During the first decades of the 20th century, the latest women’s fashions still came from Paris, and dressmakers elsewhere copied French styles. Men’s fashion came from London. Ready-to-wear grew more important over the course of the century, however, and brought affordable fashion to most people. Women increasingly adopted the suit, at least during business hours, from the 1970s on as they entered the higher ranks of the workforce in greater numbers. But as early as the 1920s, masculine simplicity had begun to influence the female wardrobe through the revolutionary designs of Coco Chanel. For both men and women, the suit has served as the visible sign of hard work and serious thought. Youth culture dominated fashion from the 1960s on. By late century, so much freedom had developed in fashion that some commentators had begun to speak of its death. In an era of “doing your own thing,” the dictates of fashion could be safely ignored.
Women’s Fashions
The corset continued to shape women’s fashion in the early 20th century, as it had during the last decades of the 19th. By 1900 a straight-front corset was in style. Also known as the S-shape and the sans ventre (no stomach) corset, it pushed the stomach in, which threw the bust forward and the rear end out, so women looked as though they were leaning forward. By 1908, however, the silhouette of dresses had become straighter and narrower. A longline corset, which smoothed the hips, came into fashion. Slender women began to abandon boned corsets altogether, replacing them with elasticized girdles and brassieres.
The most influential fashion designer in the early 20th century was Paul Poiret, who promoted a revival of the high-waisted Empire style of the early 1800s. Poiret also advocated replacing the corset with the girdle and brassiere. Although older, stouter, and more conservative women continued to wear the long corset, many other women switched to wearing brassieres and girdles.
Hemlines remained at the ankle, but so-called hobble skirts, which were very narrow at the bottom, briefly became the fashion shortly before World War I (1914-1918). “I freed the bust,” boasted Poiret, “and I hobbled the legs.” Other designers also created hobble skirts, but Poiret made some that were so tight they had to be slit from the hem to the knee. These slit skirts were criticized as being immodest because they showed women's legs. Young women were becoming less shy about defying conventions, however. Poiret also created extravagant costumes influenced by the East, including harem pants (baggy pants gathered at the ankle). Most women wore these trousers only at home. Still, it was the beginning of the end for rules that prevented women from wearing masculine clothes.
Another Paris designer who rose to prominence early in the century was Madeleine Vionnet, who opened a dressmaking establishment in 1912. Vionnet emphasized cutting fabric on the bias (diagonally across the weave) so that it fell gracefully on the body, following the lines of the figure. Like Poiret, she was opposed to the corset, as was designer Coco Chanel, who opened a boutique in the French resort town of Deauville in 1913. After World War I Chanel replaced Poiret as the most influential fashion designer in Paris.
Between 1908 and 1914 fashion changed dramatically. Instead of corseted women in long pastel dresses and big hats, the prevalent look in fashion became slender young women in looser, shorter, brightly colored dresses worn without corsets. Some young women even began cutting their hair short, a style that became very popular in the 1920s.
World War I had relatively little direct impact on fashion. French fashion houses continued to design, produce, and export. Contrary to a popular belief, fashion did not become more practical and suited to wartime living. Although skirts became shorter, this was not the result of a wartime shortage of material. The dominant style in 1915 and 1916 was a calf-length, very full skirt known as a war crinoline. The war did have an indirect impact on fashion, however. It weakened the prewar social structure and led the younger generation to question the wisdom of their elders. By the 1920s young people in Europe and North America were poised for rebellion.
After World War I young women increasingly adopted radical new fashions, including short skirts, short hair, and makeup. Hemlines had begun to rise noticeably in 1915 but then stabilized at mid-calf. Slowly creeping upward, skirts reached the knees only for a brief period, from about 1924 to 1928. Stockings went from black or white wool or cotton to flesh-colored silk or rayon—all very noticeable as skirts grew shorter. By 1929 hemlines had begun to fall. But the exposure of the female legs was one of the most revolutionary developments in 20th-century fashion.
