1950s

In the 1950s:

Here you can see how the fashion and what the women looked like in the 1950s. Just by looking that these images you can see that women were perceived as the typical house wife and stay at home mum. At this time Marilyn Monroe was the the only lady that was seen with little clothing and a very different fashion to Grace Kelly. The hair and clothes are very procaine and they almost look the same and very normal. 

 http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~mwaltos/lis506/project/1950s/fashion.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945–60_in_fashion

Stereotypically you see women in the 1950's with an apron and this was seen as the normal vision for women at this time.  When I have looked at Vogue magazine, I have noticed that a lot of the adverts show the something to do with house hold things such as cleaning, cooking or taking care of their children. However this seems so different to now as you see many adverts that advertise make up or other luxury's. 

House of Dior

http://www.dior.com/couture/en_gb/the-house-of-dior/the-story-of-dior/the-new-look-revolution

On the 12th of February 1947 Christian Dior, 42, presented his new collection.

"It's quite a revolution, dear Christian Dior! Your dresses have such a new look"

The new look which included longer lengths, silhouettes, small waist and a perked up bust help create the new look, which became a big hit practically over night. Dior wanted to give women back their taste along with their seductive side which changed the fashion overall. He hand crafted many of his designs:

"I wanted my dresses to be 'constructed', moulded on the curves of the female body whose contours they would stylise. I accentuated the waist, the volume of the hips, I emphasised the bust. In order to give my models more hold, I had nearly all the fabrics lined with percale or taffeta, renewing a tradition that had long been abandoned."     

Here is 'The bar suit' this look made is collection as its coat flaunted the waist and the bust along with the famous flared out skirt that was seen throughout the rest of the 1940s/1950's. The hat and gloves finished off the look with elegance that made the women's appearance look luxurious. The way that the outfit looks on the model is simple but flaunts enough skin and sex appeal to onlookers, this is what Dior wanted when he wanted to bring out the inner seductive side out. 

This look even now has been reinvented with pencil skirts and tailored straight trousers, it has been an interesting design to the fashion world. 

Chanel

http://inside.chanel.com/en/jacket/video

http://www.vogue.com/voguepedia/Chanel

http://www.chanel.com/en_GB/

http://inside.chanel.com/en/timeline/1960_the-1960s

In 1954 Chanel stages the re-opening of her couture house which she inspires a second fashion revolution with her original creations. 

   

 In 1954 Marilyn Monroe says she wears Chanel no5 to bed which gives the brand a sense of luxury because at this time Marilyn Monroe was the most inspirational women at this time. In February the 5th Chanel stages a comeback at the Rue Comban that showed off simple suits, dresses which again like Dior created styles that would be seen and be reinvented. In March Vogue features Chanel's new looks, you can also see movie stars such as Grace Kelly sport the Chanel look.

Other signature pieces:

• 1955: The 2.55 bag, that is a quilited leather handbag with a gold chain that is light and strong

• 1956: The collarless jacket suit that was seen to be worn by Ingrid Berghen in the Robert Anderson's play Tea and sympathy in Paris

• 1957: Braid trim that appears on jackets and cardigans and the two toned shoes that are slingback that shortens the foot and lengthens the leg

"Enabling women to move with ease, to not feel like they're in costume. Not changing attitude or manner depending on their dress. It's very difficult and the human body is always moving." Gabrielle Chanel talking about the Chanel jacket. 

• 1959: Jeanne Moreau wears Chanel suits- tweed, black with camellia accent in Roger Vadims Les Liaisons Dangereuses  

You can see how over time Chanel has influenced the fashion world with the bold trim on the jackets and new materials such as tweed is used that makes the fashion more excitable to women. 

1950's Vogue fonts

The fonts or font used in the 1950s Vogue's are very much the same throughout. It's very plain simple typography almost like new times roman or something like this. The layout for the Vogue writing is spaced like a normal formal text almost like a newspaper, it's very much structured and not a lot of freedom is seen with the type and fonts.

When you read parts it's very much about situations the typical 1950s women would be doing such as being a housewife and mother. 

The only experimental fonts you see is through the adverts for make up or cigarettes, where it's very fun font that suits the branding. The comparisons is very different as it's as if Vogue is struck in a structure and fun isn't really seen through the magazine. 

