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Many people have seen the movie Grease and seen the type of clothing that they wore during the film. The jock look with the varsity jacket and some slacks, along with the bad boy look, with the leather jacket and blue jeans were very popular looks in the movie. The women’s fashion was kinda true to the era, expect the shorts that some teens wore. Nothing above the knee was expected during this time period. So going off the movie, teens fashion was a little difficult to be trendy because they were expected to dress as like their elders. They made it work, though.
Once the expectation went down a little since the war was coming to an end. Teens started dressing like how they wanted to dress, with the help of Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn helped popularized pants with just one photo. Teens started to follow in her footsteps by wearing pants/separates as everyday clothing. Though it wasn’t expected at first, it started to become more expecting as time passed. Lack of expectations for the type of clothing young women were wearing also went down because of the working women.
It was very normal to have a working husband, a stay at home mom, and a couple children in the house. It was when the war started, the working men had gotten taken away because they needed to fight in the war. So, the women at home rolled up their sleeves and went to work. It was hard to wear dresses while working some of the jobs in the factories, so that’s another reason why pants became so popular. Once teens saw pants becoming popular and okay to be worn, they started to wear them. Another form of work women did was play baseball. Women’s baseball became very big in the early 1940’s but was more noticed in late 1940’s to the 1950’s.
Women’s baseball started off as Softball, but they ended up switching the women over to baseball. It was a huge readjustment to the new sport, but it ended up working out in the end because women’s baseball became the number one form of entertainment in the 1940’s to the 1950’s. Even though this era was all about clothing below the knee, the uniform for baseball had skirts above the knee and high socks that were just under the knee. The women basically wore dresses playing baseball. The “best part” was that the women who played on the AAGPBL (All-American Girls Professional Baseball League), where sent to charm school after practices. I believe they did that because the public didn’t like how women could play baseball. They were seen as “unfeminine.” So, the women were sent to charm school to keep the public happy and that the women were feminine enough to the public’s eye.
Though Women’s baseball turned out to be a huge success, the biggest backlash that the whole program had was the uniforms. It was seen as too sexy and provocative. The women playing baseball were heavily catcalled during and after games, while they were carrying a weight of ciritatism from the women who believed their uniforms were “unholy.” It was very hard being a women baseball player during this time period, but it was a huge turning point for women’s fashion. The uniforms helped popularize some baggy clothing for teens and children. It also helped popularize shorter pieces of clothing that were barely above the knee. Though, short clothing was hated, it ended up becoming very popular later in the time period.
Due to all the factors playing in for women’s fashion to be changing, it’s a good thing that everything happened for a reason. Though some parts of this era is very similar to the 1940s, main pieces of clothing had just became popular for women/teens.
Now, how will the 1960s look compared to the 1950s?
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