In praise of ashtrays

I've never been tempted to smoke, having witnessed my Dad's agony quitting cold turkey when I was a child. That said, I'm attracted to imagery of people smoking, especially in old movies.

If you need a refresher on what I mean, watch Rita Hayworth in Gilda. Her smouldering performance is only intensified by how she handles a lit cigarette.

Check out this three-minute clip, featuring her first appearance in the movie:

This contradiction of mine – being wary of smoking and at same time bewitched by the gestures and meanings that go along with it – came to mind when I recently inherited an ashtray from my Mom.

It's not just any ashtray. It's the one I grew up with. Although I can't remember it filled with actual ashes, I recall it being a permanent fixture on our living room coffee table. In its day, it was as standard as having a front door.

Now it sits on my own coffee table, its phosphorescent blue bringing an entire lost world with it. I'm a little in awe of how such a compact thing can have such a room-filling aura.

It also has the power to startle. We're used to seeing catch-alls and trays of various sizes as part of the home decor lexicon. But those little notches are a giveaway that this object is for another, now unfamiliar, purpose.

Looking back into the haze

The era of ubiquitous smoking is something writer and critic Luc Sante explores in a book I recently picked up at Pandemonium. His introductory essay alone is worth the price of admission.

In stylish prose, he plumbs the mysteries of cigarettes and their ever-shifting cultural manifestations. What your brand of choice might signify, your way of holding your cigarette, even the way you exhale... all these subtle signifiers undergo his scrutiny.

What follows is a brilliantly curated collection of photos encompassing everything from celebrities smoking to seductive package design, interspersed with provocative quotations. It's a backwards look into a set of everyday meanings that are now almost completely forbidden.

A clever design move encapsulates this peculiar situation. The book comes in a giant cigarette pack that flips open just like the real thing. It recalls the bygone pleasures of gearing up for a smoke, then reminds us of the present day with its title: NO SMOKING.

A proposal

Let me suggest something: Maybe it's possible to recapture what was special about smoking's twentieth-century meanings without adding cigarettes to your life. Maybe adding an ashtray or two to your environment is enough to conjure up moods and manners that we thought we had left behind.

An ashtray's simplicity is part of its appeal. It needs to be shaped to corral ashes, it needs to be small scaled for swift relocation and it needs to have a few notches for resting cigarettes on. A designer can be endlessly inventive in meeting these three requirements.

It's even possible to dispense with the third requirement. Check out this notchless beauty that I picked up at Williams Design a while back:

It's like the kooky love child of a Roy Lichtenstein painting and a flying saucer.

Over to you

Just like last week, I have an assignment for you. Go shopping for a vintage ashtray, either in person (preferable) or online.

To get you started, at the time of this writing, a Haeger ceramic ashtray is available at Guff for $45.

Place your ashtray in a prominent spot in your home and see what happens.

Does the room feel different? Do you feel that a hidden side of your personality is about to be unleashed?

Let me know. Let's compare ashtray notes and move forward together into the magic of collecting vintage design.