THE ULTIMATE FASHION HISTORY: The 1950s

"Ummm....Ms. Grohol, what's up with the picture of Kim Kardashian?" This image is very appropriate for this week because of Kim Kardashian's body shape which was the ideal female body shape in the 1950s. 

 

I am actually starting to enjoy watching these lectures about fashion in each of the decades. I think they are pretty entertaining cultural histories. Yes, they still focus on women of the upper class, which was not my intended focus for this class, but I enjoy the historical content that each of these episodes provides. 

One of the things I really like about each episode is the narrator's description of the idealized female body shape at the beginning of each episode. Have you notice how much it seems to change every decade or so, and really how unobtainable it actually was to have this body shape. No matter, if one was not born with the correct shape (at least for that decade) you could always buy this product or that product to help you achieve it. The 1950s were no different. Women in the 1950s were expected to have an hourglass figure and if you were not born that way, you could buy that latest product, called a girdle to help your shape. This brings me back to Kim Kardashian. Recently, she launched her own clothing brand called Skims in which you to could buy a body sculpting suit (a girdle) to achieve the perfect body shape. 

But I digress...The following episode has such highlights as Maralyn Monroe, the rise of fashion icons such a Christian Dior, and a general return to hyper feminity.