Elizabeth Arden Pin Cushion Perfume Presentations

In the late 1930s and into the 1950s, Elizabeth Arden offered several different pin cushion themed perfume presentations. Sometimes the cushion itself was different, heart shaped one year, hat shaped in another, blue covered one year and pink the next. These are very rare as the perfume was often contained in tiny stoppered bottles on the end of a pin, simulating a hat pin from yesteryear. Other presentations included real pins that you could use as well as a small bottle of perfume attached to the cushion.

1940 Elizabeth Arden "Hatpin" perfume presentation, a miniature bust of felt and other hat trims, with glass perfume bottle hatpin. Ribbon label Elizabeth Arden. 6 1/2 in. 

Photos by Perfume Bottles Auction (close up showing tiny hat pin perfume bottle) 

Price realized: $700 in 2010.

Tide of Advertising and Marketing, 1939:

"Take Elizabeth Arden...She's got a new "Perfume Pincushion", a flower and lace trimmed pale blue rayon satin sacheted pincushion that cries for a Victorian hat. In it are thrust pink, yellow, blue and mauve stoppered glass hatpins. Fasten your veil with one, stick one in your lapel, or pin your corsage with it."

1930s Elizabeth Arden “Perfume Pin-Ups” Blue Grass perfume bottle, clear glass, plastic screw-cap, label, box with sachet cushion and three hatpins. Bottle 2 in. Photos by Perfume Bottles Auction.

Price realized: $100 in 2012. Described in the original ad below.

The New Yorker, 1939:

"Elizabeth Arden, always highly imaginative where lovely femininity is concerned (pink is no discovery to her), offers Easter presents that are the height of delicate froufrou. A notable one is a blue satin-covered old-fashioned pincushion with four pins stuck in it."

Stage, 1939:

"Elizabeth Arden's little gadgets are always amusing and charming. Now it's four perfume pins on a blue satin, moss- fringed pin-cushion."

Dance, 1940:

"Elizabeth Arden has put four of her perfume pins around a rosette of posies in an old-fashioned pincushion made gay and young with a cerise satin top and an edge of starched frills. The perfume pins are glass bubbles of perfume."

Cue, 1950:

"There are, too, several beguiling perfume novelties: An artful red velvet, heart shaped pin cushion from Elizabeth Arden, with four pearl stickpins holding in place a bottle of "My Love." $6.50"