the 80’s were a great time. The creation of MTV revolutionized fashion, the music industry and even how we watched TV. For others, it was nothing but bad hair, worse clothing and music that often had more to do with machines than talent. We take the former approach and relish the excess and outrageous fashions that the 80s managed to make mainstream. We didn't accessorize , we "excessorized" to the max!
The clothes worn in the 80s depicted people who were trying to find themselves. They looked for ways to express their creativity and individuality.
Oversized Tops,Leg Warmers, huge earrings, finger-less gloves, parachute pants, member only jackets (cliques), over sized tops, neon colors, spandex, fish nets, jelly shoes, acid wash and So much more was introduced during the 1980's.
Flashdance was a popular eighties film that had a big impact on womens fashion with its funky styles that brought professional dancewear such as leggings and leg warmers to the streets. Colorful leotards, ripped over sized sweaters and sweatshirts worn off the shoulder and flashy eighties boots still look great today when put together right. The movie Dirty Dancing is a great example of this trend.
1970's fashionwas an eclectic mix of both a new and modern decade and the things long forgotten. The 1970s was still ingrained with the 60s flower power so hippie and ethnic influences were a big part of the people's style.The 1970's consisted of many new individual trends such as the disco, rebel, hippy trend.
in the 1977 the film Saturday Night fever, which starred John Travolta helped create The "disco look", complete with three-piece suits for men and wrap dresses for women, which the film further popularized, lasted until it was gradually replaced by punk fashion and straight, cigarette-legged jeans. Platform shoes also then began the hottest shoe to wear.
The rebel or punk looked represented a type of bad-ass look. This time incorporated a lot leather into their clothing Also many people began to put on patches onto their clothing to make one alike pieces.
During the hippy trend flared out jeans where the hottest thing in style for male and female. Also the floral print and bright colors was still around in the 1970s and helped add to this trend . Tie dye was a new printed that was introduced at this time.
fashion show that Incorporated the 3 major fashions of the 1970's.
1960 began a decade which may well be recorded as one of the most fashion-conscious periods in recent history, challenging the 1890s and the 1920s. Even the American Presidential election campaigns made fashion an issue, when the wives of the two Presidential candidates became the storm center of a headlined controversy over the source and cost of their respective wardrobes, their taste in clothes, and their comparative rating among the international "best dressed."
Layered effects were important in fashion: tunic tops, tiered skirts, and hem flounces were strongly shown. Many designers used double layers of chiffon or print covered with organza to form a dress or a costume.
Day clothes remained simple and colorful. Sleeveless dresses dominated the smart collections, usually covered by jackets or coats to form a costume. Many clothes abandoned collars in favor of contrasting colored piping which also edged the jacket and pockets or cuffs.
Color was very important in the 1960's. Like silhouette, color was feminine and mellow. Sugary pinks, salad greens, yellows, and candy colors were popular. For daytime wear, mellow neutrals were worn with flashes of blue, from marine to ice. Red, white, and blue punctuated combinations for morning, afternoon, and evening wear. Prints appeared predominantly in bold black and white and in tones of green. Silk prints appeared throughout the year, in "pretty'' rather than bizarre designs. Resist prints were :Also popular. Black, particularly in silk, returned as the loading basic. Fall prints were rich, vivid, and strange; Picasso blurs and greens, rids and oranges, odd browns, and black and white appeared in every fabric and most types of costume. Cashmere wool colors were bright, and spring and summer colors tinted winter-weight town-and-country clothes, Prominent were such out-of-season colors as pale green, sky blur, white, oyster, cream, dandelion yellow, and peppermint pink.
After World War II, there was a huge push to get women back into the home and the kitchen, to do the traditionally womanly duties of raising children and looking after the house. In magazines, television programs, books and other media, the housewife, or "homemaker," was lauded as the supreme goal; going against one's "femininity".
1950s fashion was an integral part of this push. Unlike the boxy silhouettes of rationed 1940s uniforms, 1950s fashions emphasized fragile femininity, in the form of soft shoulders, stiletto heels, wrist-length gloves and full, billowing skirts. Even working women's outfits hinted at fragility, with pencil-slim skirts and little hats with veil and feathers.
The "New Look" for 1950s women actually originated in the 1940s, with Christian Dior's seminal collection called Corolle. This collection contrasted the austere, "make do and mend" aesthetic of 1940s fashion with full skirts, soft shoulders, and a tight waist, emphasizing the bust and the hourglass-shaped figure.
Dior would go on to invent more haute couture 1950s fashions, with names like the Princess Line, the Profile Line, the A Line, and the H Line. His influence remained high throughout the 1950s. Other fashion houses were forced to follow his innovations.
The most fashionable color scheme of the year was black and white, used day and night, winter and summer, and in either proportion—black with white accessories, or white with black accessories. There was a big wave of Spanish colours, like a rich yellow or ruby red worn with accents of black. This Spanish influence was also felt in the widespread use of ball fringe, jet and passementerie, and many hats were of Spanish inspiration, resembling those worn by matadors
Another feature of 1950 fashions that persisted from the 1920s revival was sleevelessness. Sleeveless dresses were worn for all four seasons of the year. Women liked them because of the easy fit they gave through the shoulders. Sleeveless blouses were also worn and, for evening, harness tops that were hardly more than yokes around the neck.
