1950’s
Fashion & Influences
Features ♦Fashion Icons ♦Art Movements ♦Technology ♦Popular Culture ♦Coco Channels Comeback
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Authors Page
About me I am currently doing a BTEC level 3 diploma in Art & Design (Fashion & Clothing). I started having an interest in this industry from a young age I have always loved fashion and the idea of going to fashion shows, photo shoots and clothing. I have also done catwalk walk shows for the BMC at places such as Stormont and at the new BMC titanic quarter building for HRH Princess Anne. I have experience on photo shoots; I was either being the model on the photo shoots or I was helping to dress the models. I found this very fun and was a good stepping stone on the road to a career in fashion. I did work experience for a magazine which allowed me to see how a publication was run and let me see the stresses and worries of running your own publication. The era I like the most in the 1950’s because of the style and the fashion icons such as Audrey Hepburn.
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Art Movement Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning were enormously influential In the early 1950s . However by the late 1950s Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko's paintings became more in focus to the next generation.
Pop Art used the iconography of television, photography, comics, cinema and advertising. With its roots in dadaism, it started to take form towards the end of the 1950s when some European artists started to make the symbols and products of the world of advertising and propaganda the main subject of their artistic work. This return of figurative art, in opposition to the abstract expressionism that dominated the aesthetic scene since the end of World War II was dominated by Great Britain until the early 1960s when Andy Warhol, the most known artist of this movement began to show Pop Art in galleries in the United States.
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Popular Culture Some of the Most Well Known Movie Stars of the Fifties Gary Cooper Bing Crosby Bob Hope John Wayne James Stewart Frank Sinatra Marilyn Monroe William Holden In 1955, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman earned a Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival with Smiles of a Summer Night and followed the film with masterpieces The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. Jean Cocteau's OrphĂŠe, a film central to his Orphic Trilogy, starred Jean Marais and was released in 1950. French director Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge is now widely considered the first film of the French New Wave. Notable European film stars of the period include Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, The "Golden Era" of 3-D cinematography happened during the 1950s. Rock-n-Roll emerged in the mid-50s as the teen music of choice with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Gene Vincent. In the mid-1950s, Elvis Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and charttopping records Jazz stars in the 1950s who came into prominence in their genres called Bebop, Hard bop, Cool jazz and the Blues, at this time included Lester Young, Ben Webster, Charlie Parker, The American folk music revival became a phenomenon in the United States in the 1950s to mid-1960s with the initial success of the Weavers who popularized the genre.
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Historical Events The 50's were the time when the shape of the political landscape in the world could be clearly defined between the Soviet dominated East and the capitalist West. The cold war became a grim reality because both sides had the power and technology for a Nuclear holocaust, but equally both knew any war could not truly be won. Following the end of the second world war the economies of the western world boomed which led to the start of a consumer-led economy that seemed to have no bounds . Following the creation of the new State of Israel there were many conflicts in the middle east which are still occurring to this day. The Suez Crisis in 1956 begins on July 26th as the supply of oil is blocked through the Suez Canal Like Germany in Europe Japan saw massive economic growth by supplying the goods needed for the consumer-led society in both Europe and the United States. RĂŠard named his swimsuit the "bikini", taking the name from the Bikini Atoll, one of a series of islands in the South Pacific where testing on the new atomic bomb was occurring that summer. Brigitte Bardot is recognized for popularizing bikini swimwear in early films such as Manina (Woman without a Veil) (1952) in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots.[28] with Bardot identified as the original Cannes bathing beauty.
