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Clothing Fashions since WWII

by Rit Nosotro

Change Over Time essay

How have ideologies in western culture affected fashion and modesty since the 1950's?

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Thesis:

Summary:

Gender, sensuality, ethnicity, subcultures, and even government policies have impacted fashion. Designers continue to try to express their values to a changing culture that will in turn value their designs with big money. Clothing styles represent certain ideas which symbolize the culture that wears the clothing. Over time, the messages implied by now well worn fashions lose their meaning and new fashions are promoted to which reflect and suggest new fashion statements.

As World War II drew to a close, history was redefining fashion. During WWII the fashion industry had been limited due to rations on fabric. Fashion centers had been interrupted. Men had gone off to war and women filled their jobs on the home front. These all shaped fashion in the late 1940’s and 50’s.

Because of the fabric rations, and advertisers playing on man's lust for flesh, skirts became shorter and the bikini was invented. While WWII interrupted fashion centers, the industry changed so that companies began buying collections off the runway and making mass quantities. More and more people began to dress well for less. And finally as men came home back to their normal jobs some women did not want to go back to being housewives. Women had adopted a "dress-suit", complete with padded shoulders, which immated the male figures whose jobs they had held during the war years.

In the 50’s women dressed to look feminine and clothes glorified the female body. One women’s reporter summarized the ideology well: “Marriage is… best. A career is nice and will come if she has the time and energy… but first things first! Take her clothes she has no desire to be bizarre, conspicuous or extreme… The boys don’t approve…” In her book, “Wife Dressing” Anne Fogarty expressed the idea that women were supposed to dress to please their husbands. A woman’s clothes, she thought, should represent a good housewife and femininity. Designers often included these ideas in their designs. Dresses were made to emphasize curves. They were elegantly designed with ultra small wastes and full skirts.

Up to this time young girls dressed much like their mothers yet over the years this would change. When Barbie was invented as a simple girls’ toy it spurred a separate teen fashion in the later 1950’s. Casual sweaters with full skirts or pants became common as they were good for dancing to the new music genre: rock n’ roll. Also at that time leather jackets represented rebellion among the youth. Perhaps this was a forewarning of what was coming in the 60’s.

In 1965 Vogue stated, “People are talking about… Vietnam and the Negro Revolution and Youthquake… the eruption of the young in every field.” The youth began overstepping traditional boundaries and standards. They had a huge effect on the clothes of that time.

Teen styles grew even more distinct. In London Designers began to hire youth to design every day clothes for teen girls. Many teen styles originated from music and were designed for “rockers.” One popular designer of the time, Mary Quant, began devising “fun”, “exciting” and “demure” clothes based on what the new generation was already wearing. Youth wanted non-traditional clothes. During the decade miniskirts and bright clothes would gain popularity.

In the past generations fashion designers emphasized sex appeal by dressing women in clothes which extenuated curves, especially in the breasts and hips. Designers portrayed sex appeal in matured women’s bodies, not young thin girls. Yet with the invention of birth control pills, girls began having sex at a younger age. Therefore designers sought to give the young girl’s body sex appeal. British journalist Catherine Storr said of the new style involving sexual appeal in the youthful look, “a sexually attractive appeal which… heralded women’s freedom, albeit sartorially… and by extension freed their sexuality.” The ideal body was that of young girls: thin with few curves.

With a new focus in sex appeal, legs became the new focal point. Hence mini skirts grew very popular. Many clothes made for tall slim girls were being designed in London and sold well in the US. The British press commented, “Legs never had it so good.” By 1969 hem lines became very high and Paris featured short miniskirts and sheer shirts.

As youth rebelled against traditional values and embraced their sexuality, homosexuality became more accepted. From this came a new style: mod, later this morphed into the hippie look. Designers associated the new symbolic style with homosexuality and rebellion. Mods dressed in bright geometric colors. Later hippies reflected the style by wearing vivid psycadelic clothes associated with drugs. During the mid-1960’s Betsey Johnson captured the hippie attitude in her clear plastic dresses and ultra-small skirts and shirts. She said, “My clothes are for young people who are saying, ‘Look at me. I’m alive.’”

After a decade of hippies and the sexual revolution, western culture entered the 1970’s with a self-oriented attitude. Tom Wolfe called it “The Me Decade.” During that time women sought individualism by disregarding fashion and wearing whatever they pleased. Nobody wanted to say what was in or out. Fashion was about a women’s right to choose what she wanted to wear. (Does that remind you of abortion, which was legalized in the 70’s?)

