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In one of his other verses poet Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971) wrote that women are not female men. In the attached poem he expanded on that thought to a greater degree as he observed women and their approach to fashion.
During the Spring of 1915 Mme. Parisienne had decided that it was time to add some gaiety into her wardrobe. Since August of the previous summer there had been such bad news and although the rationing of fabric continued, there was still much available for the asking.
Click to read about the U.S. fabric rationing during W.W. II.
A Parisienne with a good many thoughts regarding menswear goes to some length to impart that men are dressing worse, not better, and the substitution of the dinner jacket (read: Tuxedo) for the tail-coat is an example of the slovenliness to come.
You are entirely wrong in imagining that we pay no attention to the way men dress…The truth is that while we may say nothing, we do not in the least consent, and we find, messieurs, that for some time now you have been very much changed, and for the worse.
Click here to read about the fashion legacy of W.W. I…
To read about one of the fashion legacies of W.W. II, click here…
Click here to read about the origins of the T-shirt.
The California fashion critic who penned this article believed that the fashions of Christian Dior stood firmly in opposition to the optimistic, Twentieth Century casual elegance of Claire McCardell (1905 – 1958) and Adrian (1903 – 1959). She could not bare Dior, with his vulgar penchant to spin
the feminine figure in the unconventional manner, trying to make her look good where she ain’t. He seeks the ballet dancer illusion – natural, rounded shoulders, too weak to support a struggling world…Her waist is pinched in an exaggerated indentation, the better to emphasize her padded hips…There are butterfly sleeves, box pockets, belled jackets, and barreled skirts, suggesting something like a Gibson girl, or whatever grandmother should have worn.
Click here to read a 1961 article about Jacqueline Kennedy’s influence on American fashion.
Attached herein, you will find the fashionable coats, suits, shoes and cufflinks for men from the harsh winter of 1919 that had been approved by the Fifth Avenue swells of the VANITY FAIR editorial department.
In merely nine paragraphs the attached men’s fashion magazine article from 1950 outlines the style and fabric that was put to use in the manufacturing of men’s underwear between 1890 through the Forties (wool to nylon).
The deans who presided over Literary Digest made this article their lead piece, so urgent was the sensation that an onslaught of vengeful modernist women, so fleet of foot and irreverently unhampered by hanging hems and confining corsets, were approaching their New York offices as their first act in disassembling the patriarchy.
In the February of 1947, he opened eyes and mouths all over the world by showing almost-ankle-length daytime dresses. In the United States this length was christened the New Look. And Christian Dior had won, by inches the title, King of Fashion. His title is still secure. Dior designs accounted for an estimated 60% of total haute couture exports last year.
Unearthed by a team of underpaid urban anthropologists digging all hours in the skankiest and most vile of magazine repositories was this single page of feminine poesy representative of an obscure, forgotten genre of Twentieth Century prosody that celebrated a brash cast of woman that was once known as a Flapper.
Alas, the name of the poet has been lost to time.
They sip your favorite coffee, drive your dream car, display the latest fashions, show you how to cook a waffle: they are potent forces in the scheme of American advertising. Their faces and figures adorn the covers of countless magazines…often they develop into stars of the cinema. They come from all over America to an office on Park Avenue, New York, where a quiet, discerning man named John Robert Powers appraises their charms and schools them for the job of selling sables to society or groceries to the great American housewife.
Beginning in the mid-Twenties and spanning the years leading up to the late Forties, John Robert Powers (1892 – 1977) created and maintained the first modeling agency in New York City (if not the world) and during the Forties, the Powers Agency grossed over five million dollars a year. Attached are nine photos of the most popular fashion models he represented in 1941; a unique breed of woman known at the time as Powers girls.
Marguerite O’Kane, a genuine enthusiast of the Arts and Crafts Movement, enjoyed the unique distinction of writing the first review for American VOGUE covering the work of Mariano Fortuny (Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo: 1871 – 1949). Although celebrated in Europe since making his first gown in 1906, the Knossos Scarf, a long sheer silk rectangle inspired by the costumes of ancient Crete, he was unknown to most fashion-minded Americans until this article appeared during the closing weeks of 1912.
Iconic fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent began his meteoric career as a very young man; click here to read about him.
Hair as short as a boy’s and feathered into wisps about the face… Accented waist… Long slim look… Spread-eagle effect about the shoulders obtained by deep armholes, bloused backs, big collars or little capes… Mostly narrow skirts but still plenty of full ones.
– so begins the attached two page Spring fashion review that was torn from the Women’s Page of the January 25, 1950 issue of Pathfinder Magazine. Judging from the six photographs that illustrate the column, Christian Dior continued call the tunes that other fashion designers had to dance to if they expected to attract a following. The New York designers whose efforts were singled out for praise were Lilly Daché, Hattie Carnegie, Ben Reig, Ceil Chapman and Vera Jacobs of Capri Originals.
By 1948 the business of fashion modeling had developed into a $15,000,000-a-year industry. This article examines just how such changes evolved in just a ten year span of time:
American advertising struck pay dirt when it discovered the super salesgirls whose irresistible allure will sell anything from a bar of soap to a seagoing yacht…Always there was the secret whisper of sex. For women it was, ‘Be lovely, be loved, don’t grow old, be exciting’… For men it was, ‘Be successful, make everyone know that your successful, how can you get women if your not successful?’
The importance of attractive girls in our economy was stressed by John McPartland when he discussed modern advertising in his recent best seller, Sex in Our Changing World (1947).
Legendary fashion designer Christian Dior had a good deal of trouble with people who would illegally copy his designs; click here to read about that part of fashion history.
Although sunglasses had slowly inched their way forward in popularity since the late Twenties, the attached article declared that by 1939 sunglasses were officially recognized as a full-fledged fashion accessory when the Hollywood stars Joan Bennet and Hedy Lamar began to sport them around town.
Like T-shirts and khaki pants, it would be W.W. II that would provide sunglasses with a guaranteed spot on fashion stage for the next sixty-five years.
Click here to read a 1961 article about Jacqueline Kennedy’s influence on American fashion.
The only big fashion innovation popular enough to share the 1947 headlines with Dior’s New Look involved the evolution in women’s swimwear; most notably the Bikini. The attached single page article pertains to all the new fabrics being deployed in ladies beachwear and all their assorted coverups:
Sand-and-sun fashions for this summer are perter and briefer than ever before. Although the typical bathing suit covers just about 2.5 square feet of a swimmer’s anatomy, a costume-look for the beach is achieved with a companion cape, skirt of short coat… Favored fabrics are those made to ride the waves. Knitted wool shows up in both classic and unusual designs. Colors are softer and muted. Black and blue appear most often, with cider, gray and smudge the ‘high-style’ shades.
•Click here to learn about women’s fashions from the Summer of 1934•
Dusty, Peggy and Jean were just three of the co-eds that made up the six percent of American women who attended college in 1941 – and that’s all that was required of them in order for the trio to sample fashion’s latest wares and sound-off in the attached Fall fashion review. Go figure.
With the exception of the broad-brimmed sun hat pictured in the attached fashion editorial, you will find that women’s hats were growing smaller throughout the course of the Forties and they tended to sit farther back on the cranium, requiring hairdos that would accommodate and complement these creations.
The Sally Victor hat composed of red cherries took its inspiration directly from the bizarre, comical costumes worn by the actress Carmen Miranda. This fruit theme was typical of many post-war milliners. The six other hats in the piece were by two American designers: Lilly Dache and John-Frederics.
Click here to see what men’s summer hats were like during this period.
