Fashion and Trends in the 50’s

1. Fashion and Trends in the 50’s Derek Robinson

2. Clothing • The 1950’s clothing saw the dominance of designer names such as Christian Dior. Dior’s garments gave a more feminine appeal for women in terms of fashion • This period saw the dominance of pink pumps and beehive hairstyles. Brands were launched and designers created new fashion trends. • Women switched to trendy coats instead of the traditional shawls. One also saw the large use of feathers in the 1950’s fashion. Long knee length coats, which had loose sleeves, caught on really well in the 1950s. Fabrics such as silk were widely used and furs also occupied an important place in the wardrobes of most women

3. Accessories • The pointed pre-formed conically stitched bra was actually a fashion accessory, as without one the sweater girl look was certainly not right.  Fashionable accessories included popper beads and spectacles with enormous wings that arched upward in twirls that could be studded with rhinestones. • Hats added the final touch of 1950s glamour to a woman or girl's outfit, particularly in the early fifties.   Last year's dress or suit could be updated easily with a new hat or a fresh ornament such as flowers, an autumnal bunch of acorns and leaves, or a bunch of cherries. •  Bags in the 1950s were literally handbags and usually held by the hand or over the arm in the fashion followed by Grace Kelly who used her Hermes bag to hide her pregnancy.

4. Slang • Fifties slang wasn't particularly colorful as these things go. The Sixties, with its drug and protest culture to draw from, would be slang heaven. In the Fifties, hot-rodders and Beats provided inspiration • actor: show-off • agitate the Gravel: to leave (hot-rodders) • ain’t that a bite?: that’s too bad • ankle-biter: a child • anti-frantic: poised • apple butter: smooth talk or flattery • are you writing a book?: you're asking too many questions • Many of these words, in fact most words can have "ville" added to them. There was coolsville, deadsville, Doodyville, squaresville, weirdsville and so forth.

5. Hair Styles • From the classic 50’s TV show I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball trotted along the stage sporting her wicked red poodle cut fifties hairstyle. The 1950s were all about soft and curly, no one wanted long or straight hair, it just wasn’t the style then. • So to create 1950s hairstyles you would have to either roll and pin, and sleep in your curlers, or perm your hair to keep those curls, but even then you would have had to pin your hair up. • Now 1950s hairstyles for men, for cool men, would have to be the D.A. or ducktail. For the cool white males to get this look they would comb the hair on the sides back and grease it, that is how the term greasers came about

6. Advertisement • In 1955 the religious magazine Christianity and Crisis lamented the pressure on Americans to "consume, consume and consume, whether we need or even desire the products almost forced upon us. • The sophisticated research into the psychology of consumers was only one indication of American businesses emphasis on advertising during the decade. Another was the amount of money advertisers spent. • Sponsors also exerted considerable influence over the content of programming, out of fear of offending potential consumers

7. Comics • Toward the end of World War II super-heroes declined in readership and genres like romance, jungle, funny animal, western, teen, war, science fiction and others had their surges in popularity from 1946 -1954. • In 1952 approximately 150 horror and dozens of crime comic book titles choked the nation¹s newsstands. Titles like Haunt of Fear, Tales from the Crypt, Adventures into Terror showed graphic images of gore, severed heads, cannibalism,  and torture. • In October 1954 many publishers banded together to form the Comics Code Authority to regulate the moral contents of comic books. • In April 1954 Wertham  and comic book industry spokesmen testified before the US Senate Sub-committee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency.

8. Baby Boom • The term "Baby Boom" is used to identify a massive increase in births following World War II. Baby boomers are those people born worldwide between 1946 and 1964, the time frame most commonly used to define them. • In the United States, approximately 79 million babies were born during the Baby Boom. Much of this cohort of nineteen years (1946-1964) grew up with Woodstock, the Vietnam War, and John F. Kennedy as president. • New births continued to grow throughout the 1940s and 1950s, leading to a peak in the late 1950s with 4.3 million births in 1957 and 1961.

9. New Inventions • The 50’s saw a number of important inventions that substantially changed the lives of present generation. • The videocassette recorder was invented in 1956. The company Ampex introduced it. The first model was Ampex VRX-1000, which costed 50,000 US Dollars. This was obviously unaffordable for the ordinary people and only television networks used it. The primary function of the video recorder is recording and replaying video and audio signals. • Barcode- It is found in almost all items now. This is a code, which is unique for each item. A barcode scanner reads the code. Joseph Woodland, Jordan Johansson and Bernard Silver invented it in 1952. It was initially used to identify railroad cars.

10. Credit – Credit Cards • Credit Card - Diner’s club introduced it in 1950. Later American Express issued in 1958. The Credit card is a plastic card. This eliminates the need to carry cash. One can pay for goods and services by swiping the Credit card. One can use the Credit card to withdraw cash from automated teller machines. Credit cards are used universally in this age. • By 1950 people generally recognized that the nation's economy—the financial performance of its businesses—affects every American personally. The security of our jobs and how much we earn doing them, the cost of the goods we buy, the price we pay to borrow money, and the interest we get by saving it are all directly related to the health of the economy. During the 1950s the American economy was the strongest in the world. • The first Diners Club credit cards were given out in 1950 to 200 people and accepted by 14 restaurants in New York.

11. Works Cited • www.google.com • www.bing.com • www.ask.com