In the United States and Canada the 1920s was the era of the flapper, a young woman who embraced the radical new clothing fashions. Flappers wore short dresses that were straight up and down. Waistlines moved downward to the hips, creating a tubular silhouette, sometimes made even more boyish by the use of a flattening brassiere. Many women cut their hair short in a chin-length, straight hairstyle known as a bob. Over their bobbed hair, they wore a close-fitting, helmet-shaped hat called a cloche. A frequently heard complaint was that women looked like boys. But the facial makeup that flappers adopted with enthusiasm contradicted this view.
In 1929 and 1930 hemlines dropped below the calf. The waistline gradually returned to its normal position. Materials were soft and flowing, and the entire appearance of a woman became more feminine. Contrary to a popular belief, hemlines had begun to fall before the U.S. stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s. By 1935 hemlines began a gradual upward climb that took them back to the knees by 1940. Padding was added to shoulders and a new silhouette was in the making.
Chanel acquired a powerful new rival in France, Italian-born fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. In the late 1920s Schiaparelli made the sweater fashionable, and by the 1930s she had become famous for the extreme chic and wit of her designs. She widened the shoulders of her suits with all sorts of devices—gathers, braid, and even coq (chicken) feathers—making the waist and hips look smaller in comparison. Like Poiret, Schiaparelli favored brilliant, intense colors, particularly a shade she named shocking pink. She introduced unconventional, often outsize buttons and striking accessories that created a dramatic overall effect.
In the United States, designer Gilbert Adrian began his career in Hollywood, California, creating clothes for Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, and other motion-picture stars. Like Schiaparelli, he introduced a wide-shoulder line, and the fashion soon swept the United States. Russian-born designer Valentina dressed actresses on the stage and other glamorous, wealthy women in her simple yet elegant evening clothes. American designer Charles James created exquisitely shaped clothes that were cut with the precision of an engineer.
North American manufacturers, department store buyers, and fashion editors went abroad twice and sometimes four times a year for the Paris fashion shows. Stores that made custom clothes to order bought Paris fashions and materials for exact copying. The medium-priced market in women's clothes also flourished on copies and adaptations of Paris couture.
The outbreak of World War II in 1939 altered the entire fashion picture. After the German occupation of Paris in 1940, French fashion was no longer obtainable in the Allied countries, which were at war with Germany.
As a result of the war, American designers such as Claire McCardell gained considerable influence within the United States. One of the best sportswear designers of her time, McCardell created clothes that were simple but chic. She used materials such as jersey, denim, and cotton calico to make what are now regarded as sportswear classics. Some of her dresses cost as little as $6.95 at a time when custom-made dresses could cost hundreds of dollars. McCardell admired Vionnet, but she also believed that fashionable clothes should be available to ordinary women, not only to the wealthy.
In Britain many materials were scarce or had been diverted to military uses during the war. Silk, for example, was used to make parachutes, and wool and leather were vital in the production of uniforms and shoes. To conserve textiles, the government imposed restrictions on the clothing industry. Limitations were placed on the length and width of skirts, and a specific yardage was allotted to dresses in each size. Restrictions on the use of fabric were imposed in Canada, and after the United States entered the war in 1941, restrictions were imposed there as well. When Allied forces liberated Paris in 1944, they were surprised to see the long skirts created by French designers because such clothes had been outlawed in Britain and North America.
At the 1946 Paris fashion showings, French designers tried not to offend Allied sensibilities with extravagance, while still emphasizing the latest French fashions. In 1947 French couturier Christian Dior designed a magnificent collection of luxuriously feminine clothes. Dior’s dresses featured small shoulders, a voluptuously curved torso with a nipped-in waist, padded hips, and long, full skirts. It was a dramatic change from the broad shoulders, boxy torsos, and short skirts of the war years.
