The Fifties/Analysis: Difference between revisions

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'''Fashion:'''

* What we now think of as Fifties fashion is a combination of what actors and actresses in the Fifties wore on TV and in movies, and what [[Hollywood Costuming|Hollywood costumers]] in [[The Seventies]] thought people in the Fifties wore. See [http://www.fiftiesweb.com/fashion/fashion.htm here] for examples of real clothing from the time. Keep in mind that much of this clothing was still frequently home-made; one of the ironies of the time was that buying off the rack (ie. mass-produced) clothing was seen as a high-end luxury while hand-tailoring was the province of poorer families. That said, the tailoring was not done with an eye to comfort. Women's clothing especially was designed to fit very snugly, and very little of it was knit so it had no give. You basically had to move carefully -- not, theoretically, a problem for the sedate and lady-like Fifties feminine ideal -- and hope that none of the seams would tear.

* What we now think of as Fifties fashion is a combination of what actors and actresses in the Fifties wore on TV and in movies, and what [[Hollywood Costuming|Hollywood costumers]] in [[The Seventies]] thought people in the Fifties wore. See [https://web.archive.org/web/20131005092420/http://www.fiftiesweb.com/fashion/fashion.htm here] for examples of real clothing from the time. Keep in mind that much of this clothing was still frequently home-made; one of the ironies of the time was that buying off the rack (ie. mass-produced) clothing was seen as a high-end luxury while hand-tailoring was the province of poorer families. That said, the tailoring was not done with an eye to comfort. Women's clothing especially was designed to fit very snugly, and very little of it was knit so it had no give. You basically had to move carefully -- not, theoretically, a problem for the sedate and lady-like Fifties feminine ideal -- and hope that none of the seams would tear.

* As for men, blue-collar labourers wore what was known as "work clothes" -- usually cotton shirts and trousers. Many never owned a suit, and very few men generally spent their leisure hours in a tie as per ''[[Father Knows Best]]''. It was actually very common for off-duty dads in the Fifties to hang around the house wearing a stained undershirt with holes in it and a pair of worn-out work pants, since the only casual wear they could afford was their cast-off work clothes.

* Women had begun wearing slacks as a practical matter during the war -- bolstered by such celebrity pioneers as Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn -- and the trend continued to gain acceptance throughout the next decade. But appearing decorous in public still usually entailed a dress or full skirt, on more formal occasions accessorised with a hat and white gloves -- though by the end of the decade this was more associated with older, rather fussy upper-class ladies. The cutting-edge designers of the decade (Chanel, Dior, Givenchy) focused almost exclusively on these demure, ''uber''-feminine silhouettes.