Guest Post - Ralph from Shybiker

Ralph and I are part of a guest blogger group that Ashley from 2 Eyes in the Mirror set up!! Every month we both are partnered up with a fellow blogger and we post on each other's blogs.  I was elated to be paired with Ralph (he runs Shybiker) because we have recently just gotten to know each other better and now I get to collaborate with him for posting, yay!!
Ralph is one of my favorite followers and I look forward to his comments everytime I post.  And let me tell you, he NEVER misses a post!! If you have not visited his blog, check him out HERE.
If you want to join our guest blogger group, please let us know or you can get in touch with Ashley and we will hook up up!
We decided that Ralph would do a post on the fashion in the 50's era since this style has become so popular especially since the popular show Mad Men aired! So, without further ado, here is Ralph's post:

Hi!  I'm Ralph.  Angela is kindly allowing me to guest-post and I promise to make this worthwhile.  I respect Angela's blog and will honor it with my best effort.

To make this discussion special, I did some research on our shared love for fashion.  Let me convey what I learned and invite your comments.  We're going to explore women's fashion from the 1950's.

Many people recently had their interest piqued in this period by the terrific TV show, "Mad Men."  The costumes made for that show are authentic to the time and display a full range of women's clothing, from domestic outfits to businesswear to fancy evening dress.

One important reason to study fashion styles of the past is their influence on the present.  Just last year, First Lady Michelle Obama wore a vintage dress from the Fifties to a formal "Christmas In Washington" concert.  Her dress, designed by Norman Norell, was actually made during the Fifties and stored, unworn, since then.

Current designers, too, borrow styles from the Fifties.  For example, the attractive dress shown here was created recently by Marc Jacobs: it draws on classic Fifties style so much that you can't tell whether it was designed then or now.

So what was Fifties fashion?  To understand it, we should look at changes that occurred in American society at the time.  The decade preceding the Fifties had our country fightingWorld War II.  The war-effort made resources scarce and life hard.  There was rationing of food and materials and widespread austerity.  It was a difficult time to live through.

After victory in 1945, American society began a prolonged stretch of economic prosperity, coupled with a shift to newly-developed suburban homes.  These two factors made life better for most people and the improvements began to show in fashion styles.  Women's clothing changed from utilitarian to decorative with increased femininity and glamour.  Elegance returned, with Hollywood leading the way.  Celebrities wore fancier clothes that hadn't been seen in decades.  Ordinary women picked up trends they saw in movies and magazines; their adoption of those styles popularized the clothes throughout the country.

Famous designer Christian Dior created a "New Look" at the beginning of the Fifties which celebrated the birth of a new era.  The masculine, wide-shouldered silhouette of the 1940's was replaced by a feminine, hourglass silhouette emphasizing female curves.

Girls wore "swing skirts" with narrow waists and flared skirts.  Here, they are displayed in an advertisement from the time.

Shoulder lines softened, new attention was placed on the waist, and busts were emphasized with uplifting and even pointed bras.  Another feature, revived from the 1920's, was sleevelessness.  Sleeveless dresses and blouses were worn all four seasons.

Materials changed, too.  Silk and velvet become popular, along with light transparent fabrics like organdy and chiffon.  Pastel colors were worn during the day and gray tulle in every shade was ubiquitous during evenings.  Another material which always symbolized luxury -- fur -- jumped in popularity, along with the first fake-furs.  Stoles were worn around the shoulders over elegant dresses.  Leopard-print was a rage during the Fifties.  Petticoats were common and facilitated the style of fitted waists and flared skirts.

Makeup changed, too.  The most popular new trend in makeup was to highlight eyes with eyeliner and mascara, which created a look that was quickly adopted and spread everywhere.

The Fifties also included the advent of television, the beginning of the "Baby Boom" and the growing culture of middle class suburbia.  These developments affected the lives of women.  The Fifties created a nesting period that was unprecedented.  Women were encouraged to marry and stay at home.  The image of the happy housewife was spread by advertising of the time.  Magazine articles focused on domesticity in a positive light.  In hindsight, some of these developments seem retrograde but, in historical context, they marked a general improvement in the economic and social circumstances of most women.  Life in middle-class suburbs promoted childrearing and provided material luxury previously unknown.

It is easy, but inaccurate, to label the Fifties a time of Procrustean conformity.  In 1953, seeds of feminism were sown when Simone de Beauvoir published "The Second Sex."  And statistics show significant improvement in the conditions of many women's lives.  For example, the number of women enrolled in college doubled during the Fifties and employment for women rose four times as fast as the rate for men.  Society changed during this decade, in ways both good and bad.  We shouldn't simplify that complexity with a historically-incomplete label.

Let me close with an amusing observation I made while doing research for this post.  I recently bought an adorable Jessica Simpson dress that I posted on my blog.  A week later, I saw that Elizabeth Taylor wore a dress to the 1958 Academy Awards ceremony which has the exact same collar!  Here are the two dresses.  Their similarity illustrates the continuing relevance of Fifties fashion to today.

Thank you Ralph for the fabulous post AND such an intense explanation of the history of 50's fashion.  You are amazing!!

XX