Dior’s revolutionary silhouette was soon dubbed the New Look. A New Look dress might require as much as 27 m (30 yd) of material. Some women tried to salvage their old clothes by lowering hemlines and removing shoulder pads, but this effort proved wholly inadequate. Politicians and some members of the public protested against this reckless use of still-scarce fabric but to no avail: The New Look was wildly popular with the majority of women, who felt starved for glamour and femininity after the war years. Soon corsets were built into dresses, and petticoats were revived. Other memorable silhouettes created by Dior over the next few years were the less fitted, straighter H-line, and the A-line that flared from top to bottom.
Dior's greatest competitor was Spanish designer Christóbal Balenciaga, who showed his first collection in Paris in 1937. Over the next 30 years, Balenciaga became the leading advocate of the importance of construction and cut in a garment. He slowly evolved a series of distinctive and beautiful silhouettes, including tunic tops over long straight skirts, that had tremendous and enduring influence on the fashions of the 20th century. Balenciaga designed elegant clothing and was not afraid to create extreme silhouettes. In the late 1950s he helped launch the loosely fitting chemise dress, which became a popular fashion, although it was criticized for supposedly obliterating female curves.
The most famous fashion designers during the 1920s and 1930s had been women, including Chanel, Schiaparelli, and Vionnet. During and after World War II, however, fashion became big business and male designers came to the fore. In addition to Dior and Balenciaga, Jacques Fath became well known; he once said that “fashion is an art and men are the artists.” Other designers disagreed. Chanel reopened her couture house in 1954 and began creating the Chanel suits for which she was famous. These tailored suits, with their short, collarless cardigan jackets and straight skirts, appealed to women who wanted a stylish uniform.
Italian couture also became popular after World War II, and names such as Pucci and Gucci acquired international fame. The Italians quickly became known for their stylish sportswear. For some time women had worn slacks and shorts for active sports, but in the late 1950s capri pants—tight-fitting pants that end in mid-calf—and other casual styles became fashionable as everyday attire. American sportswear also continued to thrive. California designer Bonnie Cashin created comfortable, functional separates in materials such as suede and leather. English and American teenagers also began to develop their own styles—styles that flourished in the 1960s.
British designer Mary Quant opened her first boutique in the mid-1950s on King’s Road, a fashion promenade for London's young people who were obsessed with music and style. In her autobiography, published in 1966, Quant said that she wanted young people to have a fashion of their own. She delivered it to them with the miniskirt, which had a hemline well above the knees. Quant began to mass-produce miniskirts in 1961, but it was several years before the hemlines of adult women started to rise above the knee.
In 1961 French designer André Courrèges showed his first miniskirts. Courrèges later claimed that he had invented the miniskirt and Quant had only popularized it. Although this was an exaggeration, his miniskirts and mini-dresses proved extremely influential. In 1962, the year Quant brought out bell-bottom slacks worn with a matching cardigan, Courrèges also introduced the pantsuit, and pants continued to play an important part in his vision of the modern woman's wardrobe. His 1964 Moon Girl collection featured white mini-dresses worn with white vinyl boots and other supposedly space-age accessories.
In 1961 Yves Saint Laurent, the head designer at the house of Dior, founded his own couture house in Paris. One of the most important designers of the 1960s and 1970s, Saint Laurent showed many youthful fashions, including pantsuits and safari jackets. His 1965 fall collection took inspiration from the black grids and colored rectangles in the abstract paintings of Piet Mondrian. The next year Saint Laurent introduced the tuxedo suit for women. Foreseeing the decline of custom-made clothing, he also opened a ready-to-wear business, Rive Gauche, which sold less expensive clothes.
The dominant fashion theme of the 1960s was youthfulness. The first phase, known as mod (short for modern) fashion, produced the miniskirt and the pantsuit as typical garments. Clothing materials were often synthetic. French designer Michelle Rosier was known as the vinyl girl for her experiments with artificial materials, and Spanish-born designer Paco Rabanne created dresses of plastic and metal. French designer Pierre Cardin also created youthful styles for both men and women, including one-piece jumpsuits. He built an enormous fashion empire by licensing his name. In North America, Austrian-born designer Rudi Gernreich helped introduce offbeat styles such as the wet look with shiny fabrics and a topless bathing suit.
