1930–1945 in Western fashion

Actress Mary Pickford with President Herbert Hoover, 1931.

Fashion from the 1930s to 1945 is overshadowed by two great events of the period, the Great Depression and World War II. The most characteristic fashion trend of the period is attention at the shoulder, with butterfly sleeves and banjo sleeves, and exaggerated shoulder pads for both men and women by the 1940s.

Fashion trendsetters in the period included the Prince of Wales (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) and such Hollywood movie stars as Fred Astaire and Carole Lombard.

Overview

1930s

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Fashions from March 1930 are virtually unchanged from that of 1929.

The lighthearted, forward-looking attitude and fashions of the 1920s in fashion to halt. The trend continued for most of 1930, but by the end of that year when the effects of the Great Depression began to affect the public, 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 "feminine" 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 the late in the 1930s.

For men, the only noticeable change was that the range of colors became more subdued. By 1933, knickers (commonly worn as sports-clothes) became obsolete. By 1935, the close form fitting style of suit jackets and vest, that had been popular with men in the 1920s, was replaced with a loose look. 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 for the first time around 1935. Sleeves for suit jackets also began to be worn tapered around 1935.

The war years

Restrictions on fabric led to short skirts and short sleeves. Popular magazines advised women on how to remake men's suits into smart outfits, since the men were in uniform and the cloth would otherwise sit unused.

Womenswear

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Fashions from December of 1930.

Paris fashion

Main article: History of fashion design

Elsa Schiaparelli's lighthearted styles and mannish "hard chic" and Madeleine Vionnet's classically-inspired bias-cut evening dresses, as interpreted by other couturiers, were primary influences throughout the 1930s. The simple but elegant designs of Mainbocher, an American designer working in Paris, were also influential. His wedding dress for the Duchess of Windsor was widely photographed and and was the most copied dress of the era.

Germany's invasion of France in June, 1940, ended the dissemination of French style until after the war. Many fashion houses closed during the occupation of Paris, including the Maison Vionnet and the Maison Chanel, and some designers, including Mainbocher, permanently relocated to New York.

Fashion and the movies

Throughout the 1930s and early '40s, a second influence vied with the Paris couturiers as a wellspring for new fashion ideas: the American cinema. Paris designers such as Schiaparelli and Lucien Lelong acknowledged the impact of film costumes on their work. LeLong said "We, the couturiers, can no longer live without the cinema anymore than the cinema can live without us. We corroborate each others' instinct.

The 1890s leg-o-mutton sleeves designed by Walter Plunkett for Irene Dunne in 1931's Cimarron helped to launch the broad-shouldered look, 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." 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. 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.

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.

1930s: hard chic

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.

But it is Schiaparelli who is credited with "changing the outline of fashion from soft to hard, from vague to definite". She introduced the zipper, synthetic fabrics, simple suits with bold color accents, wide shoulders and the color shocking pink to the fashion world. 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.

Style gallery 1930s

• 
  1 - 1933
• 2 - 1936
  2 - 1936

1. Actress Mae West wears a fur coat and a fashionably asymetrical hat, 1933.
2. Fashions of 1936 show a long, lean line with geometric details. The narrow skirts include insets of pleats for ease of movement.

Style gallery 1940-45

• 
  1 - 1941
• 
  2 - 1941
• 
  3 - 1941
• 
  4 - 1944

1. Sportswear of 1941 featured square shoulders and flared shorts.
2. Actress Lana Turner examines cotton stockings, wearing a smart knee-length suit with square shoulders, in this Farm Security Administration photo of 1941
3. Actress|Rita Hayworth in a pink and silver lamé evening dress by Howard Greer, 1941.
4. Writer Lillian Smith wears a dark suit with an open-collared blouse, 1944.

Menswear

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Writer Erich Maria Remarque weara wide-lapelled, double-breasted overcoat and a fedora hat, 1939.

Style gallery 1930s

• 
  1 - 1930
• 
  2 - 1938

1. Golfing attire of 1930, worn by Babe Ruth and former New York governor Al Smith.
2. Photo of Walt Disney shows the padded shoulder and widening lapels of 1938.

Style gallery 1940-45

• 
  c. 1940
• 
  1940
• 
  1941
• 
  1942
• 
  1945

1. Photo of Charles Spurgeon Johnson wearing a wide-lapelled suit with a striped necktie, c. 1940.
2. Writer William Saroyan wears the wide, patterned necktie fashionable in 1940.
3. Overcoats of 1941 feature wide lapels.
4. Extreme zoot suits of 1942.
5. Conductor Leonard Bernstein in sportswear of 1945: open-collared shirt, striped blazer, and wide-legged pleated slacks.

Working clothes

Both men and women working on war service wore practical trousers or overalls. Women bundled their hair up in caps or scarves.

• 
  Shepherd, Montana, 1942
• 
  Woman working in the Richmond shipyards, 1943

References and further reading

• Arnold, Janet: Patterns of Fashion 2: Englishwomen's Dresses and Their Construction C.1860-1940, Wace 1966, Macmillan 1972. Revised metric edition, Drama Books 1977. ISBN 0-89676-027-8

• Black, J. Anderson, and Madge Garland, A History of Fashion, New York, Morrow, 1975

• Boucher, François: 20,000 Years of Fashion, Harry Abrams, 1966.

• LaValley, Satch: "Hollywood and Seventh Avenue: The Impact of Historical Films on Fashion", in Hollywood and History: Costume Design in Film, Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Thames and Hudson, 1987, ISBN 0500014221

• Laver, James: The Concise History of Costume and Fashion, Abrams, 1979.

• Nunn, Joan: Fashion in Costume, 1200-2000, 2nd edition, A & C Black (Publishers) Ltd; Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, 2000. (Excerpts online at The Victorian Web)

• Steele, Valerie: Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-1950-4465-7

• Steele, Valerie: The Corset, Yale University Press, 2001