From the Great Minds Think Alike Department came this small piece about two American sportswear designers, Claire McCardell and Vera Maxwell and their admirable approach in creating a light weather coat that served to both keep women warm in springtime gales, yet accommodate the full, billowing skirts that complemented their feminine forms (as well as the hip padding that accompanied many skirts of the Fifties).
Attached, you will find three articles on fur in Fifties fashion: one pertains to fur jewelry, the other two stoles, wraps and coats. They clogged the shelves of every thrift shop, church bazaar and Goodwill outlet throughout all of the 70s and 80s - and during that same period costume designers used them to signify how detached and estranged a feminine antagonist was in dozens of movies and TV productions. We are referring, of course, to the basket bags of the early fifties and their heavy presence in the bric-a-brac shoppes of yore only serve to testify as to how remarkably popular they were as fashion accessories in the land of the free and home of the brave. The attached article from 1952 is illustrated with six images of the various swells of old Palm Beach clinging proudly to their wicker trophies.
(We were delighted to see that basket bags enjoyed a small come-back in the fashion world during the summer of 2017.) "As college girls talked "back to school," it was clear that they had switched their allegiances from saddle shoes
to a new favorite: white bucks . The girls predicted they wouldn't be white long."
Reference is also made to the rounded-button-collar dress shirts that were appearing on the backs of so many college men at that time. "The fabulous jewels worn by the stars in movies look like the real thing, but they are all paste. Most of this fake splendor is produced by Joan Castle Joseff of Hollywood (1912 - 2010) whose factory turns out 90 percent of the jewelry used in pictures. Sometimes an order must be filled in twenty-four hours, to avoid holding up a costly production."
Here are a few short paragraphs accompanied by nine images concerning what the college girls of the early Fifties were wearing:
"A girl can still get into college with a sweater and skirt, but for full credit she needs quantities of gadgets. For campus, girls stick to classic Brooks Brothers sweaters, pleated skirts, blue jeans - but go wild on accessories and underwear novelties..."
The journalist then went to some effort listing many of the fashionable essentials: stamp bracelets, rhinestone handcuff bracelets, silk pleated turtleneck sweaters and harness-neck bib fronts - all to die for.
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