Clothes for Women

CLOTHES FOR WOMEN

Shoulder Pads and Hats

The dominant silhouette of the early 1940s featured broad shoulders that gracefully tapered into a tailored waist over a narrow skirt that fell just below the knees. Shoulder pads were found in nearly every dress, suit, and jacket. The padded, broad shoulders lent women an air of strength and authority, traits valued in women in the 1940s and seen as crucial to surviving the war. Most outfits were topped with a hat, which aided in the popularity of American milliners such as Lily Daché, John Frederics, and Sally Victor. Hat designers added tall brims that gave the appearance of height or wide ones that gave a sense of summertime grace. Others trimmed the crown to the bare minimum, topping it with wiry fabric curls, veils, bows, jewelry, or fur. When wool was scarce, Daché used yarn, specifically mop yarn and twine, and even made caps from the gold epaulets of uniforms.

Popular Looks

Despite government regulations and restrictions, women in the 1940s had a variety of looks from which to choose. One of the most dominant included a padded, broad-shouldered jacket and pencil skirt worn with platform-soled shoes and a high-crowned hat, large jewelry, long pocketbook, and bold red lipstick. A variation was a short jacket worn over a slightly flared skirt, a string of pearls, and pumps. Many women tucked a small piece of lace in the pocket or collar of these outfits as a feminine contrast to the military look popular in this period. Women often wore their hair in two contrasting looks. The first, popularized by Joan Crawford, included soft, partially curled pageboy bangs with long hair pulled back off the face and neck. The second, made popular by Veronica Lake, was a much looser look, with long hair worn to the shoulders, parted on the side, and falling dramatically across the face.

Casual and Practical

Many women spent the war years in gabardine tailored shirtwaist dresses that were comfortable as well as fashionable and came in a variety of fabrics and colors. The "town and country" look had a casual feel without imitating men's traditional sports-wear. The peasant look—drawstring neckline, small puffed sleeves, and gathered, narrow skirt—was also popular. Dinner wear was scaled back for the average woman during the war. Claire McCardell designed evening wear that came with a matching apron for hostesses who did their own cooking. High-style evening wear was columnar in design, with added drapery to give it an elegant, almost Greek, feel. Other classic evening dresses were designed to resemble a Renaissance-period costume.

Youth Fashions

The word teenager entered standard usage in the 1940s and was distinctively American. Along with the new title came new social rituals, new looks, and new behaviors generated by and for teenagers. In fashion this translated into sweater sets for girls worn over narrow skirts that flared at the knee, bobby socks, and loafers or saddle shoes. Boys wore V-necked sweaters, short cotton jackets, and loafers. Blue jeans, associated with manual labor and thus unacceptable for school, were worn by boys playing or doing chores around the house.

Off to School

College-bound women preferred skirts, sweaters, and jumpers to the suited look of Hollywood. Particularly popular were the clothes of the B. H. Wragge Company. Its collections of separates—jackets, skirts, vests, blouses, jumpers, shirtwaist dresses, and coats—were designed to mix and match in a variety of combinations. Many college women collected as many Wragge pieces as they could. This concept of mix-and-match separates became one of the most important elements of American ready-to-wear fashion. Many male undergraduates enlisted in the military, but those who stayed home wore white shirts with ties along with sweaters or jackets. Pants and blue jeans were worn to relax in the dormitory or outside. College-age women made going hatless a new fashion, preferring longer hairstyles and curls similar to the style of Veronica Lake to the extravagant hat favored by women a few years their senior.

BOOTLEGS AND BLACK MARKETS

In 1946 Newsweek reported that women were finding stockings in the oddest places. In New York a butcher boy could deliver a pair of nylons for $3, nearly double the cost at a store. A cigar store just off Broadway had them for $3.50 if the customer said, "Charlie sent me." In other American cities the story was the same. Why? By the end of February 1946 the nation's manufacturers had turned out 76,872,912 pairs of nylons, almost two pairs for every American woman old enough to wear them, but millions of them were disappearing. Or rather, they were moving through the booming black market that had begun during the war. American women, Newsweek reported, were tired of standing in line for hours to get one pair of stockings of undetermined color and often of inferior quality at "ceiling prices." They resented being gouged by black marketeers, yet their need for stockings made them depend on them just the same. Beauty parlors buzzed with rumors: "Where have all the nylons gone? To Mexico?" No, government officials explained. The black market was the big hole down which the nylons were vanishing. Finally, in mid April the attorney general ordered the Justice Department to shut down the secret commerce and crack down on the marketeers.

Source:

"Stockings: Leg Bootleg," Newsweek, 27 (29 April 1946): 66.

Source:

Caroline Rennolds Milbank, New York Fashion: The Evolution of American Style (New York: Abrams, 1989).