By Era
Sometimes you just need a little more guidance on which items will work for which era! So check out the drop down menu's for a selection of clothing that fits/will work for the era you're trying to recreate.
*Just Remember - There is overlap in fashion, and sometimes it's how you accessorise something that pushes it one way or the other!
1920s – The Flappers and Bright Young Things
A flapper was initially a derogatory term but soon was used to describe any young woman of the mid 1920s who wore cloche hats, bobbed her hair and favoured shorter skirts whilst she shimmied the night away dancing the Charleston. The same mixed partying set was sometimes called Bright Young Things.
Art Deco and the Roaring Twenties
Art Deco originated in Europe and became known after the correct name of the 1925 Paris Exhibition. The exhibition was called The Great Exposition Des Arts Modernes Decoratifs Et Industriels. The style was most popular in the Stylish Thirties as well as between 1920 and 1940 by which time it had refined itself. The artist Erté was a master of Art Deco. The sets and costumes for stage and film that he designed influenced other fashion designers between 1915 and 1936.
The Era of Utility Clothing – World War II – 1939-1945
This period covers rationed clothes under the Civilian Clothing Utility Scheme particularly in Great Britain during the 1939-1945 World War.
The period extends beyond the war’s end and it is only in the 1950s that austere garments were replaced en masse by more lavish use of fabrics and full skirted dresses. Basically this can be seen as a modern use of the old idea of sumptuary laws.
1947-1970 Fashion Era History Timeline
The New Look Era
After Dior launched his new fashion designs in 1947 Life magazine dubbed it ‘The New Look’. Although dated from the 1940s, it is quite a separate look from the austere military-influenced garments of wartime. The New Look remained fashionable for about 10 years well into the late 1950s. Christian Dior would have been 100 in 2005.
Hollywood Glamour Girls
Hollywood Glamour is a style associated with about 30 years of film from the early 1930s to the late 1950s when the great female stars and studio starlets set the trend in hair, make up and clothes in the thirties and 1940s. In the 1950s color films helped fuel the fascination for filmgoers. The stars lived and breathed glamour on and off set.
After World War II , Hollywood glamour helped define the groomed consistently glamorous look of the 1950s. It is a look that few film stars still manage to pull off continuously. The best survivor of the starlet era for glamour in the 21st century is the actress Joan Collins.