunk. Our memories are clouded and we remember things as we saw them in the past, with the eyes of a child or less experienced adult. It is almost impossible to compare things side by side over these gaps in time. Almost.
One thing, though, was better in the old days: packaging, and I have the photos to prove it. Today we’ll take a tour through the packaging (and product design) of an electric blanket, bought in Spain in the 1970s and seemingly kept in a time capsule until today. I found it in the Lady’s family home in the depths of Lleida, Catalunya, Spain.
Do they make them like this any more? No. No, they don’t. While a modern-day electric blanket might be safer, fuller featured and, well, just bigger, the box it comes in will likely be a disposable afterthought, little more than a cardboard sleeve to stop the lawsuit-avoiding disclaimers from getting lost.
This box, however, is a work of art. First, we see the unnecessary but wonderful inclusion of a picture inside the lid. It’s really no extra expense to do — the lid is double thickness, a single sheet folded over, so only a single side was printed — but it makes the box a lot tougher. You’ll also notice the lack of spam on the outside:
The top is plain, as are the sides — there are no feature lists or publicity to mar the simplicity. I didn’t bother to photograph the bottom of the box as it is plain white. Inside, we see the instructions and other labels, miraculously still there after over 30 years.
Full-color printing, even for the tag. Here’s the back:
And the inside:
The instructions, as you can see, were short but sharp. No folding or rolling, no leaving the room while it’s on and, as today, keep away from small children.
Above is the publicity leaflet for the range. The model in the pictures is in fact a heating pad rather than a full-sized blanket, useful for neck pain and, well, warming very small parts of the body or bed. Flip it over and you’ll see this:
This is fairly self-explanatory, other than the fact that it’s in Spanish (more on that in a moment). Finally we get to the blanket itself. Your expectations might be high. After all, look at the effort that went into the packaging. You won’t be disappointed — look at this:
(The lace doily on the table doesn’t come with the blanket, although it is strangely appropriate). Here’s the four-setting switch, close-up:
Tell me where you could find a switch like that today. It might not be particularly waterproof, or even great to use, but it is beautiful to look at. The kit was made by a Barcelona company called Daga, founded in 1921 and still going today. The products, sadly, are hideous in comparison. Here’s the Model LM:
By comparison, here’s the price label from the 1970s:
Embarrassing, huh? Finally, the price:
355 Pesetas, including tax. That comes out at around €1.55 ($2), although those are exchange rates in 2001 before the Peseta disappeared. You are no doubt wondering why the prices along with the rest of the text are in Spanish, or Castellano, rather than Catalan — Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia after all.
The answer is dictatorship. Francisco Franco ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975 and, like many right-wing dictators, suppressed "minorities". This included a ban on the Catalan language, which is the day-to-day language spoken in the autonomous community, and not just a dialect. As you can imagine, this wasn’t very popular.
Thankfully, he didn’t mess with the design, something Barcelona is still famous for today.
