May 4 2008

As a Baby Boomer born in 1950, I know the style, hairstyles, and fads of that era like the back of my hand. The 50’s were ultra conservative for the many part. Women dressed like guys and women dressed like males, and the unisex look had not yet hit the style world, thank heavens!

Fashion of the 50’s was often well customized. Women were taught to dress like and act like a girl. Dresses were “in” along with smartly tailored fits; blouses were made from crisp white cotton, gingham, or seersucker. While females did use pants, they were capris or shorts and seldom pants. They also in some cases used jeans that were rolled up to capri length, however these were booked only for play. Skirts were either backyards and lawns of material that swirled on the dance floor or tight pencil skirts that accented every curve of a lady’s body.

The preferred shape of the era was the hour-glass curvy figure of motion picture stars like Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, and Ava Gardner. Females of that age thought that their only option in life was to capture a hubby, settle, and have children. To achieve that, they were taught to dress to attraction; accenting all of the positives while minimizing any negatives. Achieving that film star appearance wasn’t simple, requiring a lot of undergarment support – couple of women of the 50’s went out without their girdle holding in their stomachs and whittling away their waists. Petticoats were also essential for those swing skirts; females rightly thought that the wider the skirts were, the smaller sized the waist appeared.

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