1950's Fashion

From June Cleaver to Sophia Loren, the female figures of the 1950’s exuded charm and elegance.
image courtesy of USA Today. Young girls fumigated their bathrooms for decades with the only firm hold hairspray.

When people discuss hairstyles, it is a common misconception that men’s hairstyles do not really bear much discussion, though in truth, the hairstyles sported by men through the decades have changed as much as those of women.

The most common style for men during the 1940’s can most easily be summed up as being of medium length and swept back from the face.

Within this general stricture, men would do all sorts of styling to get the shape that most complemented their looks.

Some men would indulge in a sharp side part that was made to show up quite starkly through dark hair, while other men would simply comb their hair straight back, using various types of styling creams to get it to hold its shape.

One way that the hair could be cut to accomplish this style was to make sure that it was cut fairly short on the sides and significantly longer in back.

This would allow for a fairly neat and tidy look that revealed the ears and give some room for some styling on top.

Some men preferred to avoid the straight flat sweep of hair and instead chose to style it into a large wave, which was a style that was fairly common in young boys of the time. Men who had more time might even style several small waves into their hair.

The hallmark of this time period when it came to hair for men was a very sharp, extremely styled look It is easy to think that the phrase, not a hair out of place came from this era, given how tidied it was meant to be.

In terms of facial hair, most men favored a very clean shaven look.

It is interesting to note that this classic style has seen a resurrection in the fashion pages. If you take a look at male stars today, you can see the same styling principles coming back into play, and the slicked back, highly styled look continues to give me a wonderfully neat demeanor.

The wars had almost ended, but the world was still unsafe. In 1950 the Korean War began, Truman ordered the construction of the hydrogen bomb, McCarthy began his Communist witchhunting and the first credit card was introduced. The next year the U.S. signed a peace treaty with Japan, ending World War II, and on the home front color TV was introduced to the public. In 1952 life became safer as a Polio vaccine was created and car seat belts were introduced, though not mandatory. The next year saw the discovery of DNA and Sir Edmund Hillary reached the top of Mount Everest.

In 1954, the first atomic submarine was introduced and the first report came out to say that cigarettes can cause cancer. The next year Disneyland opened and the McDonald’s franchise had its start. 1956 was a year of making life easier for everyone as velcro was introduced and the T.V. remote control was invented, letting us change the channels or turn up the volume as Elvis upset everyone by shaking suggestively on the Ed Sullivan show and Grace Kelly married a prince and became a princess. The next year the first satellite, Sputnik was the first shot fired in the greatest show outside earth, as the the space race commenced. In 1958 we had Hula Hoops and Lego bricks to keep the children fascinated, and NASA was founded. The last year of the decade saw Castro become the Western Hemisphere’s first Communist dictator, while The Sound of Music opened on Broadway. In women’s fashion women wore a full knee-length skirt and there was a brief fling with the sack dress, which was much as it sounds, and expertly parodied on the “I Love Lucy” show, the television hit of the decade. The bobbysoxers flourished for a brief time, characterized by a large collared blouse, poodle skirt, scarf-bound ponytail and saddle shoes. For the boys it was the James Dean and Marlon Brando look of rebels without causes and motorcycle gang members. In the more out of the way places, the trendy coffee shops, held morose Beatniks, all dressed in black, with matching berets, with an audible spritzing of “man” and “like” in every sentence. Hair was generally soft and curly, often short and imaginative. The oddball woman’s cut of the decade was the poodle cut, most notably used by Lucille Ball, and for men it was the ducktail, with the hair combed back and a duck’s butt made out of a center part. Men also had the crewcut and the flattop, both of which were inspired by the military and were eradicated by the British invasion of the sixties.