1950's Fashion 

Paris Spring Fashion Show 1959 – Pierre Balmain

The 1950s goes out in style – Paris makes official the biggest fashion news in years ! The female form is back in style as Pierre Balmain demonstrates in his 1959 Spring collection. He calls it the envelope silhouette, but you’ll note the waist is in its natural place. Long sleeves are out of favour or three quarter as seen…

1950s British Fashion Show in Color 1951

An Evening of Fashion – Savoy Hotel London 1951 Pathe fashion newsreel in luscious color. Includes an exclusive peek backstage during the show. Let’s join the stars, celebrities and Britains top fashion designers. The occasion, a mannequin parade with a difference. Beginning beautifully by this Worth model Rolande, exhibiting this banana coloured facecloth dinner dress, heavily embroidered in topaz, pearls…

The coolest and chicest of  movie spectacles – There is nothing like a trusty pair of glasses for an actor to assume a character. Oddly there have not been too many iconic performances by glasses on screen, and most of these are by men. For women, the total lack of vogue for eye wear was always a problem, and in…

Archive film of college style in 1950s Pennsylvania – Opened in 1867, Cedar Crest College is a private liberal arts women’s college devoted to training young women in the art of living. Set on a spacious knoll of wooded land on the outskirts of Allentown. It has been consistently voted one of the top women’s colleges in the US. It…

Backstage Photos of 1954 Paris Fall Collection

Rare photos of the 1954 Paris Fall Collection opening – Paris in the late summer of 1954 was about as glamorous as it could ever have been, with the like of Dior, Givenchy, Fath, Balenciaga and Balmain all vying for attention. And Life Magazine’s Mark Shaw was there to capture the elite designers and their even more elite customers in…

An illustrated ode to the ubiquitous ‘brolly’ “We moved under the umbrella out of the street light, fumbling for certain footing between the tree roots. ‘Will you hold the umbrella?’ She took the imitation leather with the white stitching in her hands. ‘Kiss me.’ She leaned across the steel between us. ‘Do you think we should?’ I repeated.’ It was the rain,…

Vintage Style Spotlight – Cats Like Us

Summer style for the beach! – If you’re a vintage style fan, and summer is beckoning toward refreshing your wardrobe, then you’ll most certainly be looking for 1940s/1950s style pants, frocks and  tops. Our friends at Cats Like Us have a veritable feast of clothing to choose from. We’ve picked out just a  few favourites for you to look at….

One-Piece Swimsuit and a big straw hat ! – Last month in his Paris salon Edward Molyneux broke a proud Paris tradition by showing a sportswear collection labelled “selected in America”. He included bathing suits and sportswear by the American designers whose 1950 summer beachwear is shown on this page. Black suits and big hats go so well together. The exaggerated…

1950s Fashion – Fifth Avenue Style in 1952

Manhattan Fashion 1952 – Look Magazine – August 12th 1952 showed the 5th Avenue folks don’t often see. Hollywood actress Laraine Day along with local New York beauties, Mary Damon, Patricia Geoghegan and Brigida Dammes spent a sunny afternoon parading the latest trends in summer dresses and poodle haircuts . It’s not clear who the dresses are by but they…

Vespa Chic – How the world was seduced by a scooter

A look at the iconic Vespa scooter – No one could have predicted that a small diminutive scooter produced in 1946; inspired by the little remembered MP 5 or Paperino scooter, (used by US military to navigate around bombed out Italian streets), would become a cultural phenomenon, propel Italian street style to the forefront of world fashion, and affect cultures as…

1940s Fashion – Vogue Under Twenty Dresses

1920s Beauty Booklet – Finding your Type

1930s Beauty Booklet – Three One Minute Exercises