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Technology The space race and man's exploration of our solar system the Soviet Union launches Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth. Inventions The Year Invented Inventors and Country ( or attributed to First Use ) Atomic Clock ----- 1955 England Breeder Reactor ----- 1951 USA Converted Uranium to Plutonium Computer Modem ----- 1958 USA Credit Card ----- 1950 USA by Ralph Schneider Hovercraft ----- 1955 England by Christopher Cockerell Hydrogen Bomb ----- 1952 USA by Edward Teller's team Lunar Probe ----- 1959 Russia Lunik I passed the Moon; Lunar Probe ----- 1959 Russia Lunik II crashed on the Moon; Lunar Probe ----- 1959 Russia Lunik III photographed the far side of the Moon Microchip ----- 1958 USA by Jack Kilby Nuclear Power ----- 1956 England First power station at Calder Hall Robot ----- 1954 USA by George C Devol Jr Satellite ----- 1957 Russia Sputnik I Solar Cell ----- 1954 USA Or Photovoltaic cells Transistor Radio ----- 1953 USA Texas Instruments Video Recorder ----- 1956 USA Video Tape ----- 1956 USA
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The 1950s saw Audrey emerge as a major Hollywood movie star after first captivating audiences on Broadway in Gigi. Hepburn won an Oscar for her performance as the princess who lets her hair down (well, gets it lopped off) as she enjoys a day of freedom in Rome. She followed that film with the Cinderellaesque romantic comedy Sabrina (1954), in which she played the chauffeur’s daughter who goes to Paris as an awkward young girl, and returns every inch the chic young demoiselle. 1953 Roman Holiday opens in the U.S. in August, and audiences and critics love it. Audrey's "look" becomes all the rage and is followed by fashion magazines everywhere. In London in July for the British opening of Roman Holiday, Audrey first meets Mel Ferrer at a fête hosted by her mother. Mel is twicedivorced, a father of four, an actor, stage and film director and twelve years her senior. The chemistry between them is instant and they would soon fall in love. Hepburn is named Best Actress of 1959 by the New York Film Critics and its British equivalent, however the film wins none of the eight Oscars it is nominated for, including Audrey for Best Actress.
In 1951, Marilyn got a fairly sizable role in LOVE NEST. The public was now getting to know Marilyn and was enthralled with her. She exuded an almost innocence about the aura of sexuality about her. Later in the year she appeared in MONKEY BUSINESS where she was seen for the first time as a platinum blonde. The look became her trademark. It was also the same year she began dating the baseball great, Joe DiMaggio. Marilyn was now a box-office drawing card. Later, she appeared with Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall and Rory Calhoun in HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE. Although her co-stars got the rave reviews, it was the sight of Marilyn who excited the audience, particularly if they were men. On January 14, 1954, Marilyn wed DiMaggio, then proceeded to film THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS. That was quickly followed by THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH which was released in 1955 and showcased her comedic talent. By October of 1954, Marilyn announced her divorce from DiMaggio. In 1955, Marilyn was suspended by Fox for not reporting for work on HOW TO BE VERY POPULAR. It was her second suspension, the first being for not reporting for the production of THE GIRL IN PINK TIGHTS. Both roles went to others. In 1955, she appeared in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH which showed one of film's most memorable scenes when she stands above a subway grate and the wind from a passing subway blowing her white dress up. After a year off in 1958, Marilyn returned to the silver screen the next for the delightful comedy, SOME LIKE IT HOT with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. The film was an absolute smash hit with Curtis and Lemmon pretend to be females in an all girl band, so they can get work.
Dior in 1950’s For his first collection in 1947, he created the extremely popular "New Look", which featured rounded shoulders, a cinched waist, and a very full skirt. After the war, he helped to re-establish Paris as the capital of world-fashion . Dior became the last great dictator of style in the 1950s. Each collection throughout this period had a theme - classic suits, ballerina-length skirts, the H-line in 1954, and A- and Y-lines in 1955.Together with his partner Jaques Rouet, Dior was the pioneer for license agreements in the fashion business. In 1953, he hired Yves Saint Laurent as an assistant. After Dior's sudden death in October 1957 in Italy, Saint Laurent became head designer and introduced the trapeze dress in his first collection for the house. The shaped fitted jacket Dior designed with his New Look full skirt was also teamed with a straight mid calf length skirt. Women usually wore just underwear beneath the buttoned up jacket, or filled in the neckline with a satin foulard head scarf, dickey or bib. Dior's New Look dominated the fashion world for about ten years, but was not the only silhouette of the era. 1956 was the year that introduced visible changes that separate the early fifties from the late fifties. There were those in the 1950s that rebelled against the pristine immaculate groomed look, so often associated with Grace Kelly elegance. Leslie Caron and Audrey Hepburn both often wore simple black sweaters, flat shoes and gold hoop earrings coupled with gamine cropped short haircuts. They gave a continental alternative often described as chic and had many fashion followers seeking to embrace the modern.
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Coco Channel’s Comeback Chanel's comeback collection of couture debuted in 1953 Although it was not a critical success, the designer persevered. Within three seasons, Chanel was enjoying newfound respect. She updated her classic looks, reworking the classic tweed designs until wealthy women and celebrities returned to the showroom in droves. The Chanel suit became a status symbol for a new generation, made of solid or tweed fabric, with its slim skirt and collarless jacket trimmed in braid, gold buttons, patch pockets, and sewn into the hem, a gold-coloured chain ensuring it hung properly from the shoulders. Chanel also reintroduced her handbags, jewellery, and shoes with great success in subsequent seasons. Probably more than anyone else.
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References
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