Looking back 1950's Fashion , Style and Trend

FASHION of the 1950s

Petticoats & Full skirts:-
Wide circular or pleated skirts were worn with layers of petticoats to give lift and were prominent in both day and evening wear. Always to mid calf - never shorter but maybe longer for evening wear. Petticoats were several layers of net and generally starched for extra stiffness or frothy chiffon in evening wear in vibrant colours of green, pink and yellow!

Pencil Skirts:-
A narrow, close fitting straight skirt sometimes call a ‘hobble’ skirt restricted women’s walking creating the wiggle look. Fell from natural waist with little excess fabric with a small black split at the back. Pencil line dresses were also very popular for all ages, being a very sophisticated look for more mature women worn with heels and plenty of accessories. (The wiggle dress looks fabulous with a swing coat.) A pencil skirt with a shirt or sweater and worn with flats is a more fun way of wearing the look. Again the skirt length is important - it must be calf length to look really 50s.

The Sweater Girl Look:-
The tight sweater was born in the 40s and would remain popular throughout the 50s. Ironically, it's a little shocking to the modern eye as this look's aim was to emphasise a thrusting conical shaped bust and was invariably worn with a bullet bra. In actual fact, the modern rounded bust shape would have looked peculiar in the 50s - as everyone aimed for this shape bosom. Many vintage dresses accommodate for this shape in their makeup. The sweater evolved from turtleneck into the twin set - a 50s stapl

Men’s Fashion – fashions for men in the 50’s are often thought of in terms of the Fonz and Grease. Well, forget that. These picture are a far more mainstream view of how men actually dressed.

Suits were cut fuller and more comfortable. The prevailing design inspiration was being able to take virtually any man’s body type and make it look good through proper tailoring.

 Men didn’t have many workplace choices for color. Dark blue, dark brown, and charcoal. Even the ties, traditionally men’s flamboyant touch, were uniform and dark. Some time would have to pass before men began to reclaim the sartorial splendor which has been historically theirs. Blue, grey and brown were the choices.

Undergarments & Girdles

1950s Under-It-All Women and teens wore girdles and petticoats. They were uncomfortable. They were hot. They were mandatory.

The Fifties came at the end of a long history of trying to enhance the female form to allure men. Curves were essential to getting the all important husband, thus insuring one’s economic future and fulfilling the proper career of wife and mother.

1950s girdles were still a required undergarment for most dress and even pant shapes of the 1950s. They were preferred over corsets by most women. The slim fitting sheath dress, aka wiggle dress, would expose a woman’s bumps and rolls if it were not for the slimming effect of the mini skirt shape girdle. The skirt only came down to the mid thigh so that women could still walk and sit freely. In the mid 50s the sarong style dominated the market. It had a to panels that crossed in the center of the legs making them even easier to walk in. The most comfortable was the legged girdle, called a panty girdle. Short or long legs both slimmed the hips and thigh. Most modern shapewear is based on the panty girdle style.

PHOTO SOURCE : vintagedancer.com/1950s