How the war changed fashion!

Fashion wasn't very important during the years of the war. Due to the fact that THERE WAS A WAR ON! and also due to the lack of NEED for fashion, once the war was over though, it started to become important. especially to the woman who worked in the war, once it was over, went back to their normal lives. but for some women that wasn't good enough, they wanted to work, this is where the first feminist movement kicked in, women wanted equal rights. one of the ways they wanted to prove to men that they could be equal was to dress like a man. Pant suits became popular, a more androgynous look (which has since made a comeback) so that women could appear more powerful in the workplace.

'As World War II drew to a close, history was redefining fashion. During WWII the fashion industry had been limited due to rations on fabric. Fashion centers had been interrupted. Men had gone off to war and women filled their jobs on the home front. These all shaped fashion in the late 1940’s and 50’s.

Because of the fabric rations, and advertisers playing on man's lust for flesh, skirts became shorter and the bikini was invented. While WWII interrupted fashion centers, the industry changed so that companies began buying collections off the runway and making mass quantities. More and more people began to dress well for less. And finally as men came home back to their normal jobs some women did not want to go back to being housewives. Women had adopted a "dress-suit", complete with padded shoulders, which immated the male figures whose jobs they had held during the war years.

In the 50’s women dressed to look feminine and clothes glorified the female body. One women’s reporter summarized the ideology well: “Marriage is… best. A career is nice and will come if she has the time and energy… but first things first! Take her clothes she has no desire to be bizarre, conspicuous or extreme… The boys don’t approve…” In her book, “Wife Dressing” Anne Fogarty expressed the idea that women were supposed to dress to please their husbands. A woman’s clothes, she thought, should represent a good housewife and femininity. Designers often included these ideas in their designs. Dresses were made to emphasize curves. They were elegantly designed with ultra small wastes and full skirts.'

found on http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/essays/cot/t0w32fasionsex.htm

But some women still wanted to look like women, so skirts became shorter and tops became tighter, hugging their womanly curves- there was a fight in fashion. did you want to look sexy, or be taken seriously? Even today, women feel the need to appear manly in the workplace- especially in executive positions, women will usually wear suits- in black or grey, to be taken seriously by their male counterparts. In my opinion there is still a lot of work to do in women becoming equal in society.