1950s American Fashion

THE 1950s BELONGED TO AMERICA. The country led in postwar economic recovery and industrial production; refrigerators, televisions, and automobiles were churned out in huge quantities for the vast numbers of new families relocating to the sprawling suburbs. Despite a swing toward social and political conservatism in the 1950s, American culture was at the forefront of modern art—in painting, sculpture, theater, and literature, as well as contemporary music in the form of jazz and rock ’n’ roll. In the field of design, American architects, furniture designers, and textile artists were internationally influential. And now even American fashion designers were being recognized as

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Advertisement for Anne Fogarty, Vogue magazine, May 15, 1956.

Lurex, Pellon, Dacron, Dynel, Acrilan, Terylene, Arnel, Vicara, and Borgana.

The media made light of the movement in 1957 by coining the term “​​​​​​​Beatnik,”​​​​​​​ adding the Russian suffix from Sputnik to Beat. Sprouting from a group of New York writers in the late 1940s, the Beat generation swelled into an international movement that embraced atonal jazz, black coffee, free love, existentialism, scruffy beards, dark glasses, berets, and sandals.

The film industry also needed designers who could anticipate where fashion was headed in order to avoid outmoded looks in films when they were released a year after production.

designers, equating the two as equally important

The first awards, in 1938, were given to American and European designers, equating the two as equally important for the American market