Bachelor of Design & Fashion Textile, Historical Contextual References, 1930 Fashion

1. Fashion In 1930’s
The most characteristic North American fashion trend from the 1930s to the end ofWorld War II was
attention at the arm, with butterfly sleeves and banjo sleeves, and exaggerated shoulder pads for both men
and women by the 1940s. The period also saw the first widespread use of man-made fibres, especially
rayon for dresses and viscose for linings and lingerie, and synthetic nylon stockings. The zipper became
widely ignored. These essentially U.S. developments were echoed,in varying degrees,in Britain and
Europe. Suntans (called at the time "sunburns"[
became fashionable in the early 1930s, along with travel
to the resorts along the Mediterranean, in the Bahamas,and on the east coast of Florida where one can
acquire a tan, leading to new categories of clothes: white dinner jackets for men and beach pajamas, halter
tops, and bare midriffs for women.
Fashion trendsetters in the period included The Prince of Wales (King Edward VIII from January 1936
until his abdication that December) and his companion Wallis Simpson (the Duke and Duchess of
Windsor from their marriage in June 1937), socialites like Nicolas de Gunzburg, Daisy Fellowes and
Mona von Bismarck and such Hollywood movie stars as Fred Astaire, Carole Lombard and Joan
Crawford.
Women Fashion in 1930’s
The lighthearted, forward-looking attitude and fashions of the late 1920s lingered through most of 1930,
but by the end of that year the effects of the Great Depression began to affect the public, and a more
conservative approach to fashion displaced that of the 1920s. For women, skirts became longer and the
waist-line was returned up to its normal position in an attempt to bring back the traditional "womanly"
look. Other aspects of fashion from the 1920s took longer to phase out. Cloche hats remained popular
until about 1933 while short hair remained popular for many women until late in the 1930s and even in
the early 1940s.
The 1890s leg-o-mutton sleeves designed by Walter Plunkett for Irene Dunne in 1931's Cimarron helped
to launch the broad-shouldered look,[5]
and Adrian's little velvet hat worn tipped over one eye by Greta
Garbo in Romance (1930) became the "Empress Eugenie hat ... Universally copied in a wide price range,
it influenced how women wore their hats for the rest of the decade."[5]
Movie costumes were covered not
only in film fan magazines, but in influential fashion magazines such as Women's Wear Daily,Harper's
Bazaar,and Vogue.
Adrian's puff-sleeved gown for Joan Crawford Letty Lynton was copied by Macy's in 1932 and sold over
500,000 copies nationwide.[6]
The most influential film of all was 1939's Gone with the Wind.Plunkett's
"barbecue dress"for Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara was the most widely copied dress after the Duchess
of Windsor's wedding costume, and Vogue credited the "Scarlett O'Hara"look with bringing full skirts
worn over crinolines back into wedding fashion after a decade of sleek, figure-hugging styles.[5]
Lana Turner's 1937 film They Won't Forget made her the first Sweater girl, an informal look for young
women relying on large breasts pushed up and out by brassieres,which continued to be influential into the
1950s, and was arguably the first major style of youth fashion.
Retail clothing and accessories inspired by the period costumes of Adrian, Plunkett, Travis Banton,
Howard Greer, and others influenced what women wore until war-time restrictions on fabric stopped the
flow of lavish costumes from Hollywood.[5]
Hard chic and feminine flutters
Queen Elizabeth wears long gloves with a short-sleeved dress and dramatic hat to visit the 1939 New
York World's Fair.
Jean Patou, who had first raised hemlines to 18" off the floor with his "flapper" dresses of 1924, had
begun lowering them again in 1927, using Vionnet's handkerchief hemline to disguise the change. By
1930, longer skirts and natural waists were shown everywhere.[7]
But it is Schiaparelli who is credited with "changing the outline of fashion from soft to hard, from vague
to definite."[7]
She introduced the zipper, synthetic fabrics, simple suits with bold color accents,tailored
evening gowns with matching jackets, wide shoulders, and the color shocking pink to the fashion world.

