Go To Late 1950s Fashions

Images :


Bridal fashions from The Australian Woman's Weekly, 1950

(What better way to start my 1950s page than with a picture of a wedding dress? Marriage was more popular than ever in the 1950s. Features on bridal fashions appeared regularly in women's magazines and a wedding dress concluded every fashion parade. It was the last decade of the twentieth century in which traditional marriage was assummed to be every woman's goal.)



Butterick Fashion News, 1950

"Although a great deal has been written and spoken about Nylon, it still remains for many, a magic name. It is almost magical, of course, for it is very strong, quick to dry, light and beautiful. As a supporting fiber, nylon combines with other fibers such as cotton, silk, wool and rayon to make beautiful long-wearing fabrics in a variety of weights and textures."

Butterick Fashion News, April 1950

(It's hard to believe, now, that nylon was once a "magic name"!)


Lux Book, 1950

(Knitwear continued to be fashionable in the 1950s, both in its demure, lady-like and its sexier "sweater girl" forms.)


*NEW* - Stitchcraft, 1950

Fashion 1950
*NEW* - Fashion, 1950


My Home, 1950
(Fashions for the housewife. A pattern for this dress was available inside the magazine.)

Hordern Bros. catalogue
*NEW* - Hordern Brothers catalogue, summer 1950-51


My Home, 1951


*NEW* Harper's Bazaar, 1951


Simplicity magazine, 1951


*NEW* Stitchcraft, 1951


Butterick Pattern Book, 1950


*NEW* Vogue Pattern Book, 1951

"The full skirted floor length dress is still the favourite for spring teen formals. Most stores say that the teenagers prefer the full length party dress. This year the designers are doing more with the strapless dress, making them suitable for both teenagers and mothers. Mothers like the stoles, so they are being made detachable to be worn as desired."

Australian Home Journal, November 1951


Australian Home Journal, 1952


Distinction, 1952


Simplicity magazine, 1952


*NEW* McCall Style News, 1952


Stitchcraft, 1952


*NEW* Vogue Pattern Book, 1952

"A twinset, for those who don't know was a short-sleeve woolen jumper with a matching cardigan in a pastel colour, and was worn with the single string of pearls to convey extreme gentility, or with hoop ear-rings to show a certain wildness of disposition."

Fay Weldon Auto Da Fay


*NEW* Stitchcraft, 1953


*NEW* Vanity Fair, 1953


*NEW* Woman and Beauty, 1953



Butterick Pattern Book, 1953

"Mother was tall and thin and pretty. She adhered strictly to all the fashion rules. In the cold weather it was tweed Pendleton wool suits with matching sweater sets or three piece Butte knits for the meetings that filled her calendar. In the summer she had a collection of cotton flowered shirt-waist dresses. Shorts were for gardening in the back yard only. Straw hats were de riguer for her garden club, with white eyelet gloves and white shoes which she touched up nightly with cakey Esquire liquid applied with a tiny pom-pom applicator. On Labour Day, a holiday my father referred to as a "communist's day off" all white garments and accessories were were packed away and fall clothes came out of the cedar chest where each item was wrapped individually in tissue paper. From Easter to May 31 you could wear pastels, and then the whites came out again June first.

... "She wore seamed stockings, which she donned by sitting on the bed and kicking her leg in the air like a Rockette so she could see in the mirror opposite whether her seam was straight. She never graced the outside world without being bound in a girdle and a "long-line bra" which reached from breast to waist and was held together by what seemed to be hundreds of hooks and eyes. For dances she had a strapless version which I had to help her into through a three-part process of folding her skin, having her take a deep breath, and then hooking her in Scarlett O'Hara-style."

Catherine Gildiner, Too Close to the Falls


*NEW* McCall Style News, 1953


Distinction, 1953


*NEW* Vogue Pattern Book, 1953


Australian Home Journal, 1954


June Millinery, 1954


Simplicity magazine, 1954


*NEW* Vanity Fair, 1954