This is a fashion show taken in New York of 1950's fashion.
Considering 1940s fashion is usually described as being that of drab colors, functional cuts and all-around limited creativity due to wartime restrictions and military style, you probably think people are crazy to call the ’40s an era that “rocked.”
But you see, that’s exactly what the ’40s was all about: It rocked a woman’s closet because the war literally stopped the trends, and women had to make due with the limited inspiration and fabric available as World War II raged.
Not only did designers stop designing from 1939 to 1945, but the government set limits on how much nylon, wool and other materials a woman could purchase to make her clothing.
It was the absence of designers and these wartime restrictions that forced women to adapt, improvise and get creative when it came to choosing their wardrobe. Despite restrictions, awesome trends still emerged from the decade and some of these styles are quintessential pieces in the modern woman’s closet today.
1940s fashion investments were strategic and smart. Women purchased classic pieces that they could wear for seasons to come. Their coats needed to be as versatile as the rest of their wardrobe.
Pencil skirts were popular in the ’40s because women quite literally couldn’t wear longer skirts due to government restrictions on the amount of materials used in garments.
In 1942, the War Production Board announced order that said jackets could be no more than 25 inches in length, pants no more than 19 inches in circumference at the hem, belts no more than two inches wide and heels no more than an inch in height!
Knee-length coats came into vogue in the 1940s because of fabric restrictions. No longer was it considered trendy to wear a maxi-length coat made from rich, warm fabrics like wool. Even if you had the money to buy a luxurious and lengthy style, clothing brands were bowing to US demands and producing more conservative styles with less fabric and almost zero decoration.
For ladies who couldn’t afford to buy a new shorter piece, they’d cut the bottoms from their ’30s coats to stay on trend with the new shorter-length look!
Simple floral designs satisfied the ’40s woman’s desire for something decadent in her wardrobe. Plus, the synthetic fiber rayon was the least war-rationed material, and because of its cotton-esque properties took to floral designs and light coloring well.
One of the most popular (not to mention easiest) ways to spotlight some ’40 style into your look is by wearing a patterned scarf tied from the back of your head into a knot at your forehead.
This style wasn’t a look worn by day for the typical lady of the ’40s. Rather, it was a practical but pretty way for the new working woman of the era to keep her hair out of her eyes and away from the machinery she might have been handling at her factory job.
The end of WWII helped spark a creative time in fashion. This time era was when the butterfly and banjo sleeves and shoulder pad trend was created. The world, then, was deep into the grip of the Great Depression. It was a terrible time with a 25 % unemployment rate. People who did work often had their hours and pay reduced. Others worked harder for less pay. Tent cities and shanty towns grew in areas around the country where refugees looked for work. Nearly half the banks in the United States failed, and withdrawals even at safe banks were often restricted due to the fear of bank runs.
Fashion design moved toward simpler lines to reflect the simpler lives of the public. However, there was a great interest in the glamor of the wealthy as well as in the glamor portrayed by Hollywood. People dreamed of the luxurious past, but lived with a new economic severity.
Women's fashion design had taken a turn toward cleaner, simpler lines that reflected the new austerity of a bad economy. Notice the limited color featured in the pictures. Magazine ads of the Great Depression showed far less color than they do today as ink was expensive. Most fashion illustrations in magazines showed the clothing in sketch form rather than photographs.
Although the 1930’s was the era of the Great Depression, it was also a fascinating time for women's fashion. Designers made sure to make every small element in their clothing perfect because they knew the smallest aseptic is what makes the clothes.
Here is a look at a number of famous female personalities in the 1930’s and their unique
wardrobes. These special portraits and quotes are from the book Fashion in Photographs
Nancy Mitford, author of The Pursuit of Love.
“The main appeal of the dress…lies in the flower-printed silk. Designs ranged from the essentially English hedgerow or cottage garden to more exotic oriental blooms. The use of bright colours with a large amount of white on the popular black or dark ground gave the crispness and clarity which enabled the smart woman to be both feminine and chic.”
Rene Ray (the Countess of Midleton) - British film actress who starred in more than 40 films.
“The early years of the 1930s saw the hems of evening dresses and very smart summer afternoon dresses drop to full length. After many years of wearing short skirts, the ordinary woman, struggling to keep abreast of new styles, fond that all her existing even dresses suddenly looked dowdy… [but] by the end of the decade such an impractically long garment, already becoming old fashioned and likend to fancy dress, was finally rendered obsolete by the Second World War.”
Madge Titheradge and Edna Best – both actresses.
“In just a few years the fashionable hat had changed radically from the deep-crowned cloche and helmet shape and had become small and shallow, perched on one side and to the front of the head, exposing the hair at the back.”
Gertrude Lawrence, actress, 1932.
“This outfit of long-sleeved dress and jacket worn by Gertrude Lawrence, the celebrated actress who was particularly associated with Noel Coward as his leading lady, is a good example of the extraordinary popularity of narrow stripes in the early to middle years of the decade.”
Ann Todd, actress, and Lady Dick, 1935.
The dresses worn by Anne Todd (actress) and Lady Dick emphasize the top half of the torso, a common feature of dresses throughout the 1930’s.
Up above is a fashion show from the 1930s to get a feel and look of the fashion in the 1930s.