2. By 1933, the trend toward wide shoulders and narrow waists had eclipsed the emphasis on the hips of the
later 1920s. Wide shoulders would remain a staple of fashion until after the war.
In contrast with the hard chic worn by the "international set. designers such as Britain's Norman Hartnell
made soft, pretty dresses with fluttering or puffed sleeves and loose calf-length skirts suited to a feminine
figure. His "white mourning" wardrobe for the new Queen Elizabeth's 1938 state visit to Paris started a
brief rage for all-white clothing[
eminine curves were highlighted in the 1930s through the use of the bias-cut in dresses. Madeleine
Vionnet was the innovator of the bias-cut and used this method to create sculptural dresses that molded
and shaped over the body's contours as it draped the female form.
Advertisement for women's fashion at McWhirters department store, Brisbane, Australia, 1941
Through the mid-1930s, the natural waistline was often accompanied by emphasis on an empire line.
Short bolero jackets, capelets,and dresses cut with fitted midriffs or seams below the bust increased the
focus on breadth at the shoulder. By the late 1930s, emphasis was moving to the back, with halter
necklines and high-necked but backless evening gowns with sleeves.[2][7]
Evening gowns with matching
jackets were worn to the theatre,nightclubs, and elegant restaurants.
Skirts remained at mid-calf length for day, but the end of the 1930s Paris designers were showing fuller
skirts reaching just below the knee;[11]
this practical length (without the wastefulfullness) would remain
in style for day dresses through the war years.
Other notable fashion trends in this period include the introduction of the ensemble (matching dresses or
skirts and coats) and the handkerchief skirt, which had many panels, insets, pleats or gathers. The clutch
coat was fashionable in this period as well; it had to be held shut as there was no fastening. By 1945,
adolescents began wearing loose, poncho-like sweaters called sloppy joes. Full, gathered skirts, known as
the dirndl skirt, became popular around 1945.
[
Accessories
Gloves were "enormously important" in this period.[9]
Evening gowns were accompanied by elbow length
gloves, and day costumes were worn with short or opera-length gloves of fabric or leather.
Manufacturers and retailers introduced coordinating ensembles of hat, gloves and shoes, or gloves and
scarf, or hat and bag, often in striking colours.[9]
For spring 1936, Chicago's Marshall Field's department
store offered a black hat by Lilly Daché trimmed with an antelope leather bow in "Pernod green, apple
blossom pink, mimosa yellow or carnation blush" and suggested a handbag to match the bow.[13]
Headscarf turban's also made an appearance in fashion, representing the working woman of the period.
These were worn by women of all classes. Hats were one of the few pieces of clothing that was not
rationed during WWII, therefore there was a lot of attention paid to these headpieces. Styles ranged from
turbans to straw hats.[14]
Menswear
Conductor Leonard Bernstein in sportswear of 1945: open-collared shirt, striped blazer, and wide-legged
pleated slacks
Men's neckties often had bold, geometric patterns as can be seen in this photograph taken in 1944
Overview
For men, the most noticeable effect of the general sobering associated with the Great Depression was that
the range of colors became more subdued. The bright colors popular in the 1920s fell out of fashion.
Suits
By the early 1930s, the "drape cut" or "London Drape" suit championed by Frederick Scholte, tailor to the
Prince of Wales, was taking the world of men's fashion by storm. The new suit was softer and more
flexible in construction than the suits of the previous generation; extra fabric in the shoulder and armscye,
light padding, a slightly nipped waist, and fuller sleeves tapered at the wrist resulted in a cut with
flattering folds or drapes front and back that enhanced a man's figure. The straight leg wide-trousers (the
standard size was 23 inches at the cuff) that men had worn in the 1920s also became tapered at the bottom

3. for the first time around 1935. The new suit was adopted enthusiastically by Hollywood stars including
Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, and Gary Cooper, who became the new fashion trendsetters after the Prince's
abdication and exile. By the early 1940s, Hollywood tailors had exaggerated the drape to the point of
caricature,outfitting film noir mobsters and private eyes in suits with heavily padded chests,enormous
shoulders, and wide flowing trousers. Musicians and other fashion experimenters adopted the most
extreme form of the drape, the zoot suit, with very high waists, pegged trousers, and long coats.
Formal wear
In the early 1930s, new forms of summer evening clothes were introduced as appropriate for the popular
seaside resorts. The waist-length white mess jacket, worn with a cummerbund rather than a waistcoat,was
modeled after formal clothing of British officers in tropical climates. This was followed by a white dinner
jacket, single or double-breasted. Both white jackets were worn black bow ties and black trousers
trimmed with braid down the side seams.
Sportswear
By 1933, knickerbockers and plus-fours, which had been commonly worn as sports-clothes in the 1920s
had lost favor to casual trousers among the fashionable.
Accessories
The most common hat of this period was the fedora, often worn tipped down over one eye at a rakish
angle. The more conservative Homburg also remained popular, especially among older people and even
began to be worn with semi-formal evening clothes in place of the tophat, which in turn became confined
to wear with formal. Neckties were wide, and bold geometric designs were popular, including stripes, and
quadrilateral designs.
Wartime restrictions
Many things affected the style of clothes that people wore. Austerity also affected men's civilian clothes
during the war years. The British "Utility Suit" and American "Victory Suit" were both made of wool-
synthetic blend yarns, without pleats, cuffs (turn-ups), sleeve buttons or patch pockets; jackets were
shorter, trousers were narrower,and double-breasted suits were made without vests (waistcoats).[1]
Men
who were not in uniform could, of course, continue to wear pre-war suits they already owned, and many
did so.
References-
1. History of Fashion by Manmeet Sodhia , Kalyan Publisher