1930s+Fashion



__W____omen's Fashion__

Fashion for women in the 1930's was very different from today. The straight chemise was so popular in the twenties that it was popular once again in the thirties. Sport dressing also became even more popular. Dresses were cut on the bias so that they clung to and moved with the body. Designs like these needed very lightweight fabric like crepes and lighter satins (very fancy fabrics). Women also wore long hatter topped skirts that were frequently longer in the back than the front. Women also wore long halter topped dresses, lace frocks and negligee corsets. The hem line of most of the outfits during this time was cut between the knees and the shin. One of the most famous fashions of the 1930's was Coco Chanel, and Madeleine Vionnet, a French Designer. Vionnet was the one known for the "cross cut bias" pattern for dresses. These types of dresses were very long and were usually all the way down to the lower back.

Even though the Stock Market crashed on 1929 the Tirochhis' business stayed strong into the early 1930's. People still ordered sport dressing, evening gowns, afternoon dresses, and wool suits, but in time they were ordering less and less stuff and many of them were forced by circumstance to quit the shop. At the end of the decade, there was half as many people in the beginning.

__Men's Fashion__

The suit was more popular during the thirties for both men and boys. They wore full three-pieced suits when they attended formal occasions like weddings. Today these are made  with broader shoulders and more masculine-looking pattern than in earlier years. The Famous "Palm Beach" suit was designed during the 1930's. It was styled with a Kent double or single-breasted jacket, and it was made from cotton seersucker, silk shantung or linen. Gabardine was also used to make this suit, and it became the American summer suit par excellence fast a nd was touted as the Wall Street businessman's uniform for hot days.

During this time blazers became popular for wearing in the summer. Blazers are descendants of the jackets worn by English university students on cricket, tennis and rowing teams during the late 19th century. The name may have derived from the "blazing" colors the original jackets were made in so that they could be told apart from the different sports teams. The American version werepopular in blue, bottle green, tobacco brown, cream and buff. Metallic buttons traditionally adorned the center front of the jackets, and they were worn with cotton or linen slacks and short.

Gangsters, while hated as thieves. Because of they suits they wore, they had an image of "businessman." After all, they didn't choose typical business colors and styles, but took every detail to the extreme. Their suites had wider striped, bolder glen plaids, more colorful ties, pronounced shoulders, narrower waists, and wider trouser bottoms. In France, mobsters actually had their initials on the breast of their shirts, towards the waist. In this look they included felt hats in a wide variety of colors like almond green, dove, lilac, petrol blue, brown and dark gray. New York designers were scared by demands to imitate the gangster look, but forced by creating the "Broadway" suit.

__Accessories__

Swimwear was popular for women, but it was a little more revealing compared to other times in history. A simple swimsuit that was made during this time looked like the one-piece short tank outfits like the ones that are popular today. Some of the suits that were made during this time were two-pieced as well and sometimes accented with a wide beach hat or a bow around the waist. Also in 1935 through 1939 crochet "snood" and scarves were used. Most women used them to hold the back of the hair up.

The hats that men wore during this time had a lot of different berets and top hats. Of the most famous men hat styles of these years was the "fedora" which is a hat made of soft material, dented lengthwise, and has a tapered rim. Around the 1940's Humphrey Bogart wore a fedora in Casablanca. It wasn't as sophisticated of a brand of zippers as what people know of and use today, but it became more known around that in times past.

__Citations__

"Fashion in the 1930s: Overview." //DISCovering U.S. History//. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. //Student Resource Center - Junior//. Gale. KILLOUGH MIDDLE SCHOOL. 13 Jan. 2012 []. © BLUE LANTERN STUDIO / LAUGHING E/Blue Lantern Studio/Corbis Davenport, Millia. "Dress." //Encyclopedia Americana.// Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 13 Jan. 2012. Plunkett, E. M. "Fashion Design." //Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.// Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 13 Jan. 2012.

By: Andrea Marin & Juleana Soto