The second phase of 1960s fashion has been described as the hippie look. The hippie movement originated in San Francisco, California, when thousands of young people flocked there in 1967 to celebrate what they called the “summer of love.” These young people criticized conformity and consumerism and, although antifashion, sought to express themselves through outfits that in many cases were inspired by the long ago and the far away. Fashion designers soon followed suit.
Ethnic and retro (backward-looking) influences became increasingly important in high fashion in this phase of the 1960s. Instead of crisply tailored clothes, the trend was toward longer, looser styles based on non-Western garments, such as the Middle Eastern caftan, an ankle-length robe. Thrift shops provided an important source for picturesque secondhand and antique clothing, which clothing manufacturers then began to reproduce commercially. Laura Ashley, for example, created deliberately old-fashioned dresses reminiscent of the Victorian era. By 1967, many young women were wearing long granny dresses and long cotton skirts in floral prints instead of miniskirts.
The miniskirt had come to symbolize youth, however, and there was an outcry in January 1970 when the Paris collections emphasized long skirts. Soon dubbed the midi (because its hemline fell to the mid-calf), the longer skirt was initially unsuccessful. Within a year, however, hemlines began to drop, gradually settling around the knee. The hemline controversy also contributed to the growing number of women who chose to wear pantsuits. With pantsuits, women could remain in style without changing their wardrobe with each new hem length.
Pants had long been acceptable for women as sportswear or informal party wear, but only in the late 1960s and especially the 1970s did women adopt them for daily wear in the business world. The acceptance of the pantsuit by the business world reflected women's increasing social and economic power. In the 1970s Halston, Calvin Klein, and other North American designers made trousers an integral part of the working woman's wardrobe. In France Saint Laurent also emphasized tailored pantsuits for daywear.
Designers of eveningwear, which continued to be dominated by fantasy, also emphasized retro or ethnic themes in the 1960s and 1970s. Flowing chiffon evening gowns by German-born designer Karl Lagerfeld for the French fashion house Chloë were inspired by dresses of the 1930s. Saint Laurent drew inspiration from the Russian ballet for his 1976 collection, which featured full skirts and high-heeled boots and triggered a wave of imitations in all price ranges. He followed this in 1977 with a Chinese collection. One of Saint Laurent's most enduring contributions to fashion was the female version of the tuxedo.
Individualism and freedom of choice were the keynotes of fashion in the 1970s. As a result, some commentators have called the 1970s “the decade that taste forgot.” The late 1960s and early 1970s were characterized by many exaggerated styles, such as platform shoes and hot pants (very brief, tight shorts). Many of these fashions were associated with youth subcultures and popular music styles such as disco. The punk youth movement of the late 1970s also created controversy with its wild hairstyles, ripped clothes, and aggressive use of safety pins. The punks inspired English designers such as Vivienne Westwood and Zandra Rhodes.
Blue jeans were one of the most important garments of the 1960s and 1970s for both women and men. In 1971 Levi Strauss & Co., the firm that invented denim blue jeans in 1873, received the Coty Fashion Critics’ Award, the highest award of the American fashion industry. What began as work clothing for laborers became the symbol of the youth culture and, in effect, the uniform of nonconformity. Soon the rise of so-called designer blue jeans meant that Levi's and Wrangler had to compete with jeans by fashion notables such as Calvin Klein, Fiorucci, and Gloria Vanderbilt.
In the 1980s, with a booming economy in Europe and North America, the fashion pendulum swung back toward conspicuous consumption. American television shows such as Dallas and Dynasty showcased the so-called rich look. Items such as a Chanel suit became the new status symbols. When made to order, a Chanel suit cost from $11,000 to $16,000; even an off-the-rack Chanel suit cost $3,000. The house of Chanel had been in the doldrums after the death of its founder in 1971, but in 1982 the firm hired Karl Lagerfeld, who quickly became one of the world's most famous designers. He rejuvenated the famous Chanel suit by modernizing the silhouette and making it in new materials such as denim.
