Crinoline Petticoats, 1951

In August of 1951, Life magazine did a small article about the latest crinoline petticoats a woman needed to wear under the new full skirted fashions.  The magazine featured fashions by Anne Fogarty and showed the crinolines she used for her fashion shows to give the latest bell shaped skirts the oomph they needed.  I thought you might like to see those crinolines.

A quilted cotton dress worn over a black turtleneck sweater and with strappy sandals.

That heavy quilted fabric required a ruffled cotton petticoat or two.  Over the petticoat, the model wears a very stiff lacquered net slip with a wide horsehair braid hem.  The lacquered net crinoline provides the support needed for the heavy quilted fabric of the dress.

3 lighter weight dresses by Fogarty are shown with layers of petticoats underneath.

Prepping for a fashion show, the models don multiple ruffled cotton petticoats to wear under full skirted dresses.  In the foreground, you can see how stiff those lacquered net slips are.  They stand up on their own!

All photos by Nina Leen for Life Magazine, August 13, 1951.

Vintage Party Dresses - 1966

The year? 1966. The look? Sparkle, shimmer and shine with sequins, beads, metallic fabrics or a combination of any or all. Or jazz it up with fur and feathers. The occasion? Party time!

John Bates dress in white devore silk velvet over pink taffeta lining with a white rabbit fur hem.

Anne Fogarty dress  with a flirty, flared hem and covered in silver paillette sequins.

Geoffrey Beene dress in white devore velvet trimmed in white ostrich feathers at cuff and hem.

Malcolm Starr dress in black lace covered in silver cording, beads and paillettes.

To wear over any or all of the dresses shown here, a pink and red metallic brocade evening coat trimmed in touches of mink.  This coat by Leslie Morris for Bergdorf Goodman was custom made to order only. 

7 Important American Designers, 1954

So often we read about American fashion designers from the 1950s, and we love to drool over the clothes they made, but we have no idea what the designers themselves looked like. I stumbled across this photo which was part of an ad for Chrysler cars in 1954. The ad headline states, "7 top fashion designers find Chrysler Corporation's 1955 cars a stimulating new concept of good design."

Click on the picture to enlarge and you'll see the faces behind the clothes.

From left to right: Tim Brigance, Anne Fogarty, Clare Potter, Lily Daché, Nettie Rosenstein, Pauline Trigere, and Claire McCardell.