To not cut up hairs, however the look of the Fifties was actually born just a few years prior. When lecturers speak about Fifties trend historical past, the period is normally outlined as 1947-1957—and simply so occurs to coincide with the years that Christian Dior operated his trend label. After the designer’s untimely loss of life in 1957, 21-year-old Yves Saint Laurent took the reigns on the Dior, closing out the last decade together with his beatnik-inspired assortment of 1960.
Throughout this notorious period, trend reached its most glamorous top, reflecting the world’s eagerness to go away wartime rations and austerity measures behind. The world was in dire want of magnificence and the style business delivered—after which some.
Celebrating the tip of World Battle II meant celebrating girls as girls, capital W—with nipped waists, voluminous skirts, impeccably made-up hair, and equipment for each potential event. For higher or worse, the coordination of hats, gloves, and purses—the not-a-hair-out-of-place commonplace of the period—gave girls innumerable modern and beauty diversions. The last decade could be remembered as a step again for girls, who chased heavenly ether-levels of magnificence, however boy, did it ship some fabulous appears to be like.
Photographed by John Rawlings, Vogue, September 1957
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, September 1953
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, September 1954
Photographed by Karen Radkai, Vogue, September 1956
Photographed by Henry Clarke, Vogue, September 1955
Photographed by Erwin Blumenfeld, Vogue, April 1, 1954
Ladies’s Traits of the Fifties: The Hourglass Silhouette Reigns
Dior’s New Look Leads
The silhouette put forth by Christian Dior in his 1947 New Look Corelle Line assortment dominated the Fifties. The nipped-in-the-waist clothes, which exaggerated the female silhouette, represented a rapid-speed swing of the pendulum; within the Nineteen Forties, masculine silhouettes with crisp wartime shoulders and slim hips dominated. Now, shoulders have been softened with padding that rounded them, waists have been snatched and shrunk to Victorian proportions, and hips have been exaggerated with tulle and crinolines that added bulk. The aim? A supremely “female” silhouette.
Vogue’s Paris Assortment report from the March 1, 1952 challenge put it succinctly: “It begins on the waistline. The waist is what catches the attention immediately. It is newly excessive, it is newly low, or it is each.. but it surely’s all the time there, all the time confused, and since that is the case, trend appears to be like extra female than it has in years.”
The aesthetic is famously thought of to be led by Dior however all his contemporaries have been on board and championing the look in their very own methods. Balenciaga, Balmain, Jacques Fath, Hardie Amies, and extra have been churning out ultra-glamorous, extremely female clothes for a lot of the decade.
A full-length night two-piece with mink cuffs by Dior, September 1954John Chillingworth/Getty Pictures
Photographed by Roger Prigent, Vogue, March 15, 1956
Photographed by Irving Penn, Vogue, September 1950
Couture’s Golden Age
Paris Rebounds After its Occupation
“The Chambre Syndicale de la Couture has requested that each one publications exhibiting Paris fashions from this assortment publish the next line—to use to all fashions proven: ‘Copyrighted mannequin—copy forbidden.’ After all, this doesn’t apply to retailers and makers who’ve purchased the unique fashions.” This PSA was printed in Vogue’s September 15, 1951 challenge in “Paris Collections Notice.”