During the 60’s skirts had gotten so short that in the 70’s they could only get longer. Designers began to make skirts down to the knee however, still the skirts showed off women’s legs because of their huge slits. Many people did not like the new skirt lengths, as Mollie Parnis stated, “In this age of emphasis on sex and youth, no women is going to add twenty years to her age by wearing skirts below her knees.”

Meanwhile feminists were angered by miniskirts feeling that they turned women into sex objects; however they were also angered that designers were trying to get women to wear knee length skirts known as “midis’. Due to the skirt controversy and women’s liberation movement, some women to began to wear pants which represented masculine dominance. However soon they became a fashion norm and lost their symbolism.

During this time, hippies were setting trends. Hippies took interest in ethnic styles, specifically Middle Eastern and South American and tie-die shirts became very common.

Music also had an impact. Disco, which people formerly associated with homosexuals, became more accepted. Because of this, disco dresses became popular and developed into women’s clothing that looked much like lingerie.

The free dressing of the 70’s merged into the “over the top” styles of the 80’s, often called the “Decade of Greed”. Rolling Stone termed it “the Gimme Decade” and Wall Street captured the attitude stating “Greed is good.” Fashion reflected this outlook with over-decorated, gaudy clothes and during that time fashion designers mixed humor and sex appeal in order to concoct outrageous clothes.

Meanwhile sex appeal was also incorporated in athletic clothes. Society no longer considered it fashionable to have the right body shape; emphasis was on physical fitness. Consequently aerobics, jogging and bodybuilding, increased in popularity. Women wanted to look muscular and toned.

Emphasis on sexuality was increasing and designers helped its growth.

Designer Azzedine Alaia, began to created “body worshipping” clothes meant to emphasize womanly curves. Alaiah stated, “The moment when a woman can show off her body is so short, they have to make the most of it. A young women with bare shoulders, a low-cut top, that’s a gift of nature.” Skirts he designed “capped the buttocks in no uncertain manner.” His designs highlighted sexuality. Fashion journalist, Joan Juliet Buck, commented that women wearing his designs looked like “highly sexualized versions of Darth Vader.”

Meanwhile Calvin Kline was creating jeans that epitomized sexiness. And the public bought them, as Klein stated, “The tighter they are, the better they sell.” As his ads and commercials grew increasingly sexually explicit journalist Michael Gross commented, “Quant morality is banished.” Fashion outlets were slowly attempting to desensitize the already sex-centered culture.

During the 80’s fashion took another turn. Giorgio Armani began designing clothes for men which portray them as sex objects. Now not only were women dressing like prostitutes, so were men. Examples of his clothes and their effect on culture can be seen in the 1980’s film, “American Gigolo.”

The 90’s ushered in the grunge look followed by other fads. In the early 90’s people began buying thrift store clothes. They were aiming for an old worn out style. After the grunge look passed the pious look became popular for a few years. During this time crosses and clothes designed after monks’ garbs were popular. Ironically, the ‘power slut” look entered fashion right after the pious look lost popularity. Women wanted to look sexy and portray female dominance, and flashy make-up was in.

In recent times it is hard to determine fashion trends of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Currently designers are bringing back styles of mixed eras. Mixing old clothes from multiple decades is in. Many stores carry tarry cloth skirts, hippie tunics, peasant skirts, cardigans, and lingerie tank tops- all come from separate eras. Unlike past retro fads in which people wore clothed from one decade, people are borrowing clothes from various decades and wearing them together. Gia Pia Bandini commented: “The fashion of today lacks certainty because we live in an uncertain time. Old styles represent a comfort zone where kids feel validated and secure because the looks have already happened and been accepted.” Sarah Thaller added another outlook: “The look is about pairing the conventional with the unconventional. Teens are beginning to rely less on revealing skin as a shock factor and more on eye catching combinations of clothes.” As the decade develops we will see how fashion changes.

Though through history fashion has developed and changed, yet changes have always been centered on current ideologies, the body, and sex. As attitude toward women changed the way they dressed changed. In the 50’s fashion glorified the developed women’s body and the homemaker image. Yet as ideas changed and women had sex at younger ages, clothes reflected the change. The 70’s reflected the selfish attitude of the 60’s generation and, along with abortion, it ushered in a phase of fashion freedom. With the 80’s came, gaudiness, bright colors and fitness worship. While historians still are determining present time, we can be sure of one thing, human outlook and attitude to toward fashion will never drastically change. As Solomon said, ‘What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

Clothing styles actually change very little over the centuries as sexual immodesty and self-worship have motivated designers for centuries.

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Sources:

Steele, Valerie. Fifty Years of Fashion. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997

Thaller, Sarah. “Old ‘New’ Look”. Washington Post.

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