  

Vogue/Fashion

As my research has gone on I have realised that I am heading towards the fashion side of things more than the film side however I am still keeping this as a possibility of me going back. I became really interested in the idea of how women were seen and how things for the past few decades have changed. The responsibilities of women changed they weren't seen as much of a housewife more of a socialite and a worker.
To visualise the time period of the 1950's and 1960's, I created a a timeline that shows how events in the world such as WW2 and the vietnam war changed the worlds views.

file:///private/var/folders/VW/VW8qsYgkFVi7D5qJ0vuFVk+++TI/-Tmp-/TemporaryItems/Word%20Work%20File%20D_2.htm

With this timeline you can see when certain actresses where in films and the big events in the world that happened such as in 1963 JFK assassination to the pill invention in 1961. I think this was one of the biggest breakthroughs for women as this gave women the voice when they can have children or not.

http://www.vogue.co.uk/magazine/archive/issue/1950/January

To start, I was looking through all the vogue magazine covers from the 1950s and 1960s, as this was a good starting point. Just by looking through the vogue covers (above are a few examples) I have noticed a huge difference, for a bit more research and just to see how the vogue covers have changed since the 1940s just to compare. 

The 1940's vogues are a bit more basic and very dull from the front covers, when I compared them to the 60's you can see a lot more structure in a women's life and not much freedom which you can see just by looking at the images.  The 1940's was very much about the family life as well as the 1950s, women wouldn't be seen wearing bright bold patterns or anything that might make them more noticed. With the 1950's covers you can see a gradually a lot more freedom has appeared from the 1940's, in the 50's freedom of speech especially for women became know in this period, not only this the freedom of speech came with the Vietnam war. A lot of people did not agree with the war or the new technology and bombs that were created at this time. 

However this changed the way people lived especially women's life's they were more determined to work and have more a voice what better way to start this with fashion.  In the 50's the colour red was used a lot more, the cover of the January 1950's vogue you can see the model wearing a stunning shape fitting dress. The shape of women has carried on from the 40's with the tight fitted shirts and skirts that emphasised the waste area which you can see in many of the covers. The covers in the 50's have a bit more information on them about what is in the magazines, the poses of the models have become a bit more interesting they are still perfectly posed but you can see they are a little bit more relaxed. 

Another thing I have noticed from the 50's covers is the use of colours and a bit more of an interesting locations that the models are put in such as the sea, skiing or in more of a luxury setting like going to a ball. These all show that women have become a bit more freer and can experiment with style or colour, travel also at this time has become more know to people and other countries fashion have started to influence fashion globally. 

In the 60s covers just by looking at them you can see how fashion has changed since the 40s, the way the model is on the cover you can see the freedom she has to move and do what she wants. This is something you can see more of when you look through them, bold prints, bold colours and fantastic hair and make up the 60s became the time of freedom. Vogue you can see has moved on with the times as they needed to, they developed a style that is carried on today in there magazines. They show fashion in a more unstructured way to the 40s and even the 50s, the layout of the covers vary from each issue which you don't see in past vogue's.

The Beginning

At the beginning of my journey of my major research project, I found things hard to start with as  I was unsure on what to do and where to take things. I took advise from my tutors and started to collect images of film especially women in film. I looked on pintrest, google and my own knowledge of film from my parents to start me off, this was not an easy starting point but just a start.

http://www.pinterest.com/harri18/uni-work/
http://www.pinterest.com/harri18/horror-movie-posters/

These were just a few examples of what I looked into, while I was looking and making a start on things I remembered about my self authorship project in the second year. This was a project were I could let lose on my skills and create my new own style, I drew little drawings and chose stills from my two favourite films in the 1950s that featured two style icons of that time. Grace Kelly and Sophia Loren are the stars of the films, these strong women both represent the types of women at that time such as the girl next door and the mysterious rule breaker. Just from this project I already had a bit of knowledge of fashion and women's attitude at this time.
This got me to think of how women were seen and how they were perceived in film, in films in the 1950s its very clear that they were either good or bad they were never seen as an in between character. However this all changed in the 1960's, women's roles became increasingly strong and seen more as a sex object. There roles became a lot more independent from men and women not just in film got a lot more freedom world wide.