To top
9 Oct

1940s FASHION

Hello fashionistas, I’m glad to be back with a new post. As you know, this season many designers have been toying with for a while has now taken over the runways, the 40s. The looks are feminine, elegant yet restrained, and firmly anchored in wartime Europe.
The first sign that Fall would be a mid-century season came at the tail end of the New York shows, when Marc Jacobs resurrected old-fashioned fox-fur stoles complete with heads attached. By the time Milan was over, the 1940s had become a bona fide trend, with everyone from Gucci’s Frida Giannini to Tomas Maier at Bottega Veneta showing nipped-waist jackets and below-the-knee skirts. In Paris, skirts flared to New Look proportions at Rochas and Lanvin, and at Louis Vuitton, Jacobs sent models out in men’s overcoats and silk slips that could’ve been nicked from Anna Magnani’s steamer trunks.

PHOTOGRAPHY: GEORGE MARACINEANU.
LOCATION: NEW YORK.
 
THE NEW LOOK
was revolutionary back in 1947, when Christian Dior introduced it at his first show. Dior effectively wiped away the austerity of the war years with his Bar jackets, voluminous mid-calf skirts, and dinner frocks made from twenty-five sumptuous yards of taffeta—themselves callbacks of sorts to the corset and crinoline memories of his Belle Epoque youth.
 
GET THE LOOK – TIPS
 

Search online auctions, thrift stores or estate sales for genuine 1940s items, as well as books or sewing patterns.

Get inspired. Take inspiration from 1940s movies. Search for items by popular designers of the period, such as Edith Head, Oleg Cassini, Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Madelaine Vionnet and Coco Chanel.

You may have difficulty locating items from the ’40s since it was many decades ago now. Try locating a company that bases its designs on styles of that era or become clever at recreation through sewing, pinning and cutting.

Use your common sense, as many of these make up styles look best on a certain type of face, which the individual must consider before incorporating any such style into her own unique “look.”

Remember that just because it’s 1940s doesn’t mean it is appropriate for you to wear on any occasion. However, current fashion times do allow us to get away with many choices, so be your own arbiter of fashion.

 

8 Comments

Leave a reply