The
Forties Fashion Styles are back in Fashion
By Sarah Mower |
||||
Published
11th Nov 2009 |
||||
|
||||
|
No comments have been provided. |
||||
The Forties Fashion Styles are back in Fashion
By Sarah Mower
It happens to suit me, and has done so ever since fashion gave full rein to “retro”, thanks to Barbara Hulanicki and Yves Saint Laurent in the Seventies, and it was possible to play at dressing like a silver screen star at the weekends. Sort of like Angelica Huston did – all cheekbones and stylised hauteur – as shot by Helmut Newton, only on a Saturday night at the church disco.
If you’re in the vintage age bracket and know what I’m talking about, put out the bunting, because the Forties are back – and favouring grown-ups before girls.
Forties design saw a woman, not an ingénue. Hollywood studios and Britain’s wartime designers alike knew with whom they had to keep confidence: a woman who had the responsiblities of working, providing for children single-handedly while men served their country overseas, who could make something out of negligible rations – and who still cared about looking groomed and spiffy.
My grandmother Maisie was one of them, pressing her Singer sewing machine into service on the home front with six children, as was her youngest sister, Greta (a tonic for the troops, who must have blinked and thought they’d just glimpsed Marlene in the mess room, judging from family snaps). She’s just celebrated her 100th birthday – hooray!
But back to this winter’s re-runs of wartime dressing. Variants turned up at houses as diverse as Lanvin, Prada, Dries Van Noten and Hermès. Between them, they cover all the screen-siren possibilities, from tailored, tweedy or houndstooth suits and coats (Ingrid Bergman) to glamorous evening gowns Rita Hayworth would not have sniffed at.
No comments have been provided.
