You don’t have to be 75 years old to appreciate Bettie Page, much the same way you don’t have to be 47 to appreciate Miley Cyrus—but she does take some coming around to. It’s like trying to get into to the Pixies after growing up on Nirvana, or watching the original Star Wars if you started on the prequels (what are you, an asshole?): to the uninitiated, influences always seem like crude rip-offs of the things they influenced.

But look through enough photos of Bettie, and you begin to realize that, while you may have seen slicker, raunchier, boobier versions of these pics since, you haven’t seen them all feature the same woman. She was a five-tool model, posing on beaches in bikinis or on couches bound in cable, and few women since have been able to replicate her combination of playful flirtation and foreboding seduction. You’ve also never seen anyone since try to pull off those bangs without looking like an total asshole.

Photos from: TheBettiePage.com